A competent authority under the Preventive Detention Act is entitled to take action to prevent subversion of “public order,” but not in aid of maintenance of “law and order” under ordinary circumstances. Before a contravention of any law could be said to affect “public order,” it must affect the community at large. Cases of assaults on solitary individuals might be said to lead to “disorder,” though not “public disorder.” The former type of cases could be dealt with by the executive under the ordinary criminal law of the land. Handing down this ruling the Supreme Court has ordered that Mr. Pushkar Mukherjea and fifteen others, who were detained by the West Bengal Government under the Preventive Detention Act, be “set at liberty forthwith.”
