According to clause ( 5) of article 22 of the Constitution, when ·any person is detained in pursuance of an order made under any law providing for preventive detention, the authority making the order shall, as soon as may bJ:, communicate to such person the grounds on which the order has been made a!ld shall afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation agajnst the order. The fact that earliest opportunity Iias to be afforded to the detenUs for making a representation against tl!e detention order necessarily implies that, as and when the representation is made, it should be dealt with promptly. Undue delay on the part of the detaining authority in dispJsing of the said representation wo.uld run counter to the underlying object of clause ( 5) of article 22. The requirement about the giving of earliest opportunity to a detenu to make a representation against the detention order would plainly be reduced to a farce and empty formality if the authority concerned after giving such an opportunity pays no prompt attention to the representation which is submitted by the detenu as a result of that opportunity. It is, therefore, essential that there should be no ·.mdue or unexplained delay on the part of the detaining authority in disposing of the representation made by the detenu against the deten' ion order. In case the authorit1 concerned is guilty of such delay, the de.tention would be liable to be assailed on the ground of infraction of article 22 ( 5) of the Constitution. This is as it should be, because the matter relates to the liberty of a subject who has been ordered to be detained wihout recourse to a regular trial in a court of law. The authority concerned has, therefore, to p_roceed strictly in accordance with law and any deviation from compliance with legal requirement canno! be countenanced. It has accordingly been laid down in a string of authorities that undue or unexplained delay in the disposal of the representation of the detenu against the detention order would .introduce a serious infirmity in the detention.
