Mahajan, J.

1. This petition and four others, viz. Nos. 350, 356, 362 and 366 of 1952, raise a question regarding the construction of S. 11-A, inserted in Act 4 of 1950 by the Preventive Detention (Second Amendment) Act, 61 of 1952.

2. Act 4 of 1950, as it originally stood, was to expire on 1-4-1951, but in that year an amending Act was passed which, among other things, prolonged its life till 1-4-1952. A fresh Act was passed in 1952 (Act 34 of 1952) called the Preventive Detention (Amendment) Act, 1952. The effect of this Act was to prolong the life of the Act of 1950 for further six months, viz., till 1-10-1952. On 22-8-1952, an Act further to amend the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, called the Preventive Detention (Second Amendment) Act, 61 of 1952, received the assent of the President, by which the life of the Act was extended till 31-12-1954. It was to come into force on a date appointed by the Central Government. By a notification dated 15-9-1952, the Central Government appointed 30-9-1952 as the date when the new Act was to come into force.

3. The petitioner was served with an order of detention on 20-10-1951. The grounds of detention were furnished to him on 1-11-1951. His case was referred to the Advisory Board on 24-11-1951. The Advisory Board submitted its report on 13-12-1951. The appropriate Government confirmed the detention on 21-1-1952. It specified 31-3-1952 as the date up to which the detention was to continue. On 29-3-1952 the petitioners detention was extended till 30-9-1952 and on 22-9-1952 his detention was again extended till 31-12-1952. In the other petitions also, the last order of extension was made on 22-9-1952 extending the detention till 31-12-1952. But for this extension the detentions could not continue beyond 30-9-1952 except by use of the powers under the new Act.

4. It was contended on behalf of the detenus that on 22-9-1952 the State Government had no jurisdiction to make an order of extension so as to continue the detention beyond 1-10-1952, viz., beyond the life of the Act then in force and that the order extending the period of detention upto 31-12-1952 was illegal. In our opinion, this contention is well founded. On behalf of the State Government, the order made on 22-9-1952 was sought to be justified on the ground that it had power to enlarge the period of detention under the provisions of the Preventive Detention (Second Amendment) Act of 1952 and it could exercise those powers after that Act had been passed by the Parliament even though the amended Act had not yet come into force. Reliance for this proposition was placed on the provisions of S. 22, General Clauses Act (10 of 1897), Section 22 provides as follows :

"Where, by any central Act or Regulation which is not to come into force immediately on the passing thereof, a power is conferred to make rules or bye-laws, or to issue orders with respect to the application of the Act or Regulation ......or with respect to the time when, or the place where or the manner in which.....anything is to be done under the Act or Regulation, then that power may be exercised at any time after the passing of the Act or Regulation; but rules, bye-laws or orders so made or issued shall not take effect till the commencement of the Act or Regulation."

5. This Section corresponds to S. 37, English Interpretation Act of 1899. It is an enabling provision, its intent and purpose being to facilitate the making of rules, bye-laws and orders before the date of the commencement of an enactment in anticipation of its coming into force. In other words, it validates rules, bye-laws and orders made before the enactment comes into force provided they are made after the passing of the Act and as preparatory to the Act coming into force. It does not authorize or empower the State Government to pass substantive orders against any person in exercise of the authority conferred by any particular Section of the new Act. The words of the Section "with respect to" prescribe the limit and the scope of the power given by the Section. Orders can only be issued with respect to the time when or the manner in which anything is to be done under the Act. An order for the extension of detention made under the purported exercise of the powers conferred by any of the provisions of the new Act is not an order with respect to the time when or the manner in which anything is to be done under the Act Such an order could only be made under the Act and after the Act had come into force and not in anticipation of its coming into force. The Act having no retrospective operation, it cannot validate an order made before it came into force. It seems to us that the expression "order" in the Section means an order laying down directions about the manner in which things are to be done under the Act and it is an order of that nature that can be issued before the Act comes into force but it does not mean that a substantive order against a particular person can be made before the Act comes into force. In our opinion, therefore, the contention raised on behalf of the State Government has no force and the order extending the detention of the detenus on 22-9-1952 upto 31-10-1952 is illegal.

6. The learned Solicitor-General on behalf of the Union Government intervened and contended that the detention of the petitioner as well as of others concerned in the connected petitions was legal because in the initial order of detention made in all these cases no period of detention had been specified and by force of S. 11A (2), the detention of the petitioners stood automatically extended till 1-4-1953.

7. Section 10 of the new Act (Preventive Detention, Second Amendment, Act, 1952) adds the new S. 11A, which is in these terms :

"(1) The maximum period for which any person may be detained in pursuance of any detention order which has been confirmed under S. 11 shall be twelve months from the date of detention.

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-s. (1) every detention order which has been confirmed under S. 11 before the commencement of the Preventive Detention (Second Amendment) Act. 1952, shall, unless a shorter period is specified in the order, continue to remain in force until 1-4-1953, or until the expiration of twelve months from the date of detention, whichever period of detention expires later.

(3) The provisions of suh-s. (2) shall have effect notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in S. 3, Preventive Detention (Amendment) Act, 1952 (34 of 1952), but nothing contained in this Section shall affect the power of the appropriate Government to revoke or modify the detention order at any earlier time."

8. It was suggested that on a grammatical construction of this Section, the word "order" in sub-s. (2) means the initial order of detention and cannot refer to the order of confirmation as no such order is contemplated by the Act. In our opinion, this contention is not sound. It was held by this Court in Makkan Singh Tarsikka v. The State of Punjab(1), Petn. No. 308 of 1951 that the fixing of the period of detention in an initial order of detention is contrary to the scheme of the Act and cannot be supported as it tends to prejudice a fair consideration of the petitioners case when it is placed before the Advisory Board. That decision was pronounced on 10-12-1951 and according to well-known canons of construction of statutes and principles of legislation it has to be presumed that when Parliament enacted S. 11A in Act 61 of 1952 it was aware of the decision of this Court that no period could be specified in the initial order of detention. It follows that when Parliament in sub-s. (2) provided that

"every detention order which has been confirmed under S. 11 before the commencement of the Preventive Detention (Second Amendment) Act, 1952, shall, unless a shorter period is specified in the order, continue to remain in force"

till a certain date, it plainly intended by the words "the order" to refer, not to the initial order of detention, for no period of detention could legally be specified in that order, but to the order of detention as eventually confirmed under S. 11 (1). We are not on any debatable ground when we say that at that stage it is open to an appropriate government to specify the period of detention in the case of every detenu. We are satisfied that when sub-s. (2) refers to specification of a period in the order, it intends to refer to the detention order as confirmed under S. 11 (1) and not the initial order of detention.

9. It was next contended that the period specified in the order in question being conterminous with the date fixed for the life of the Act, the specification of the period was wholly unnecessary and therefore the order of detention could continue till 1-4-1953 by force of sub-s. (2) of s. 11A in the new Act, as if no period had in fact been specified in the order. This argument cannot be sustained on the language employed in S. 11A (2). The phraseology employed in the Section is in sharp distinction to the language employed in S. 3 of Act 34 of 1952 and if the object was to convey the same intention then Parliament would have used similar language in S. 11A (2) as in S. 3 of Act 34 of 1952. That Section runs thus :

"Every detention order confirmed under S.11 of the principal Act and in force immediately before the commencement of this Act shall have effect as if it had been confirmed under the Provisions of the principal Act as amended by this Act; and accordingly, where the period of detention is either not specified in such detention order or specified (by whatever form of words) to be for the duration or until the expiry of the principal Act or until 31-3-1952, such detention order shall continue to remain in force for so long as the principal Act is in force...."

The Parliament, when it intended to say that if the date specified in an order is conterminous with the life of the Act the detention will continue for a further period automatically, said so in clear and unambiguous language and by use of apt words. It knew that there may be cases in which the date specified for the determination of the detention may be conterminous with the date on which the Act is to expire, and it made a clear provision in S. 3 to cover all such cases. In S. 11A (2), however, it simply said that if a shorter period is specified in the order, then the detenu would be entitled to his release on first date. In the order passed against the petitioner and also in the orders passed in the connected petitions, 30-9-1952 was the date specified up to which detention could continue and that being so, their present detention cannot continue after that date by force of the provisions of sub-s. (2) of S. 11A merely because that date by accident or coincidence happens to be identical with the date on which the first amendment Act was to expire.

10. Then it was contended that even if the date up to which detention was to continue was specified in the order, it does not fix, a period shorter than 30-9-1952 (the date on which Act 34 of 1952 was to expire), and the detenus are not entitled to the benefit of the provisions of sub-s. (2) of S. 11A. This contention is difficult to sustain grammatically. The words "unless a shorter period is specified in the order" clearly have reference to the periods mentioned immediately thereafter, namely l-4-1953 or the date of expiry of twelve months from the date of detention. They have no reference at all to the date of the expiry of Act 34 of 1952.When the attention of the learned Solicitor-General was drawn to the plain reading of the Section and the grammar of it, he conceded that the adjective "shorter" there had reference to 1-4-1953 or the date of expiry of the period of twelve months mentioned in the Section and could not mean a date antecedent to 30-9-1952.

11. For the reasons given above, in our judgment, the detention of the petitioner in this petition and of those in the other petitions mentioned above, after 3-9-1952 became illegal and we therefore direct that the petitioners’ in this petition and in petitions Nos. 350, 356, 362 and 366 of 1952 be released forthwith. They are in detention by reason of the extension order made on the 22nd September extending their detention upto 31-12-1952. On that date, the State Government had no jurisdiction to make that order under the law in force as it stood on that date. 30-9-1952 had been specified as the date up to which their detention was to last by a subsisting and perfectly valid order and their detention beyond that date is illegal and cannot be justified on the provisions of S. 11A (2) or on the provisions of S. 11 (1) of the original Act.

12. Petitions allowed.