Observing that details such as "threat perception" felt by the people about the person who is going to be externed (barred from entering city limits) are required to be mentioned in the externment order, Bombay High Court has set aside such an order against a 22-year-old man.
Sachin Stany D'souza had challenged the order passed by Deputy Commissioner of Police on February 21, 2012, externing him from the city on the ground that he had become "a threat to the society", under the Bombay Police Act.
The division bench of Justices P V Hardas and Mridula Bhatkar said that "subjective satisfaction" of the externing officer was not manifested in the order, because it lacked specifics.
D'souza's lawyer Vikas Singh argued that while his client had wanted to produce two witnesses in his defence, the officer recorded wrongly that he did not want to adduce any evidence.
The order did not make it clear how D'souza's presence would have caused "danger, alarm and threat" to the people, Singh said.
Accepting this, the bench said that "names of witnesses, their threat perception and their unwillingness to come forward to depose against the externee out of fear are cardinal requirements to invoke Section 56 of the Bombay Police Act", but the order lacked all this.
