The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed a preventive detention order under the PITNDPS Act after the authorities failed to promptly inform the detenu, Bala, of their right to make a representation to the Central Government. The court held that any unexplained delay in communicating this right renders the detention order constitutionally infirm. The right to representation is a fundamental safeguard under Article 22(5) of the Constitution, and failure to honour it vitiates the detention entirely.

Preventive detention under statutes like the PITNDPS Act (Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988) operates outside the ordinary criminal justice framework — a person is detained without trial on the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority. Because this power is extraordinary and curtails personal liberty, the Constitution builds specific procedural safeguards into Article 22(5): the detaining authority must (a) communicate the grounds of detention as soon as possible, and (b) afford the detenu the earliest opportunity to make a representation against the order.

The Supreme Court has consistently held that the right to represent to every authority empowered to consider such representation — including the Central Government under Section 10 of PITNDPS — is not merely procedural but substantive. In Harikisan v. State of Maharashtra and later in Icchu Devi Choraria v. Union of India, the Court ruled that failure to inform the detenu of the authority to whom a representation lies, or any unexplained delay in doing so, is not a technical defect — it strikes at the root of the detention and makes it void.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court applied this principle in Bala v. UT Chandigarh: since the authorities could not explain why there was a delay in informing the detenu of the right to represent to the Central Government, the detention was quashed. This case reinforces that under preventive detention law, procedural compliance is substantive compliance — the two cannot be separated.