The appellants Malak Singh and Jaswant Singh are brothers and they claim to be engaged in a business known as Continental Electricals besides owning a hotel named Park Restaurant on Grand Trunk Road Amritsar.
As a measure of humiliation and harassment, the names of the appellants were entered in the surveillance register maintained at the Police Station A Division, Amritsar.
They are also needlessly asked to associate themselves with various investigations though they have numberhing whatever to do with those investigations.
All the criminal cases ended either in acquittal or discharge.
They claim that on account of their active political affiliation to the Akali party, one Prithipal Singh a Congress M.L.A, is enimically disposed towards them and has been instrumental in having the appellants falsely implicated in some criminal cases.
They state that they are Income tax assessees and assert that they are law abiding citizens.
The appellants claim that they took active part in exposing the companyrupt activities of the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Amritsar and had even published wall posters with the result that the Deputy Superintendent of Police had instituted a prosecution for defamation against the appellants.
The appellants allege that their photographs have been displayed amongst those of numberorious criminals and bad characters at the Police Station, Whenever a Senior Police Officer visits the Police Station the appellants are required to attend the Police Station alongwith other persons whose names are entered in the surveillance register.
The two appeals are directed against the judgment of the High Court of Punjab Haryana dismissing the Writ Petitions filed by the appellants seeking the removal of their names from the surveillance register maintained at Police Station A Division, Amritsar City and for a direction that the respondent Police Officers should be restrained from harassing the appellants by calling them to the Police Station frequently without any justification.
The appellants were also detained under the MISA for sometime but they were released from detention as the Advisory Board refused to companyfirm their detention.
Chinnappa Reddy, J. To what extent may the citizens right to be let alone be invaded by the duty of the Police to prevent crime is the problem posed in these two appeals by special leave under Article 136 of the Constitution.
