JUDGMENT 1. This is a petition u/s 491 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on behalf of fifteen persons. The petition was made with notice to the Crown and the learned Deputy Legal Remembrancer has appeared with copies of the orders under which the accused are detained. The facts are not in dispute. The accused were arrested on July 2, 1947. They were committed to jail custody by orders of the Deputy Commissioner of Police on 5th July for fifteen days. The orders were passed under the Bengal Special Powers Ordinance, 1946, continued by the Bengal Ordinances Temporary Enactment Act, 1947, u/s 18(2) thereof. 2. On the 18th July, in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 18(2) of the Ordinance, the Governor authorised the detention of the Petitioners in jail for a further period of fourteen days, reciting that the previous orders authorised detention until the 19th July, and accordingly, authorising detention until August 2, 1947. It appears that Government were wrongly informed that the accused had been arrested on the 5th July, whereas in fact they were arrested on the 2nd July. It is not disputed by the learned Deputy Legal Remembrancer that the period of fifteen days mentioned in prov. (1) to Section 18(2) of the Ordinance is to be reckoned from the date of arrest, or that the period therefore in this case expired on the 16th July. 3. The question for determination is whether the orders of the Governor passed on the 18th July, are valid legal orders, having regard to the fact that the Petitioners could not be detained in custody after the 16th July without an order of the Governor. We can find nothing' in the provisions of Section 18 of the Ordinance which prevents the Governor passing an order in these circumstances. The section itself seems to us to leave the matter in an entirely ambiguous state; it might easily have been framed to make it clear that the order of the Governor must be passed before the expiry of the period and ordinarily we must hope that this will always be done, but in the absence of any clear provisions we are unable to say that the orders passed by the Governor have not been made in exercise of a power conferred by the Ordinance. Under the provisions of Section 20A of the Ordinance the order is therefore not liable to be called in question in any Court. 4. The applications are accordingly rejected.