JUDGMENT : J.K. Mohanty, J. - This is an application for issue of a writ of Habeas Corpus for production and release of Jyod Ranjan Samantray Petitioner who has been detained since 1-8-1982 by an order of detention passed by the District Magistrate. Cuttack (opposite party No. 2) under the National Security Act, 1980 (hereinafter called 'the Act'). The order of detention (Annexure-1) which was served on the Petitioner on 4-8-1982 by the State Government states that with a view to prevent the detinue from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order, the District Magistrate, Cuttack was satisfied that it was absolutely necessary to detain the Petitioner under the Act. This order of opposite party No. 2 has been approved by the State Government (opposite party No. 1) on 12-8-1982 vide Annexure-2. The grounds of detention read as follows: (1) On 19-1-1982, at about 12.30 a.m. the detenu along with one Raju ' Dilip Kumar Behera, who is facing trial in several criminal cases, assaulted one Binod Behera on the main road of Seikh Bazar and wrongfully restrained him. Being panic-stricken none came forward to rescue the victim. The people of the locality ran helter-skeltor and normal life came to a stand still. (2) On 6-2-1982 at about 8.00 p.m. the detenu and his associate Raju ' Dilip Behera of Seikh Bazar armed with knives attacked one Dinabandhu Behera and Ananta Mohapatra on the road at Seikh Bazar. To escape from the assault they ran and took shelter inside the shop of one Anandi Behera. The detenu and his associate damaged their cycles and pelted brick-bats to the shop of Anandi Behera Due to such violent acts there was serious disruption in the movement of usual traffic for a considerable period, nearby shops were closed and people started running away out of a fear. (3) On 8-2-1982 at about 110 p.m. the detenu and 13 other anti-social elements of Cuttack city such as Jami Bhoi, Bikram Mohanty, Bichhuati ' Basanta Kumar Behera, Saju ' Sajatulla forming an unlawful assembly armed with pharsa and other deadly weapons assaulted Pramod Kumar Das, Kishore Chandra Mulia and others by means of pharsa and lathies and caused injuries to their persons in furtherance of common intention in the Court permises of the Sessions Judge, Cuttack. On seeing the detenu's violent behaviour the people present inside the Court premises being panic-stricken deserted the place. Public peace was seriously disturbed. The nearby shop-keepers closed down their shops. (4) On 26-6-1982 at about 7.30 p.m. the detenu and two others went to the grocery shop of one Sitaram Agarwala of Kanika crossing in a motor cycle, assaulted him and robbed him on the point of knives within the view of the general public who were going about in their normal avocation. The shop-keepers could not raise hue and cry out of fear and assault and they closed down their shops on seeing the detenu's violent attitude. They were so panic-stricken that they kept their shops closed till a strong contigent of police force was stationed there. Public order was seriously disturbed in the locality. (5) On 1/2-7-1982 the detenu and 5 others of his associates over-powered and assaulted one Sarat Chandra Kar, a Lecturer of Berhampur College at Khatbinsahi on a public thoroughfare while he was coming in a rickshaw after witnessing a picture at Grand cinema. The detenu and his associates also snatched away a sum of Rs. 500/-, some documents and one H.M.T. wrist watch from him Seeing such act the rickshaw puller fled away leaving the rickshaw. People sitting on the verandah of the houses and pedestrians ont he street were panic-stricken and they ran helter-skelter. Public order was jeopardised. (6) On 31-7-1982 at 7.15 p.m. the detinue and his associates were reported to be creating trouble at Cuttack Chandi by brandishing knives and terrorising the public. Police party of Lalbag rushed to the shot and found the detenu along with 2 others armed with knives shouting to do away with persons who would not pay money to the detenu. The people were terrified and the shop-keepers closed their shops being panic-stricken. The general public were running helter-skelter and -the road was completely deserted. The peace and tranquility in the area was completely jeopardised. After a hot chase the detenu and 2 others were arrested and the knife was seized from the detenu's possession I but his two associates fled away. As the detenu and two others were designing to commit cognizable offence the detenu and two others were arrested u/s 151, Code of Criminal Procedure as it could not have been other wise prevented. As the detenu and two others were designing to commit cognizable offence the detenu and two others were arrested u/s 151, Code of Criminal Procedure as it could not have been other wise prevented. None from the locality came forward to give statement against the detenu as they were morally afraid of the detenu and his gangs. 2. In this writ application Mr. Das, learned Counsel for the Petitioner contends: (i) The subjective satisfaction upon which the order of detention is founded is not arrived at in accordance with law because the detaining authority has taken into consideration an incident (Item No. 1 of the grounds) which is relatable to the "law and order" situation and which has no relevance to the "public order" situation. (ii) The subjective satisfaction upon which the order of detention is founded suffers from the vice of non-application of mind because, (a) it has been arrived at on the basis of non-existent facts; (b) it is based on casual approach to the appreciation of facts and betrays lack of diligence; and (c) it has been arrived at on the basis of the confidential report of the Superintendent of Police. Cuttack vide Annexure-3 to the Collector, Cuttack which contains several allegations against the Petitioner some of which have been found to be false. Mr. Das submitted that Annexure-3 show that item No. 1 of the grounds says that the Petitioner took part in a criminal activity on 16-6-1978 which was finally registered as G.R. Case No. 1462 of 1978, but in the said case the Petitioner was acquitted on 31-5-1982 by the S. D.J M. Cuttack. Similarly under item No. 6 ultimately the police submitted final report. This would go to show the mala fide intention of the authorities implicating the Petitioner in false cases and to somehow harass him for his impartial and straight forwardness and due to his protest against the illegal acts of the police and other authorities. 3. On the other hand, on behalf of the State the above contentions have been refuted. All the grounds mentioned in the order of detention (Annexure-I) will show that they are relatable to the "public order" situation and the detaining authority after being satisfied have passed the order of detention and other is no question of the order of detention suffering from the vice of non-application of mind. All the grounds mentioned in the order of detention (Annexure-I) will show that they are relatable to the "public order" situation and the detaining authority after being satisfied have passed the order of detention and other is no question of the order of detention suffering from the vice of non-application of mind. Item No. 1 cannot be taken in isolation but has to be necessarily read in conjunction with other grounds. The detenu has not been detained by the District Magistrate on the basis of the two incidents in Annexure-3 (cited on behalf of the Petitioner) and those two cases do not form the grounds of detention of the detenu. 4. On a fair and comprehensive reading of the grounds of detention, there is no manner of doubt that the order of detention in the instant case is based on the involvement of the Petitioner in all the six incidents which have been set out above. In other words, the Petitioner's alleged involvement in all the six incidents has collectively weighed with the detaining authority in passing the order of detention. All the six incidents, therefore, constitute the grounds of detention and if there is any vice in any of them, the order of detention must fail. It is submitted by Mr. Das that the first incident (which has been registered as Lalbag P.S. Case No. 35 dated 20-1-1982) has no nexus with the "public order" situation and that it is relatable only to the "law and order" situation and that, therefore, the order of detention which is passed after taking into consideration the Petitioner's, involvement in the said incident is ultra vies. The subjective satisfaction upon which the order of detention is based is vitiated because the detaining authority has failed to appreciate the distinction between "public order" and "law and order" and it has, inter alia, obtained the Petitioner for his involvement in an incident which has no bearing of the maintenance of "public order" but which is connected if at all, with the maintenance of "law and order". In this connection our attention was invited to the contents of the F.I.R. lodged on 20-1-1982 vide Annexure-4 regarding the incident in item No. 1. It would be convenient to refer to the contention of the F.I.R. at this stage. 5. Information was lodged by one Binod Behera. In this connection our attention was invited to the contents of the F.I.R. lodged on 20-1-1982 vide Annexure-4 regarding the incident in item No. 1. It would be convenient to refer to the contention of the F.I.R. at this stage. 5. Information was lodged by one Binod Behera. In the said F.I.R. the Petitioner was cited as one of the accused along with one Raju ' Dilip Behera. The report says that on 19-1-1982 at about 12.30 a.m. the informant was returning from the house of one Dhadi Tarei after attending a dinner in a cycle. Suddenly near the Durga Mandap the Petitioner and Dilip Behera, caught hold of his cycle and stopped him. The informant got down from the cycle. The Petitioner immediately caught hold of him and Raju ' Dilip Behera gave him fist blows saying why 'he was abusing his mother. As a result of the blows there was swelling of his left eye and there were some bleeding injuries on the thumb of the right hand and left hand elbow. As he shouted Upendra Dalai, Niranjan Tarei and Munilal of Seikh Bazar came there, so the accused persons left him and ran away. Mr. Das, learned Counsel urged that the question which arises for consideration is whether the distinction between the concepts of "public order" and "law and order" was present in the mind of the detaining authority and whether the above incident could have been legitimately relied upon in arriving at the subjective-satisfaction with regard to the need of detaining the Petitioner for the maintenance of public order. 6. The Act nowhere defines the expressions "public order" and "the security of the State", but by a series of decisions the connotation and the area of each of them has been defined and the meaning to be attached to each of them has by now been well crystallised. In the case of Ram Manohar Lohia v. State of Bihar AIR 1965 S.C. 740 the Supreme Court explained the difference between the three concepts of "law and order", "public order" and "security of the State" and fictionally drew three concentric circles, the largest representing "law and order", the next representing "public order" and the smallest representing "security of the State". Every infraction of law must necessarily affect order, but an Act affecting law and order may not necessarily also affect the public order. Every infraction of law must necessarily affect order, but an Act affecting law and order may not necessarily also affect the public order. Likewise an act may affect public order but not necessarily the security of the State. In the case of Sushanta Goswami and Ors. v. State of West Bengal AIR 1969 S.C. 1004 , it has been observed: ...the contravention of any law always affects order but before it can be said to affect public order it must affect community or the public at large A mere disturbance of law arid order leading to disorder is not necessarily sufficient for action under the Act but a disturbance which will affect public order can alone justify detention under that head. In the case of Pushkar Mukherjee and Others Vs. The State of West Bengal it has been observed: ...The contravention of any law always affects order but before it can be said to affect public order, it must affect the community or the public at large. In this connection we must draw a line or demarcation between serious and aggravated forms of disorder which directly affect the community or injure the public interest and the relatively minor breaches of peace of a purely local significance which primarily injure specific individuals and only in a secondary sense public interest. A mere disturbance of law and order leading to disorder is thus not necessarily sufficient for action under the Preventive Detention Act but a disturbance which will affect public order comes within the scope of the Act. In the case of Arun Ghosh Vs. State of West Bengal, it has been held: The question whether a man has only committed a breach of law and order or has acted in a manner likely to cause a disturbance of the public order is a question of degree and the extent of the reach of the act upon the society. An act by itself is not determinant of its own gravity. In its quality it may not differ from another but in its potentiality it may be very different. Similar acts in different contexts affect differently law and order on the one hand and public order on the other. It is always a question of degree of the harm and its effect upon the community. In its quality it may not differ from another but in its potentiality it may be very different. Similar acts in different contexts affect differently law and order on the one hand and public order on the other. It is always a question of degree of the harm and its effect upon the community. Individual act can be a ground for detention only if it leads to disturbance of the current of life of the community so as to amount a disturbance of the public order and not if it affects merely an individual leaving the tranquility of the society undisturbed. Public order embraces more of the community than law and order. Public order is the even tempo of the life of the community taking the country as a whole or even a specified locality. Disturbance of public order is to' be distinguished from acts directed against individuals which do not disturb the society to the extent of causing a general disturbance of public tranquillity. It is the degree of disturbance and its affect upon the life of the community in a locality which determines whether the disturbance amounts only to a breach of law and order. In Wasi Uddin Ahmad v. District Magistrate, Aligarh, U.P. and Ors. AIR 1981 S.C. 2166 , the views expressed in Ram Manohar Lohia's case AIR 1965 S.C. 740, Pushkar Mukherjee's easel and Arun Ghosh's case, were considered and endorsed. In a decision of this Court reported in Dusmanta Kumar Dash Vs. State of Orissa and Another the decisions of the Supreme Court reported in Ram Manohar Lohia v. State of Bihar AIR 1965 S.C. 740, Pushkar Mukherjee and Others Vs. The State of West Bengal, and Arun Ghosh Vs. State of West Bengal, and several other decisions were considered and it was held: The tests for determining whether an act affects public order within Section 3(2) are (1) the potentiality of the act (2) the degree of its impact (3) extent of disturbance of even tempo of life of the community and (4) reaction of common man with reference to the incident.... The facts enumerated in the F.I.R. clearly indicate that the offending act of the Petitioner arises out of an incident between the Petitioner and his companion Raju ' Dilip Behera and the informant. The facts enumerated in the F.I.R. clearly indicate that the offending act of the Petitioner arises out of an incident between the Petitioner and his companion Raju ' Dilip Behera and the informant. The Petitioner caught hold of the informant and his associate Raju ' Dilip Behera assaulted the informant causing some bleeding injuries and when Upendra Dalai, Niranjan. Tarei and Munilal came there the accused persons left the informant and ran away. In item No. 1 of the grounds it has been mentioned that being panic-stricken none came forward to rescue the victim, and the normal life came to a standstill. Mr. Das submitted that the above narration of facts in ground No. 1 is belied by the First Information Report (Annexure-4). The conduct of the Petitioner may be reprehensible, but it does not add up to the situation where it might be said that the community at large was being disturbed or in other words there was a breach of "public order", or likelihood of a breach of "public order". It cannot be overlooked that the incident in question is alleged to have occurred at the mid-night hour and that even in the text of the F.I.R. it has not been mentioned that the even tempo of the normal life was disturbed as a result of the offending act of the Petitioner. The learned Counsel for the Petitioner therefore, argued that it is inevitable that the first incident relied upon in the grounds of detention has no nexus or connection with the maintenance of "public order". At best it can be treated as having an impact on the law and order situation. He cited a number of decisions reported in Pushkar Mukherjee and Others Vs. The State of West Bengal Manu Bhusan Roy Prodhan Vs. State of West Bengal and Others and Ashok Das v. Additional District Magistrate, Cuttack and Ors. AIR 1973 Ori 170 in support of his contention. The principle underlying all these decisions in this. Where power is vested in a statutory authority to deprive the liberty of a subject in its subjective satisfaction with reference to specified' matters, if that satisfaction is stated to be based on a number of grounds or for a variety of reasons, all taken together and if some out of them are found to be non-existent or irrelevant, the very exercise of that power is bad. That is so because the matter being one for subjective satisfaction it must be properly based on all the reasons on which it purports to be based. 7. Learned Additional Government Advocate appearing for the opposite parties strenuously contended that the grounds of detention clearly relate to the "public order" situation because they were calculated to disturb public peace and tranquillity. The true distinction between the areas of "public order" and "law and order" lies not in the nature of quality of the act but in the degree and extent of its reach upon society It is the potentiality of the act to disturb the even tempo of the life of the community which makes it prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. That test is clearly fulfilled in the facts and circumstances of the present case. It was further argued that those who are responsible for the national security or for the maintenance of public order must be the sole judges of what the national security or public order requires. Preventive detention is devised to afford protection to society. Therefore, in the circumstances of the case it is not possible to isolate the first ground of detention from the rest of the grounds and the cumulative effect of all the grounds is to be seen. In support of his contention reliance was placed on a decision reported in Ashok Kumar Vs. Delhi Administration and Others. He also cited some other decisions reported in Wasiuddin Ahmed Vs. District Magistrate, Aligarh, U.P. and Others Dusmanta Kumar Dash Vs. State of Orissa and Another, and Smt. S. Gayathri Vs. Commissioner of Police, Madras and Others. Learned Additional Government Advocate further contended that the High Court in its writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution is to see whether the order of detention has been passed on any material before it. If it is found that the order has been based by the detaining authority on materials on record, then the Court cannot go further and examine whether the material was adequate or not. It can examine the material on record only for the purpose of seeing whether the older of detention has been based on no material. In support of above contention reliance was placed on a decision reported in State of Gujarat Vs. Adam Kasam Bhaya, . 8. It can examine the material on record only for the purpose of seeing whether the older of detention has been based on no material. In support of above contention reliance was placed on a decision reported in State of Gujarat Vs. Adam Kasam Bhaya, . 8. With all respect we are unable to accede to the submissions made by the learned Additional Government Advocate. In a large number of cases decided by the highest Courts some of which have been cited above it has been held that even if one of the grounds of detention is irrelevant, that is sufficient to vitiate the order. It is not possible to assess in what manner and to what extent that irrelevant ground operated on the mind of the appropriate authority and contributed to provide the satisfaction that it was necessary to detain the detenu with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of the public order in future. It would be impossible to hold that the defective ground was of a comparatively unessential nature and that if it were eliminated from consideration, the detaining authority would still have passed the detention order. Individual act can be a ground for detention only if it leads to disturbance of the current of life of the community so as to amount to disturbance of the public order and not if it affects merely an individual leaving the tranquillity of the society undisturbed. Mere disturbance of law and order leading to disorder is not necessarily sufficient for action under the Act, but a disturbance which will affect public order comes within the scope of the Act. 9. After considering the argument of both sides and the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the view that there is no escape from the conclusion that the impugned order of detention having been based upon the subjective satisfaction which is not arrived at in accordance with law inasmuch as it is founded on an incident (ground No. 1) which is relatable to the, law and order situation and which has no relevance to the public order situation it must beheld to be invalid. It is not necessary to examine the other contentions raised in this case. It is not necessary to examine the other contentions raised in this case. We, there fore, quash the order of detention and direct that the Petitioner be set at liberty forthwith, so far as the present case is concerned. 10. The writ, application is allowed. There shall be no order for costs. B.N. Misra, J. 11. I agree. Final Result : Allowed