P. K. Bahri, J. ( 1 ) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been brought seeking quashment of detention order dated May 19, 1989, passed by respondent No 2 under Section 3 (1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974, with a view to preventing the. petitioner from acting in any manner prejudicial to the augmentation of foreign exchange. ( 2 ) VARIOUS grounds have been urged in support of the petition but it is not necessary to deal with all those grounds because this writ petition is liable to succeed on a very short ground. ( 3 ) THE petitioner in his representation to the Advisory Board had specifically requested the Board that his co-detenus be examined as his witnesses but the Advisory Board had not acceded to the said request which had resulted in making the detention of the petition illegal. ( 4 ) THIS ground was pleaded by the petitioner as an additional ground vide his application (Criminal Misc. No. 451/89) which was allowed but no counter has been filed to this particular plea of the petitioner. However, the learned counsel for the respondent has brought the record of the Advisory Board and had read out the contents of -the opinion given by the Advisory Board which show that this request of the petitioner was considered by the Advisory Board but was rejected on the ground that they had already examined the co-detenus, namely, Rajeev Wadhwa and Arun Sharma, who had in their statements denied their implication in the prejudicial activities referred to in the detention orders passed against them and also against the petitioner. So, no useful purpose would be served by examining them again as witnesses of the petitioner. ( 5 ) THE question which arises for consideration is whether the Advisory Board was right in declining this request of the petitioner? The learned counsel for the petitioner has made reference to Criminal Writ Petition No. 618/88, Jatinder Singh v. Union of India and Ors, decided on August 1, 1989. by a Division Bench of this Court wherein on similar facts the detention was quashed. In the said case, a prayer had been made by the detenu to the Board for examining the co-detenus as his Witnesses. by a Division Bench of this Court wherein on similar facts the detention was quashed. In the said case, a prayer had been made by the detenu to the Board for examining the co-detenus as his Witnesses. A contention was raised by the State before the Division Bench that no oral request was made for examining the said co detenus and thus, the detention of the detenu in that case had. not become bad. This contention was repelled. It was held that non-examination of the said co-detenus as witnesses of the petitioner had vitiated the detention of the petitioner. He has also made reference to Criminal Writ Petition No. 213/87, Sikander Singh v. Union of India and Others, decided on September 9, 1987, by a Single Bench of this Court wherein also a similar contention was railed. A contention was raised on behalf of the State that the co-detenus were also examined by the Advisory Board and thus, there has been no infraction of Article 22 (4) and (5) of the Constitution of India read with Section 8 of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974. The Single Bench of this Court placing reliance on the law laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of A. K. Roy v. Union of India AIR 1982 SC 710 and also in Criminal Appeal No. 55/89. Surinder Kumar Arora v. Union of India, decided on January 14, 1986, held that once the detenu makes a request for examining any person, who is present, as his witness, the Advisory Board must examine the said person as a witness of the detenu. The Single Judge also held that the fact that the said co-detenus had been independently examined by the Advisory Board would not go to meet the requirements of Article 22 (4) and (5) of the Constitution rightly, so because if the detenu wants to examine the co-detenus as bii defence witnesses, it means that he could elicit certain material facts from the months of the co-detenus which may lead the Board to come to the conclusion that the continued detention of the detenu is not desirable. Even if the Board comes to a different conclusion even then the whole record including the statements of such witnesses of the detenu examined before the Board is to be placed before the appropriate Government for deciding whether the detention of the particular detenu should be confirmed or not. It is not incumbent on the part of the appropriate Government to confirm the detention of particular detenus in all cases where the Advisory , Board gives the opinion in favour of continuing the detention. ( 6 ) COUNSEL for the petitioner has also cited Lakshman T. Advani v. The Union of India, 1986 (3) Crimes 197 . In the cited case also the Advisory Board had refused to examine the witnesses of the petitioner on the ground that it felt that no useful purpose would be served in examinining the witnesses. The Division Bench of this Court placing reliance on the case of A. K. Roy (supra) and another Division Bench judgment given in Criminal Writ No. 127/85, Madan Lal Girdhar v. Union of India and Others, decided on September 5, 1985, held that the failure on the part of the Advisory Board to examine the witnesses of the detenu in rebuttal who were present had resulted in failure of justice. ( 7 ) A contention was raised on behalf of the petitioner that if the detenu had been allowed to examine the persons present before the Board as his witnesses he would have been able to persuade the Advisory Board that there was no sufficient ground for the detention and further that even if the Advisory Board had not agreed to his submission the said material which was bound to be placed before the appropriate Government may have led the said Government to come to a different conclusion. The Division Bench found considerable force in such contentions and held that the order of detention stood vitiated on the ground that the detenu had been deprived of his valuable right to make an effective representation which would have been based on the statements of such witnesses. ( 8 ) THE mere fact that the Advisory Board had, on its own while considering the case of co-detenus, examined those co-detenus in absence of the petitioner does not meet the requirement of law which gives the right to the detenu to examine such co-detenus as his own witnesses. ( 8 ) THE mere fact that the Advisory Board had, on its own while considering the case of co-detenus, examined those co-detenus in absence of the petitioner does not meet the requirement of law which gives the right to the detenu to examine such co-detenus as his own witnesses. The petitioner could have elicited some material facts from the co-detenus if he had been permitted to examine those co-detenus as his own witnesses. The right of the petitioner to examine some persons as his own witnesses cannot be substituted with the opinion of the Board that it is not necessary to examine those witnesses or Board on its own had put some questions to the said persons in absence of the petitioner. So, in view of the above discussion, I conclude that the detention of the petitioner has become vitiated on this ground alone. ( 9 ) I allow the writ petition and quash the continued detention of the petitioner and direct that the petitioner be released from Jail, if not required to be detained in any other case.