NARANJAN SIGH NATHAWAN vs THE STATE OF PUNJAB(and 13 other petitions).

The Supreme Court ruled that under the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, the detaining authority may supersede a previous detention order if it is challenged on formal grounds, provided there is no bad faith involved. The legality of detention must be assessed at the time of the return in habeas corpus proceedings, not at the time the proceedings were initiated. The Court followed the precedent set in Basanta Chandra Ghose v. King Emperor and clarified the standards for evaluating bad faith in detention cases.