Madras High Court: A writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to issue a writ of habeus corpus to free the detenu from illegal detention, caused due to delay in considering representation, the division bench of Nisha Banu and N. Anand Venkatesh, JJ. while setting aside the impugned detention order, has observed that any inordinate and unexplainable delay on part of the government in considering representation renders the detention illegal, and even a delay of three days in disposal of representation would render the detention illegal. Thus, directed the respondent to release the detenu.
tnd The Court relied on Rekha v. State of Tamil Nadu ((2011) 5 SCC 244), Sumaiya v. The Secretary to Government, 2016 SCC OnLine Mad 10898 and Tara Chand v. State of Rajasthan, 1980 (2) SCC 321, wherein the Court observed that “procedural safeguards are required to be protected zealously and should be enforced by the Courts rigorously without being diluted by the nature and basis of alleged activities of the detenu”, a nd viewed that though several grounds were raised in the writ petition, the petitioner mainly made his argument on the delay because his representation was not considered on time and this wasa gross violation of the procedural safeguards, which would vitiate detention. The Court observed that in the present case there has been a delay of 19 days in submitting the remarks by the Detaining Authority, thus the impugned detention order was illegal and, therefore, liable to be quashed.
[Karthikarani v. State of Tamil Nadu, H.C.P.(MD) No.631 of 2022, decided on 14-10-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner: Advocate. M. Jegadesh Pandian
For Respondent: Additional Public Prosecutor Mr. A. Thiruvadikumar,