Chennai:
Madras High court has rejected a plea for conducting a judicial
enquiry into the March 24, 2014, prison clash at Central Prison II in
Puzhal here.
Acting chief justice Satish K Agnihotri and justice M M Sundresh
disposed the petition filed by Prisoners Rights Forum director P
Pugalenthi but at the same time observed that the occurrence of the
prison riot was the offshoot of grievance of detenues against the
police officials and court.
“We are of the view that what is required is the steps that are to be
taken to deal with the grievance of the detenues rather than going
into the occurrence,” the judges said.
They also observed that since the petitioner is not an eyewitness to
the incident, therefore allegations made based on the hearsay cannot
be gone into.
However, the judges observed that wrong detention would infringe upon
the liberty of a person enshrined under Article 21 of the
constitution.
The judges stated that a detention order cannot be a substitute for a
criminal case. They also observed that quashing detention orders by
court of law again and again would make the entire system mockery.
Apart from liberty of an individual being curtailed, it results in
wastage of time, energy and money from all sides, they said.
“A detention order should not be passed with a mindset that even
assuming it is set aside by the court, the detenue would have been
under a custody for a considerable length of the time,” the high court
observed.
Urging the state and the home secretary to put up a mechanism to
update and inform detaining authorities, the High court suggested that
an officer can be appointed separately to collect papers from the
office of public prosecutor everyday and keep track of the cases to
make sure counter affidavits are filed within the time granted.
Madras High court has rejected a plea for conducting a judicial
enquiry into the March 24, 2014, prison clash at Central Prison II in
Puzhal here.
Acting chief justice Satish K Agnihotri and justice M M Sundresh
disposed the petition filed by Prisoners Rights Forum director P
Pugalenthi but at the same time observed that the occurrence of the
prison riot was the offshoot of grievance of detenues against the
police officials and court.
“We are of the view that what is required is the steps that are to be
taken to deal with the grievance of the detenues rather than going
into the occurrence,” the judges said.
They also observed that since the petitioner is not an eyewitness to
the incident, therefore allegations made based on the hearsay cannot
be gone into.
However, the judges observed that wrong detention would infringe upon
the liberty of a person enshrined under Article 21 of the
constitution.
The judges stated that a detention order cannot be a substitute for a
criminal case. They also observed that quashing detention orders by
court of law again and again would make the entire system mockery.
Apart from liberty of an individual being curtailed, it results in
wastage of time, energy and money from all sides, they said.
“A detention order should not be passed with a mindset that even
assuming it is set aside by the court, the detenue would have been
under a custody for a considerable length of the time,” the high court
observed.
Urging the state and the home secretary to put up a mechanism to
update and inform detaining authorities, the High court suggested that
an officer can be appointed separately to collect papers from the
office of public prosecutor everyday and keep track of the cases to
make sure counter affidavits are filed within the time granted.
No comments:
Post a Comment