Sayan not to be detained under Goondas Act

Chennai: The Madras high court has set aside an order passed by the authorities against Sayan, an accused in the case relating to dacoity-cum-murder in Kodanadu Estate, owned by former chief minister late J.Jayalalithaa, detaining him under the Goondas Act.

Allowing a Habeas corpus petition filed by Sayan, a division bench comprising Justices M.M.Sundresh and RMT.Teekaa Raman said, “We find that the impugned detention suffers from non-application of mind among other reasons. Thus, we have no hesitation in setting aside the same. Accordingly, the detention order is set aside. In result, the HCP is allowed and the order of detention passed by the Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Home, Prohibition and Excise department is set aside. The detenu, namely Sayan is directed to be released forthwith unless his detention is required in connection with any other case”.

After perusing the documents in the booklet, the bench said it find that many number of the pages were illegible. Based on the very same ground, number of detention orders have been quashed by this court. Though it was contended that the contents of the documents have been read over, it appears that even the documents in Malayalam were also stated to have been read over. The illegible copiesalso include documents in Malayalam. When they were furnished to the petitioner, they should be legible enough to read. That was the very object of furnishing the copies of the documents relied upon. In almost all the other cases, translated versions of the documents were given. Now, a different procedure was adopted in petitioner’s case. Therefore, on these grounds, the impugned detention order was liable to be set aside, the bench added.

The bench said much has been said about one of the adverse cases on the file of the Palakkad Police station. This was an accident case in which the petitioner’s wife and child died while he was injured. The detaining authority ought not to have relied upon this to arrive at the subjective satisfaction. There was no possibility of such an offence being re-occuring leading to disturbance of public order and peace. After all, the persons died were the wife and child of the petitioner, the bench added.

The bench said in the first adverse case, the case has been registered on April 24, 2017. This happened in a private place. This was also nearly two years before the detention order. As on today, the bail granted was also cancelled. In the ground case, the sum and substance of the prosecution case was that the petitioner threatened the witness. Admittedly, in this case, no application has been filed for enlargement on bail. There was not even a statement to the effect that the petitioner or his relatives were making any attempt to file such an application. Therefore, even here also, it did not find requisite factors in existence viz., imminent and real possibility of the petitioner coming out on bail and likely to act prejudicial to the maintenance of public order and peace, the bench added.

The bench said the petitioner did given an interview to a news channel making certain allegations against the Chief Minister. It was important to note that the detention order was passed after the remarks made by the petitioner against the Chief Minister, the bench added.