Goondas detention of seven set aside for not serving communication

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court had quashed the detention of seven accused who were detained under the Goondas Act or Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Sand Offenders, Slum Grabbers, and Video Pirates Act, 1982 on the ground that grounds for detention was not communicated to the detenus and their family members.

A division bench of the high court comprising M Sundar and Justice M Nirmal Kumar passed the orders on hearing the habeas corpus petitions filed by the relatives of the detenus.

The main ground raised by the petitioners was that the grounds for the detention were not communicated to detenues.

However, the additional public prosecutor submitted that the orders were sent to the prison well in the time where the detenus were lodged. "There has been a delay on the part of the detenus in collecting the same, " the APP noted.

However, the judges rejected the submissions observing that there is no material in these cases to demonstrate that detenus refused to receive the detention orders or the grounds given to them.

"As there is a clear violation of Section 8 of Goondas Act i.e., the very statute under which the preventive detention has been clamped on the seven detenus in all the seven captioned cases, " the judges noted and quashed the detention orders.