MADURAI: Criticising the state police for repeated ignorance of guidelines framed for dealing with ‘missing persons’ complaints, which has led to filing of habeas corpus petitions (HCP) even when there is no illegal detention, the Madurai Bench of Madras HC held that abuse of the Habeas Corpus jurisdiction needs to be curtailed.
A bench of justices AD Jagadish Chandira and R Poornima made the observation while disposing of two habeas corpus petitions filed to trace two missing persons – a 45-year-old male auto driver from Madurai and an 18-year-old female college student of Thanjavur.
Perusing the petitions and the status report filed by the police, the judges noted that the auto driver and the student had left their homes on their own volition—the former due to matrimonial dispute and the latter due to a love affair.
The judges observed that Habeas Corpus jurisdiction is a speedy remedy which is to be invoked only exclusively in the cases of illegal detention. But, without establishing a prima facie case of illegal detention, many persons are misusing the said jurisdiction, the judges said, adding that this has been already condemned by various Constitutional Courts across the country.
Though the additional public prosecutor contended that the Director General of Police has framed guidelines in this regard and that effective steps are taken by the police for early tracing of missing persons by following these guidelines, the court noted that in many cases, the police have not properly dealt with man-missing cases and have filed closure reports mentioning ‘undetected’ before the lower courts concerned.
Pursuant to the court’s order in one such case, the DGP issued another circular in December 2023 framing guidelines for handling children and women missing cases, they further added and said despite there being sufficient infrastructure and guidelines for the department to trace missing persons, there appears to be some lacuna or ignorance of such guidelines by the police.
This has culminated in the filing of Habeas Corpus Petitions invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this court, which is a sorry state of affairs and needs to be curtailed, the judges observed.