CHENNAI: Expressing shock over the invocation of the Goondas Act against a realtor involving sale of housing apartments and money transaction disputes between individuals, the Madras High Court on Wednesday ordered senior police officer and ex-commissioner of Greater Chennai Police A Arun to appear in the court after a week.
The order to summon the officer was issued by a vacation bench of justices G R Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan when the petitions, including a habeas corpus petition, seeking to quash the detention order against Santhosh Sharma, director of Lokaa Developer Private Limited, came up for hearing.
“The Commissioner of Police has passed the impugned (detention) order. He shall appear (before the court in person) next week,” the bench said.
The petitions were filed by Varsha Sharma, daughter of Santhosh Sharma, praying for emergency leave for four weeks for her father and the quashing of the detention order.
Goondas Act was invoked with gross non-application of mind: Petitioner
The GCP registered the FIRs initially in 2023 against Santhosh Sharma, his wife Kalpana Sharma and others based on the complaints of DMDK leader and Rajya Sabha member L K Sudhish and his wife Poornajothi. They were arrested in 2024 and later released on bail.
The complaint accused the realtor of fraudulently selling 48 flats out of 78 allotted to Sudhish and his wife in a housing complex of 234 apartments raised on 2.10 acres of land at Kolathur owned by them. In 2025, two more cases were registered against him and based on such cases he was arrested again and subsequently, the Goondas Act was invoked against him on September 22, 2025. The then commissioner Arun signed the orders which cited that he would indulge in further similar activities “prejudicial to public order” if released on bail, she stated.
The petitioner contended that the issues are exclusively within the purview of “law and order” and not “public order” and the Goondas Act was invoked “mechanically” thereby demonstrating “gross non-application of mind”. The petitioner further stated that the impugned detention order is a “colourable exercise of power” passed with sole intention of prolonging the incarceration of the detenue after having failed to secure his continued custody through ordinary criminal process.
Stating that the complaints arose solely from individual purchasers alleging grievances that are inherently civil or criminal in nature and triable before regular courts, she said prevention detention cannot be invoked as a substitute for criminal prosecution or recovery proceedings.