MADURAI: Criticising the Madurai collector for passing detention orders against four persons without informing them of their right to make a representation, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently directed the Additional Chief Secretary of Home department to file an affidavit explaining how this omission happened, whether it was deliberate and the steps taken to inquire into the issue.
Allowing a habeas corpus petition filed by Palanisamy to set aside the detention of his 22-year-old son Seeman under the Goondas Act, a bench of justices CV Karthikeyan and R Vijayakumar observed that this is the fourth case wherein the very same district collector had failed to intimate to the detenue that he has a right to give representation to the detaining authority questioning the detention order within 12 days. This right is independent of the right of the detenu to send representation to the government and to the State Advisory Board expressing grievances about the detention order, they pointed out.
Wondering how the very same default has repeated itself, the judges opined that necessary inquiry must be made in the office of the collector, whether this omission was deliberately caused by any of the staff in the collectorate. “Inquiry must also be made as to who actually prepared or typed the detention order under instructions of the collector and whether the statement giving right to make a representation had been deliberately omitted in the detention order. The collector should have been vigilant before putting his/her signature, since a detention order takes away the liberty of a person without trial,” the judges observed.
Recalling that the detention orders passed in the other three cases were also set aside early this week by directing the home department to obtain an explanation from the collector for the omission and submit the same to the court with a covering affidavit, the judges directed the additional chief secretary to further explain in the affidavit as to how this significant omission happened four times in the Madurai collectorate, and the steps taken by him to make inquiries to find out the actual person involved in this entire issue. All four cases were directed to be listed on October 22.