Raja Singh a habitual offender, PD charges were necessary: Advocate General

HYDERABAD: A Division Bench of Telangana High Court, comprising justices A Abhishek Reddy and J Sridevi, on Thursday continued hearing of a writ petition filed by Usha Bai, wife of Goahsmahal MLA Raja Singh, seeking to quash the PD Act invoked against her husband.

During the hearing, Advocate General BS Prasad told the bench that Raja Singh had made a ‘provocative and reckless’ speech against the Muslim community on April 12, 2022, during the Sriram Shoba Yatra.

The AG said that Raja Singh had referred to the Holy Quran as a ‘green book’, and his speech resulted in unrest, public disorder, and loss of life and property. The AG further said that the Goshamahal MLA was a repeat offender with up to 18 offences registered against him. Yet, the detaining authority had only used three cases to justify his detention.

During the hearing, the bench asked the Advocate General if there was any public disorder when Raja Singh distributed the video during the Uttar Pradesh elections in February 2022. Furthermore, the court asked the AG to provide the FIR pertaining to this occurrence.

The counsel for the petitioner challenged the AG’s stance, claiming that Raja Singh was uninformed about the FIR made against him in this matter. He only learned about the FIR after the paperwork relevant to the PD Act was served, and this FIR was incorporated into the case.

The Advocate General informed the court that the lower court had erred in rejecting Raja Singh’s remand order on the grounds that notice under section 41 CrPc was not served on him. The rejection of the remand order runs counter to the Supreme Court’s decision in Arnesh Kumar vs. the State of Bihar, which states unequivocally that the police are not required to give a notice under CrPc section 41.

If the accused is arrested, the police must assign reasons; if the accused is not arrested, the police must likewise assign reasons. This high court addressed the mandatory issue in Criminal RC No. 699/2022, which is still pending.

“The detention authority felt it was necessary to impose the PD Act on the MLA because the lower court rejected the MLA’s remand report. There was a huge uproar in the city and people came out on the streets, opposing his release. The detention order was necessary to be ordered to curb such a melee,” averred AG.

‘Case material, Hindi translation provided’
According to AG, there was no issue of the accused being denied access to case materials because readable copies of the case were served to the MLA along with a Hindi translation