: The Madras High Court Bench here has held that it is well within the power of the State government to appoint officers below the rank of Commissioner of Police also as executive magistrates to perform various quasi judicial functions under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Justice P. Devadass agreed with State Public Prosecutor R. Rajarathinam that the terms ‘appointment’ and ‘conferment’ found in Sections 20(1) and 20(5) respectively of the CrPC should not be confused with each other and that the first provision empowers the government to appoint any number of officials as executive magistrates.
Though Section 20(5) enables conferment of the power of an executive magistrate only on a commissioner of police, the State had appointed deputy commissioners of police in certain cities such as Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Tirunelveli, Salem and Tiruppur as executive magistrates only by exercising its powers under Section 20 (1), the judge pointed out.
The ruling was passed while dealing with a revision petition filed by Balamurugan, a habitual offender, who questioned the authority of Tirunelveli deputy commissioner of police in detaining him in prison for a year on the charge of failing to maintain good conduct as promised by him while executing a security bond under Section 110 of CrPC.
Locus standi
Despite negativing the ground of locus standi raised by the petitioner, the judge agreed with his counsel N. Mohideen Basha that the detention order passed on June 14 could not be sustained on the other ground that the DCP had failed to follow the principles of natural justice and ascertain the views of the accused before ordering his detention.
