The Madras High Court bench here on Wednesday heard preliminary arguments in a case relating to the detention of four men under the National Security Act (NSA).
Quashing petitions were filed by the family members of S. Prabhu, A. Abdul, Mohammed Shalin and Shaji, all NSA detainees.
According to the petitioners, the four men were arrested by the Kanyakumari district police for ‘brutally assaulting’ M.R. Gandhi, a BJP functionary, in Nagercoil in April this year.
The petitioners claimed that the Kanyakumari district collector passed an order on May 21, 2013 detaining the four persons under the NSA ‘only with a view to infringing their (the detained persons’) rights’.
The NSA was invoked without any substantive material and the detaining authority failed to follow the ‘procedural dictums’ while passing the order, the petitioners alleged.
Therefore, they contended that the NSA order was liable to be quashed.
A division bench comprising Justices V. Dhanapalan and M. Duraiswamy heard the preliminary arguments of the counsels appearing on behalf of the petitioners and adjourned the case till next week, with a direction to the registry to post the case before a specially constituted bench as Justice Dhanapalan would not be available in the Madras High Court bench next week.
