Sending a strong signal to Collectors and Commissioners of Police to be vigilant while passing preventive detention orders, the Madras High Court Bench here has quashed one such order passed against a sexual offender by the Dindigul Collector just because he had used the term ‘cases’ instead of ‘case’ in the order.
Allowing a habeas corpus petition filed by the mother of the sexual offender, accused of repeatedly raping a 14-year-old Dalit girl along with his friend in Kodaikanal early this year, a Division Bench of Justices P.R. Shivakumar and V.S. Ravi held that use of the wrong term made it clear that the Collector had slapped the order “mechanically without application of mind.”
After extracting the relevant portion of the detention order passed on June 7, the judges pointed out that the Collector had rightly stated that the offender S. Siva alias Chokkanathan (28) was facing a case on the file of All Women Police Station in Kodaikanal under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
The order also stated that the offender was arrested and remanded in judicial custody and a bail application filed by him before the Principal District and Sessions Court in Dindigul was dismissed on June 3. However, while apprehending the possibility of him obtaining bail in future, the Collector used the word ‘cases,’ though the entire detention order referred to only one case pending against him.
