Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has suggested the State to consider amending Section 3(2) of the Act 14 of 1982 (Goondas Act) enabling the State authorities to delegate the powers of detention to officers such as Inspector General of Police.
A Division Bench of Justices R. Suresh Kumar and K.K. Ramakrishnan observed that if such delegation is made, the responsibility could be fixed on those officers and the work burden of the District Magistrate / Collector could be reduced.
The court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed challenging the detention order passed by Dindigul Collector. The court said that under the Act, within a period of 12 days the detention order should be approved by the State authorities or else the order would automatically become lapsed. In case of approval within this period, the moment it got approval from the State authorities, the detaining authority becomes functus officio.
Therefore, whenever the detaining authority receives a representation within 12 days from the detenu or on behalf of the detenu, whether that representation has to be considered and decided on merits by the very same detaining authority has first to be ascertained and for the said purpose the detaining authority has to contact the State authorities to verify as to whether the detention order has been considered and approved by the State authorities and after verifying the same only, the detaining authority has to act.
In the present case, the detaining authority had become functus officio as the 12- day period from the date of detention had lapsed. Despite this factor, under total non-application of mind, the Dindigul Collector has passed a mechanical order a week later, rejecting the representation given on behalf of the detenu.
To avoid these kinds of Act violations, there must be strict coordination between the detaining authority and State authorities. When such a heavy and burdensome job or duties are cast upon the Collector, one cannot expect that the official would look into files like the present one and pass orders as per the Act. When this kind of miscarriage of justice takes place in the case of disposal of representation being made by the detenu concerned, since the personal liberty of a citizen is involved, utmost care must be taken by the detaining authority in deciding such representation, the court observed.
Since Section 3(2) of Act 14 of 1982 is having specific terms “jurisdiction of District Magistrate and Commissioner of Police”, certainly, if the State requires to delegate its power to the level of Inspector General of Police as the case may be, Section 3(2) of Act 14 of 1982 requires amendment, the court observed. The court set aside the detention order in the present case and posted the matter for hearing on June 28.
“In order to streamline this system and overcome this kind of miscarriage of justice and also to redress the grievance expressed on the side of the detenu, especially at this point of time, we feel that the State government can think of delegating such powers not to the District Magistrate / Collector under Section 3 (2) of Act 14 of 1982, and instead it can be delegated to the level of Inspector General of Police, zone-wise.
