The Madras High Court Bench here has impressed upon the State government the need to review a notification issued by it way back in August 1970, declaring the charge of criminal intimidation under Section 506 (1) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as a non-bailable offence within the State of Tamil Nadu.
Answering a reference made to it by a single judge, a Division Bench of Justice M. Jaichandren and Justice S. Nagamuthu said that there was a need to take a re-look into the 1970 notification in view of the fact that many grave offences such as voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons under Section 324 and 325 of IPC were bailable in nature.
“The State government shall also consider as to whether the liberty of a citizen, guaranteed under the provisions of the Constitution of India, is to be curtailed, by way of the Government Order dated 03.08.1970, in the prevailing socio-legal scenario,” the judges said and left it to the government to take an appropriate decision on the issue.
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Writing the judgment for the Bench, Mr. Justice Jaichandren said that such a notification “would place the fundamental right of life and personal liberty of an individual in substantial peril” unless and otherwise the situation really warranted the declaration of an offence under Section 506 (i) as cognizable (an offence for which the police could arrest without warrant) as well as non-bailable.
The matter was referred to the Division Bench following a doubt raised by the single judge over the validity of the 1970 notification, which was passed by the government by exercising powers conferred on it under Section 10 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1932.
Different High Courts in the country had taken contrary views while dealing with similar notifications issued in their States.
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However, testing its validity in the State of Tamil Nadu, the judges said the notification would hold good and continue to be in force irrespective of the replacement of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 with a new code in 1973. Though both the codes declared the offence under Section 506 (1) as bailable, the State government had taken a decision to make it non-bailable.
If the government had made it a non-bailable offence by amending the 1898 Cr.P.C. through a State legislation, such an amendment would have perished along with the code which was repealed and replaced by a new code.
However, since the change was brought in through a notification, it would continue to apply to the 1973 code too, the judges held.
The single judge had referred the matter to the Bench while hearing an anticipatory bail application filed by a person accused under Section 506 (1) of the IPC.