HCP seeking to produce ‘May 17 Movement’ leader dismissed

The division bench comprising Justice C T Selvam and Justice M Nirmal Kumar on dismissing the plea as non-maintainable said, “On the well-accepted principle that a Writ of Habeas Corpus is not to be entertained when a person is committed to judicial custody or police custody by the competent court by an order which prima facie does not appear to be without jurisdiction or passed in an absolutely mechanical manner or wholly illegal and this court finds that the Writ of Habeas Corpus is liable to be dismissed.” 

However, the bench on holding that the petitioner is free to make an application for the grant of bail to the court concerned who shall consider the same no sooner the same is filed and pass appropriate order thereon expeditiously, said, “We without hesitation would state that there probably would be no better case for grant of bail. 

However, bound as we are by the legal principles enshrined by the Supreme Court, and on the above discussion we dismiss the present Habeas Corpus Petition as not maintainable.”

Senior Counsel NR Elango, appearing for the petitioner had contended that following the quashing of Thirumurugan Gandhi’s detention under Goondas Act on September 19, 2017, the state in a bid to deter him from making representation in the International forums and other Human Rights forums, had detained him on August 09, 2018 at the Airport Police Station, Bengaluru, based on the Lookout Circular given by the CCB, Cyber Crime Cell. 

But the XI Metropolitan Magistrate by an order on August 10 refused to accept the request of remand citing lack of prima facie material. Following this, Royapettah police, dusted out a case registered on September 21, 2017 and fabricated it to effect another arrest at the Commissioner’s office itself. The counsel on noting that a quash petition has also been filed in this regard, said the case right from its inception is full of material contradiction.