Is TN Goonda-Hurry?

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has the dubious privilege of having the highest number of preventive detentions in India over the years, most of which are under the Goondas Act. Chennai-based advocate and independent researcher, R Akila who has recently come up with a report on preventive detentions pointed out that this unsavoury statistic is despite the relatively low levels of public order disturbances.

“In effect, the Goondas Act is used by Tamil Nadu police as a bypass for their inefficient, at times, non-existent investigation techniques,” Akila told DT Next. Her research showed that a large number of detenus are between 18-50 years of age, illiterate or high school drop-outs and belong to the backward castes.

History of Goondas Act

The Act was first enacted as an ordinance and the Bill was passed by the AIADMK government led by former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran in 1982. “Interestingly, the original Bill was met with fierce opposition. Parties including the DMK raised concerns that the preventive detention law could be used by the ruling political party to stifle dissent and persecute members from opposition parties,” Akila noted.

From terming the Bill anti-poor to pointing out that the Act will give lopsided power to police and it does away with important protections available under general law to even caring about the rights of sex workers who could be booked under this Act, the opposition parties seemed to make the right noises when the Bill was enacted.

But, they embraced the Goondas Act when they came to power and used it liberally. The Act was amended in 2004 to include ‘video pirates’ in its ambit and the amendment was passed without any opposition in the legislative assembly.

“The government did not justify how video pirates affected the maintenance of public order. Speeches made by the legislators only referred to how the film industry in the State was facing economic losses due to video piracy,” Akila pointed out and observed that it is not surprising, considering the nexus between cinema and politics in the State.

Subsequent amendments to the Goondas Act added sand offenders, sexual offenders and cyber law offenders. The definition of ‘goonda’ itself was amended to include first-time offenders, without any opposition or even discussion.

“The lack of legislative debates indicate resignation, or even enthused acceptance of the preventive detention framework under the Tamil Nadu Goondas act,” Akila noted.

Act abused in urban areas

Akila’s research showed that the TN Goondas Act is predominantly used in cities. At the time of her research, seven police commissionerates in the State (Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchy, Coimbatore, Salem, Tirunelveli and Tirupur) accounted for over 40 per cent of all detentions under the Act.

According to lawyers, the reason for higher rates of registration of Goondas Act in urban centres is because it is administratively convenient for the police as the detaining authority is the Commissioner of Police, fundamentally making it an intra-department exercise, unlike in the districts, where the power vests with the District Collector.

Concurring with this, a senior police officer with Tamil Nadu police said that, in districts, the report will be sent to the District Collector, which will again be perused by his team comprising the local revenue officials, VAO, and tahsildar and hence the number of Goondas detention is less in districts, compared to cities, where the authority vests with the police commissioner.  

“The Act, in such cases, is invoked more often at the behest of local police as an aid in a criminal investigation — to avoid statutory bail when the final report is not filed,” Akila said.

Akila said detention under the Goondas Act is doled out as a punishment as the State authorities find investigation and prosecution a tedious process. It allows the State to detain persons for one year. In 2020, out of the 2,316 detentions, 771 were in the Commissionerates. As on December 1, Chennai police detained 442 persons under the Act, according to the data provided by city police.

Some of them are first-time offenders. More famously, city police invoked the Act against 14 persons who protested against the burial of a medical doctor who succumbed to COVID-19 in April 2020.

“Those were the early stages of the pandemic and there was not much awareness among the public. For their unlawful Act, they were arrested. But, to invoke Goondas Act was going overboard,” an advocate with Madras High Court noted.

“Locals had been scared by the rumours about the spread of the deadly virus and that is the reason they had expressed their reservation during the burial of the doctor’s body. If the authorities had informed in advance about the procedure of burial and the precautionary measures followed by them, the residents’ apprehension about the spread of the virus would have been dispelled and such protest would not have occurred. Further, the burial was at odd hours,” Madras High Court had said while granting bail to those arrested.

Police detaining first-time offenders under the Goondas Act will defeat the purpose of reformation and rehabilitation of young offenders, said Madras high court advocate S Shankar. “There have been cases where youngsters below 25 years were detained under Goondas Act, without giving them a chance for rehabilitation. In jail, they end up spending more time with seasoned criminals and come out even more corrupt,” Advocate Shankar said.

According to Shankar, in cities, the targets set by officials are sometimes reasons for police to cook up cases against seasoned criminals to detain them under the Goondas Act. 

“There are several cases where police summon seasoned criminals to the police station and manufacture FIRs at the station as if he robbed a shopkeeper and remand them in the case. While in jail, the actual offences will be submitted to the commissioner for detention under the Goondas Act,” Shankar said and pointed out that in these manufactured FIRs, the robbed amount is less than Rs 500, as it is required to be submitted in court.  

A senior police officer, while denying the abuse of the Act by police, argued that they do not invoke Goondas Act against the accused in all murder cases, though it is a grievous crime. “Sometimes, murders happen in a fit of rage. Our officers make a judicious call on repeat offenders and potentially harmful persons,” the official said. 

It is not only the legislature and executive which has gone overboard, even the judiciary at times with the Madras High Court suggesting that the state should consider amending the definition of ‘goonda’ in the Act to include polluters. The court admitted that the suggestion may seem extreme but pointed out that the State included video pirates under the ambit and this was suggested as a stringent measure to control the pollution of water bodies.

In another instance, Justice Kirubakaran asked the State to consider invoking the TN Goondas Act against corrupt public officials.  Advocate Shankar, while principally against the abuse of the Goondas Act, concurred with the observations of the Madras High Court and said the Goondas Act is mostly invoked against the underprivileged.