SC Scraps Police Orders Against Two Chain-Snatchers

Terming the PD (Preventive Detention) Act as extraordinary, the Supreme Court came to the rescue of two citizens who had been sent to jail by the Rachakonda police under the PD Act, and set them free.

The apex court said that the Act couldn't be invoked against any citizen under ordinary circumstances in violation of their fundamental right to personal liberty.

A vacation bench of Justice C T Ravi Kumar and Justice Sudanshu Dhulia made these important observations while dealing with a case involving the invocation of the PD Act against two persons accused of chain-snatching by the Rachakonda police.

The police had invoked the Act against the two in October last year.

In their orders, the police said most of the victims were women, and that the invocation of the PD Act would act as a deterrent for the accused and prevent them from committing such crimes in future.

Arguing the case on behalf of the accused before the vacation bench, Telangana High Court Advocate D Sudarshan said that although the accused had 30 pending cases against them, the cases related to chain-snatching incidents were only four.

He also told the SC that the accused had gotten bail in all the four chain-snatching cases from magistrate courts in Hyderabad between May 6 and July 26, 2022.

Agreeing with the arguments of the counsel for the accused, the vacation bench ruled in favour of the petitions of the accused urging it to set aside the orders passed by the Telangana High Court and quash the orders of the Rachakonda police invoking the PD Act against them.

The wives of the two accused had approached the SC following the dismissals of their petitions by the Telangana High Court on March 25.

Sudarshan said that he was happy with the verdict of the apex court. He said that the police had violated the fundamental right of personal freedom and privacy of the accused, and that the police should have invoked the PD Act after the cancellation of the existing bail of the accused, which had already been granted by the magistrate court in the four cases.

He added that the police had not mentioned the names of the accused in the four chain-snatching cases cited by them before the Telangana High Court to support their (the police's) decision to invoke the PD Act.