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Court orders Swami's release

Legal Correspondent

No grounds to detain him under the Goondas Act, says Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that there is no sufficient material to detain Venkata Saravanan alias Chaturvedi Swami under the Goondas Act.

A Bench comprising Justices B. P. Singh and Altamas Kabir, ordered his release forthwith and said it would give the reasons later.

Chaturvedi Swami, in a special leave petition last December had appealed against a Madras High Court judgment upholding his preventive detention for one year. While senior counsel K. T. S. Tulsi and S. Ravi Shankar, appeared for the petitioner, Additional Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam and Subramonium Prasad appeared for the State.

The Bench referred to the detention order, which said, "If he [Venkata Saravanan] comes out on bail, he will indulge in further activities, which will be prejudicial to the maintenance of public order."

The Bench said, "The question is whether on the basis of such material, an order of detention was justified, even though the appellant was in custody on the date of issuance of the order of detention."

Government cautioned

Quoting earlier decisions, the Bench said, "If a man is in custody, and there is no imminent possibility of his being released, the power of preventive detention should not be exercised." Cautioning the Government, it said the power of preventive detention given to the appropriate authorities must be exercised in exceptional cases and should be used with [a] great deal of circumspection."

"There is nothing on record to show that the appellant had made any preparation for filing a bail application or that another bail application had actually been filed by him, which was likely to come up for hearing in due course, " the Bench said, adding that in the absence of any material to show that there was an imminent possibility of the appellant being released on bail, "the mere ipse dixit [perception] of the detaining authority is not sufficient to sustain the order of detention".

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