Sakina Tashrifwala
Published on: September 24, 2022 at 18:44 IST
The Madras High Court recently ordered the Tamil Nadu government to pay 5 lakh to two women who were labelled as bootleggers by local authorities and illegally detained in preventive detention for four months. [Manokaran vs. State & Others]
According to a Bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and AD Jagadish Chandira, a citizen’s fundamental right to life and personal liberty does not end simply because he or she is imprisoned, convicted, or detained.
“The protection guaranteed under the preceding provision extends even to persons undergoing imprisonment as a convict prisoner, and he does not lose his fundamental rights simply because he is convicted either as a convict prisoner or detained pursuant to a preventive detention order,” the High Court stated.
The Court was hearing two habeas corpus petitions filed by Manokaran and Dhivya’s kin.
Local authorities detained the women on December 8, 2021, and they were later lodged at the Tiruchirappalli district women’s prison. Only 50 days later, on January 28, 2022, the detaining authorities issued a formal preventive detention order against them.
It was noted that, despite an advisory board ruling on March 16, 2022 that no sufficient reasons existed for such detention, the local authorities only issued a revocation order on July 22.
The High Court noted that no explanation for the delay had been provided.
It claimed that the local administration had acted in a sluggish manner, keeping the two women “unnecessarily in prison for four months.”
The Court reiterated that a citizen’s right to life and personal liberty, as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, requires that a person be deprived of his life or personal liberty only in accordance with the procedure established by law.
“The procedure established by law to deprive a person of life or personal liberty cannot be arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable, or whimsical and fanciful,” it added.
The judges went on to say that even a convict must be treated with dignity, even if the convict does not deserve it.
While deciding on compensation, the Court quoted Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Those who deny freedom to others do not deserve it for themselves.”
It went on to call the sequence of events a “classic case of bureaucratic lethargy and slumber,” citing a number of Supreme Court decisions to reach the conclusion that the women, who have since been released, are entitled to compensation.
As a result, it ordered that the compensation be paid to the two women within six weeks.
The State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammad Jinnah and Additional Public Prosecutor Babu Muthumeeran appeared for the State government, while Advocate KAS Prabhu appeared for the petitioners.