MAURO ANTONIO Vs. R.P. SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS contempt petition has been filed by two Italian nationals who were detained in Tihar Jail in Delhi on 10.2.2005 in a case under Section 420 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). In the another case involving these two petitioners a production warrant had been issued on 12.2.2005 by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ernakulam Kerala requiring production of these two petitioners in that Court on 18.2.2005. The said production warrant was issued in terms of Section 267 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC). The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi declined the prayer for production of the petitioners in the Kerala Court on the ground that they were required in the criminal cases in Delhi. Consequently the petitioners were not produced in the Court in Kerala on the date indicated in the production warrant.

(2.) PURSUANT to a circular dated 27.11.2003, issued by the Office of the Director General (Prisons), Tihar, New Delhi in matters where a production warrant sent from a court 'Outside Delhi' is unable to be executed, a message is required to be sent soon thereafter to that court to ascertain the next date of production. Accordingly, a wireless message was sent by the Tihar jail officials on 17.2.2005 to the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate Ernakulam, seeking intimation about the next date of production. Although the next date was intimated as 1.3.2005, but even on this date, the petitioners could not be produced since the prayer for producing the petitioners had been declined by the CMM, Delhi.

(3.) ON 18.5.2005, the petitioners were released in Delhi in the criminal case consequent upon the offences having been compounded. However they were not released on the ground that they were possibly required for production in Kerala. At this stage, the petitioners filed an application on 18.5.2005 itself in the Court of CMM, Delhi for directions to the Superintendent to Tihar Jail to release the petitioners 'forthwith if they are not wanted in any other case'. The learned CMM, Delhi called for a report on 19.5.2005. The Superintendent Jail, Tihar filed a report in the Court of CMM informing that a wireless message had been sent to the Court of the CJM, Ernakulam on 19.5.2005 to ascertain the next date.