KAUSALYA Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts: (a) One Sankararaman, Manager of Varadarajaswami Perumal Temple at Chinna Kancheepuram, was brutally murdered on 03. 09. 2004 at 05. 30 p. m. , while he was in his office of the temple, by the hooligans engaged at the instance and in pursuance of the conspiracy hatched by Jayendra Saraswathi of Kanchi Mutt. (b) The motive for the said incident is that Jayendra Saraswathi was unable to bear the mental torture on receipt of anonymous letters sent by the said Sankararaman, exposing the illegal activities in the Mutt. (c) During the course of investigation in this case, the sponsoring authority decided to put some of the accused under the Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982 and placed all the materials collected against them before the detaining authority, requesting for their detention. (d) Accordingly, the detaining authority, having considered the materials placed before it, detained several accused in the said murder case, branding them as "goondas", by passing separate orders on different dates. (e) Out of those persons detained, 11 detenus have filed these Habeas Corpus Petitions before this Court separately, some of them directly and some of them through their relatives, seeking for quashing of the detention orders clamped against them and for their consequent release.

(2.) AS the ground case in all these detention orders is one and the same, it would be appropriate to pass a common order and, accordingly, the same is being passed.

(3.) THE points, on the basis of which the arguments have been advanced by different learned counsel for the 11 detenus, challenging the detention orders, are different. However, they could be grouped into the following captions: (1) Non-applicability of Public Order to the instances quoted; (2) Non-application of mind, including the aspect of imminent possibility of the detenu being released on bail, on the part of the detaining authority; (3) Non-supply of the documents referred to and relied upon; (4) Non-supply of translation copies of various documents, despite demand; and (5) Non-consideration of the vital documents.