SUNDARAM Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present action is one resorted to under Section 438 of the Code of the Criminal Procedure, praying for the release of the petitioners on anticipatory bail.

(2.) THE circumstances leading to the filing of this petition arise this way.

(3.) LIBERTY of a citizen is sacrosanct and such liberty cannot at all be snatched away by just caprice or whims and fancies of law enforcing authority, inclusive of magistracies unless compelling or impelling circumstances are in existence warranting of such snatching away of liberty of a citizen in the manner allowed by law. It is not at all case of the prosecution that the petitioners were arrested at any point of time and subsequently released on bail. It must be understood here that arrest is not a condition precedent in all eventualities or situation before ever a final report under Section 173(2) of the Code is filed. Perhaps the Investigating Agency, in the case on hand, thought that there was no necessity at all for the apprehension of the petitioners before ever a final report under Section 173(2) of the Code had been filed. On the filing of such report, it behaves upon the Court below to inform the petitioners/accused 1, 3, 4 and 5 that the case against them had been taken on file and the hearing had been fixed on a particular day by the issuance of summons, requiring their presence in Court on the hearing date fixed.