SULTHAN BEEVI Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, wife of the detenu by name Eikiya, has filed this Habeas Corpus Petition challenging the detention order dated 9. 7. 2007 of the second respondent under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Sand Offenders, Slum Grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982 (Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982), branding the detenu as a 'video Pirate', to call for the records in connection with the order of detention passed in Memo No. 302/2007, to set aside the same and to direct the respondents to produce him before this Court and set him at liberty.

(2.) THE order of detention came to be passed based on the ground case said to have taken place on 3. 7. 2007, on the basis of the complaint given by one S. Ramanujam. According to the complainant, on 3. 7. 2007, when he was proceeding at Seven Wells, he found the detenu and his associates selling pirated DVDs and VCDs of latest Tamil films by violating the Copy Right Act, 1957. On the basis of the said complaint, a case in Central Crime Branch Chennai X Crime No. 339/2007 under Sections 51 r/w 63 and 52 (A) r/w 68 (A) and 65 of Copy Right Act, 1957 was registered and investigation was taken up, during which the police seized pirated film DVDs of latest Tamil films, blank DVDs, etc. and arrested the detenu and his associates and produced them before the III Metropolitan Magistrate, George Town, who remanded them to judicial custody.

(3.) TAKING note of the above said ground case, the detaining authority, having satisfied that there is a compelling necessity to detain the detenu in order to prevent him from indulging in such activities which are prejudicial to the maintenance of public order, ordered his detention dubbing him as a Video Pirate.