E. SAMY (IN CRL MP (MD) NO. 1003 OF 2018 AND CRL OP (MD) NO. 17080 OF 2016/ACCUSED NO. 10) Vs. THE INSPECTOR OF POLICE, THALLAKULAM POLICE STATION, MADURAI DT., AND ANOTHER (IN BOTH CASE)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These Petitions coming on for hearing on this day and upon the perusing the affidavits and petitions filed, and upon hearing the arguments of Mr. V. Padmanabhan, Senior Counsel for Mr. S.B. Viswanathan, Advocate for the petitioner, (in both cases) and of Mr. R. Prabhu Ramachandran, Government Advocate (Criminal Side) on behalf of the Respondents, this Court made the following order:

(2.) Office raised a question regarding maintainability of these Criminal Miscellaneous Petitions by citing Section 362 of Cr.P.C. This Court, hence, directed the Registry to post the matter before the Court for maintainability.

(3.) When the matter was posted for maintainability, this Court heard Mr. V. Padmanabhan, learned Senior Counsel, elaborately and directed the Additional Public Prosecutor to file a counter affidavit, since the question of maintainability rests on certain factual assertions of the petitioners that the Hon'ble Judge while reserving orders did hear the learned counsel for the petitioners. Since the said contention is to be verified on facts, this Court directed the learned Additional Public Prosecutor who appeared on 07.02.2017 to file a counter. Since the learned Additional Public Prosecutor who appeared probably did remember what had happened on that day, no counter affidavit has been filed. However, Mr. K.S. Duraipandian, who is also the Additional Public Prosecutor of this Bench filed a report. In paragraph 4 of the report, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor stated that he contacted the then Government Advocate (Criminal side) Mr. A.P. Balasubramani and Mr. Anbarasu who were looking after the criminal matters before the concerned Court at the particular point of time and that the report is based on their statements. It is stated that the said counsels have given statement to the learned Additional Public Prosecutor that all the petitioners/accused were represented by their respective counsels before the Hon'ble Court and due to efflux of time and the fact that they had to attend more than 500 cases in a given day, they could recollect as to whether a Senior Counsel represented the Advocate on record Mr. S.B. Viswanathan on that particular day. Hence, this Court find that the report of the learned Additional Public Prosecutor is specific as to the appearance of the learned Senior Counsel or about hearing the counsel on record appearing for the petitioners in the main Criminal Original Petitions before the case was reserved for orders. However, from the orders passed by this Court, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor has given the dates. The events as recorded by Court from the docket entries in the main Criminal Original Petitions are extracted below for convenience:- <FRM>JUDGEMENT_765_LAWS(MAD)2_2018_1.html</FRM>