CHANDSI SAH Vs. STATE OF TELANGANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The detention of three individuals ( hereinafter referred as 'the detenus'), who were allegedly working in tandem in commission of property offences, made under separate but identical orders is questioned in these Writ Petitions.

(2.) As the facts in all these three cases are identical, it will suffice if we refer to the facts in one case. Accordingly, we have chosen WP.No.46833 of 2016 for this purpose.

(3.) The detenus are accused in 12 property related offences. These Criminal Cases were registered by different Police Stations in the city of Hyderabad and some other places. The allegation against the detenus is that in the guise of polishing gold and silver articles in the limits of Hyderabad and Cyberabad Police Commissionerates, Adilabad and Nizamabad Districts of Telangana State and also in the State of Maharashtra, they had been indulging in a series of property offences, thereby, creating large scale fear among the public and affecting public order. The allegations on which all the 12 criminal cases have been registered reveal that the detenus had been deceiving the women folk by adopting a specific pattern. It is alleged that they undertake to polish gold and silver articles; that in that process, they divert the attention of the people by showing them brass and copper polished items and asking them to hand over their gold ornaments for polishing; that trusting them, when the gold ornaments are handed over to them, they ask the owner of the ornaments to bring a vessel with water for cleaning purpose; that when the vessel with water is brought, the detenus mix some colour in it, ask the owner of the ornaments to boil it and take out the ornaments after five minutes; that when the owner of the ornaments goes to the kitchen to boil the same, the detenus flee the scene with the gold ornaments.