SC frees man held under draconian law

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed immediate release of an alleged spurious chilli seed seller whom the Telangana government detained under the draconian law meant for bootleggers, dacoits, drug offenders, goondas, immoral traffic offenders and land-grabbers.

The law under which the detenu was sent to jail on October 10 last year takes away the person’s liberty to apply for bail. It enables the state to keep the detenu in jail for a year.

It was alleged that the chilli seeds sold were spurious because they did not yield sufficient crops and caused wrongful loss to the farmers, and illegal gains to the accused. “To classify the detenu as a ‘goonda’ affecting public order, because of inadequate yield from the chilli seed sold by him and prevent him from moving for bail even is a gross abuse of the statutory power of preventive detention,” a bench headed by justice LN Rao held. The order came on a petition filed by the detenu’s wife.

In its order sending the man to jail, the state mentioned that the accused’s illegal activities were causing danger to poor and small farmers and their safety and financial well-being.

Recourse to normal legal procedure would be time-consuming, and would not be an effective deterrent to prevent him from indulging in further prejudicial activities, the state said in justification of the detention.

The extreme measure was taken to “insulate the society from his evil deeds”.