CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has rapped the State Home Secretary and the Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) for showing scant respect to the Supreme Court orders in the matter of granting remission to an IPS officer, who had been awarded three years imprisonment on the alleged charge of abducting a woman.“It is very unfortunate to note that the respondents have not furnished any reasonable explanation for not considering the representations of the petitioner,’’ Justice KN Basha said on April 12 and directed them to release D Ethiraj forthwith by applying the GOs of remission referred to by the Supreme Court in its order dated October 11 last year.Ethiraj was arrested while working as DSP in Udhagamandalam and a lower court awarded three years imprisonment. While serving the sentence in the Coimbatore Central Prison, his daughter Sujatha Shivakumar moved the Madras High Court with a Habeas Corpus writ petition to set her father at liberty. However, the High Court rejected her plea.She preferred a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court, which after hearing the arguments of senior counsel V Padmanabhan, held that Ethiraj was entitled to remission as per the GO dated February 23, 1992 and other GOs. The GOs were still subsisting and the State was bound by the same, the apex court had said and directed Ethiraj to make a fresh representation praying for remission, within six weeks. Accordingly, Ethiraj sent a representation on January 6 this year. As there was no response even after the expiry of the six weeks period, Sujatha filed the present writ. Padmanabhan contended that non-consideration of the representations showed the scant respect of the officials to the apex court orders. Allowing the petition, Justice Basha observed that this court was constrained to state that the SC itself had categorically held that the detenue was entitled to the benefits of the GOs and in view of the undisputed fact that Ethiraj had also undergone the sentence for more than 17 months and if the remissions covered under the GOs referred to by the Supreme Court were applied, as Ethiraj had been sentenced to imprisonment only for three years, he ought to have been released long back and as such, every day of further imprisonment would certainly amount to the infringement of the liberty of the detenue. The same would amount to willful disobedience of the specific directions given by the Supreme Court,the judge said and ordered Ethiraj’s immediate release.
Comments
0 comment