Madurai: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High
Court has quashed the detention under the Goondas Act of four
DMK men including a close aide of Union Minister MK Alagiri,
who were allegedly involved in the attack on the office of a
Tamil daily in which three persons were killed.
Allowing individual habeas corpus petitions, a Division
Bench comprising Justice M Jaichandren and Justice S Nagamuthu
held on Friday that there was "unexplained delay" in
considering the representations made by the accused to the
government with a plea to revoke the orders.
Relying on various Supreme Court rulings, the court said
the "unexplained delay in the disposal of the representation
made by detainees amounted to breach of the Constitutional
imperative and render the detention impermissible and
illegal".
While Pandi, a close aide of Alagiri, VK Gurusamy and M
Ochubalu had been detained under the Goondas Act between Jul
28 and Aug 17, ‘Kudamurutti` Arumugam had been detained under
the Act on Aug 1.
Three employees of Dinakaran, a Tamil daily, lost their
lives in the attack on the office on May 9, 2007 following the
publication of a survey that gave an edge to former Deputy
Chief Minister and Karunanidhi`s son MK Stalin over his
brother Alagiri to succeed their father.
PTI
