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The Delhi High Court Wednesday heard pleas filed by at least nine men claiming compensation for being unlawfully detained by the Delhi Police in connection with their alleged association with the Popular Front of India (PFI).
The petitioners have filed habeas corpus petitions before the HC seeking their release, arguing that they were unlawfully picked and detained without following procedures established by law and were taken to an undisclosed location in the early hours on September 27.
The petitioners contended that the Delhi Police illegally booked them under sections 107 (security for keeping the peace in other cases) and 151 (arrest to prevent the commission of cognizable offences) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and kept them in illegal custody for 14 hours. The petitioners allege that the action of the respondents violate Articles 14, 21, 22 of the Constitution.
Counsel for the petitioners, Mujeeb Ur Rehman, submitted before a bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Amit Sharma that when the petitioners were produced before the Special Executive Magistrate (SEM), he sent them to judicial custody “unlawfully for unknown reasons and unknown duration”.
He argued that the SEM did not provide a copy of the ‘kalandara’ (notice issued under Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and did not pronounce the order and sent the petitioners to judicial custody for seven days.
The counsel appearing for the Delhi Police raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the habeas corpus petitions stating that they are not maintainable as most of the petitioners have been enlarged on bail.
Rehman submitted that even if the prayer for habeas corpus does not lie, the petitioners should be compensated for the manner in which Delhi Police officials unlawfully detained them. He argued that “as per the law, there are so many judgments where courts have given directions that petitioners can file a case against erring police officials” under the Code of Criminal Procedure and can be granted monetary compensation.
The court granted time to the counsel for the petitioners to place on record relevant documents, including judgments, and the matter was adjourned to November 21.
Under Section 107 CrPC, when an Executive Magistrate receives information that any person is likely to commit a breach of peace, is of opinion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding, he may require such person to show cause why he should not be ordered to execute a bond, for keeping the peace for such period, not exceeding one year, as the Magistrate thinks fit.
The Delhi Police had conducted multiple raids in the early hours of September 27 in six districts in the national capital and detained 30 people as a preventive measure, under Section 107/51 of CrPC for breach of peace. The Ministry of Home Affairs on September 28 published a gazette notification declaring PFI along with its “associates or affiliates or fronts including Rehab India Foundation (RIF), Campus Front of India (CFI), All India Imams Council (AIIC), National Confederation of Human Rights Organization (NCHRO), National Women’s Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala as an “unlawful association”.
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