The Supreme Court has ruled that a person cannot be detained under a preventive detention law so as to keep a person under perpetual custody, as authorities are bound to discharge their normal functions of investigating a crime and bring the accused to trial. Preventive detention involves detaining of a person without trial in order to prevent him/her from committing certain types of offences. But such detention cannot be made a substitute for the ordinary law and absolve the investigating authorities of their normal functions of investigating crime which the person may have committed. “After all, preventive detention in most cases is for a year only and cannot be used as an instrument to keep a person in perpetual custody without trial,” a bench of Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice SS Nijjar ruled.
The apex court passed the order while directing release of Munagala Anjaiah of Andhra Pradesh detained on Feb. 15, 2011, under the Andhra Pradesh Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Dacoits, Drug Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Land Grabbers Act, 1986. The detention order challenged by his wife Munagala Yadamma was dismissed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, upon which she filed an appeal in the apex court. Rejecting the plea, the apex court said, offences alleged against the appellant are of a nature which can be dealt with under the ordinary law of the land.