Stranger prohibited from moving for the issuance of writ habeas corpus.

This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution and section 491 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the issue of a writ in the nature of habeas corpus directing the respondents to restore to liberty one Miss Janaki Varadan who is shown as the petitioner. It is stated that because she is unlawfully detained and physically restrained at a house called “the Crags” in Sesharinpuram, Bangalore, by her father, she is unable to make an affidavit herself. The affidavit in support of the petition is, therefore, sworn to by one Rajmohan Gandhi.

The respondents are the Commissioner of Police of the Madras City and Janaki’s father C. Varadan. At the commencement of the hearing of this case on ‘25th October, 1966, Mr. Seshadri stated that as no relief is sought against the first respondent (the Commissioner of Police of Madras City) in the petition, he gives upthe said first respondent. We, therefore, directed that the name of the first respondent do stand deleted from the cause title. The controversy in the case, therefore, is now between Rajmohan Gandhi, deponent to the affidavit in support of the petition and the second respondent C. Varadan, father of Janaki.

The petition was filed on 3rd October, 1966, and brought up for preliminary orders on the morning of the following day. The Court directed notice by emergent process to the second respondent with the further direction that he should produce his daughter Janaki before Court by 3 P.m. that day. As the notice could not be served, a fresh notice requiring the second respondent to produce the petitioner before Court and also to appear at 10 a.m. on 6th October, 1966, was ordered. As this notice also could not be served, a fresh notice was directed to be issued to him on 6th October, 1966, requiring him to produce the petitioner (Janaki) before Court and also to appear at 11 a.m. on Monday the 10th of October, 1966.

On 10th October, 1966, the second respondent appeared through Counsel Mr. S.K. Venkataranga Iyengar and produced his affidavit sworn to the same day byhim before a Notary Public in Bangalore as also an affidavit by his daughter Janaki sworn to on 8th October, 1966, at Madras before a Notary Public at Madras. He also produced two letters dated 24th May, 1966 and 9th June, 1966, in original received by him from Rajmohan Gandhi. In answer to the said affidavit of the second respondent, Rajmohan Gandhi filed an affidavit on 14th October, 1966 producing with it copies of Varadan’s letters to him dated 19th May, 1966 and 5th June, 1966. Varadan, who had not been served either with notice issued by this Court or with copies of the first affidavit of Rajmohan Gandhi filed in support of his petition, filed a further affidavit on 14th October, 1966, in answer to Rajmohan Gandhi’s first affidavit, after having taken out from Court copies of the petition and the affidavit in support of it. With this affidavit he produced a photostat copy of a letter said to have been written by Janaki to Rajmohan Gandhi after having delivered the original to Rajmohan Gandhi through his Counsel Mr. Seshadri. In reply to the said further affidavit of Varadan, Rajmohan Gandhi filed another affidavit on 25th October, 1966, producing with it the original letter of Janaki delivered to him as well as a copy of a letter dated 25th May, 1966, said to have been addressed by Janaki to one R.D. Mathur. The original of this letter was later produced into Court as directed by us on 28th October, 1966, in the course ‘of the hearing.

On the merits of the case, the essential and the only point for examination is whether it is true, as Rajmohan Gandhi alleges, that Janaki is being unlawfully detained and physically restrained by her father Varadan.

On behalf of Varadan, however, what is described as a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the petition itself has been raised by his learned Counsel, the steps in the argument in support of which are the following:

(1) Rajmohan Gandhi is a tot