APHC010290922020 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH ATAMARAVATI [3521]

(Special Original Jurisdiction)

TUESDAY,THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY SIX PRESENT THE HONOURABLE DR JUSTICE Y. LAKSHMANA RAO WRIT PETITION NO: 19231/2020 Between:

1.DEVARASETTI CHANDRA SEKHARA PRASAD, S/O VENKATA SWAMI, AGED 39 YEARS, 0CC R/O 26-20-73, OPP.L8TH LANE, AT AGRAHARAM, CHUTTUGUNTA, GUNTUR.

...PETITIONER AND

1.STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH, REP., BY ITS PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, HOME DEPARTMENT, SECRETARIAT, VELAGAPUDI ATAMARAVATHI, GUNTUR DISTRICT.

2.THE DG OF POLICE, DGP OFFICE, MANGALAGIRI, GUNTUR DIST., 3.THE SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE, GUNTUR URBAN, GUNTUR.

4.THE SHO, NAGARAMPALEM, GUNTUR.

5.THE ADDITIONAL SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE, GUNTUR URBAN, GUNTUR.

...RESPONDENT(S):

Counsel for the Petitioner:

1.PALLABALU ANIL KUMAR Counsel for the Respondent(S):

1.GP FOR HOME The Court made the following:

ORDER:

No representation for the Petitioner.

2. In the Writ Petition the prayer is like this: “Declare the action of Respondent No.3 in registering a case in Cr.No.40 of 2020 dated 23.07.2020 for the offence punishable under Section 505(2) of ‘the I.P.C.,’ on the basis of the complaint lodged by the Respondent No.4 as illegal, arbitrary and violation of fundamental rights.”

3. Whereas in the writ affidavit the prayer is thus: “Declare the action of the Respondent Nos.3 & 4 in daily calling the Petitioner to the Police Station without any reason, without considering the fact that the Petitioner is suffering from Covid-19 as illegal, arbitrary and abuse of the process of law and violation of fundamental rights.”

4. The learned Assistant Government Pleader, on written instructions, and also on perusal of the counter filed by Respondent No.4, submits that the Petitioner was never unnecessarily called to the police station. It is further submitted that the Petitioner has indulged in three crimes namely Cr. Nos.69 of 2014, 358 of 2015 and 276 of 2017. Police in order to curb and curtail the unlawful activities of the Petitioner, after obtaining permission from the Assistant Superintendent of Police, West Division, Guntur Urban on 21.08.2015 opened rowdy sheet against the Petitioner vide C.No.85/ASP- WD/2015. Later on, the said rowdy sheet was closed on the Petitioner on

10.05.2016.

5. A learned Single Judge of this Court in Udathu Suresh v. State of A.P¹ while adverting to the constitutional contours of privacy and the jurisprudential evolution from Kharak Singh v. State of U.P2 through Gobind v. State of M.P3 and culminating in K.S. Puttaswamy (Privacy-9J.) v. Union of India4 has unequivocally held that the practice of opening and continuing rowdy sheets without statutory sanction constitutes a manifest infraction of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. The Court observed that mere departmental instructions embodied in Police Standing Orders, lacking the force of “law” within the meaning of Article 21, cannot justify domiciliary visits, coercive summoning, or the branding of citizens as “rowdies” absent credible material and periodic judicially reviewable safeguards. In trenchant terms, the learned Judge emphasized that surveillance must be unobtrusive, proportionate, and founded upon compelling State interest, and that indiscriminate continuation of rowdy sheets, even after acquittals or quashing of FIRs, verges perilously close to unconstitutional excess. Thus, the Court reiterated that the right to privacy, being a primordial natural right and intrinsic to liberty, can only be curtailed by a fair, just, and reasonable law, and not by administrative fiat masquerading as regulation.

1 2022 SCC OnLine AP 1748

2 1962 SCC OnLine SC 10

3 (1975) 2 SCC 148

4 (2017) 10 SCC 1

6. Another learned Single Judge of this Court in K.Srihari Kumar v. Superintendent of Police, Anantapur⁵, while disposing of the batch of Writ Petitions, has categorically declared that the opening and continuation of rowdy-sheets, suspect-sheets, and history-sheets under Chapter-37 of the A.P. P