REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(s). 755 OF 2011

REKHA Appellant (s)

VERSUS

STATE OF T.NADU TR.SEC.TO GOVT. & ANR Respondent(s)

WITH

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 756 of 2011

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 757 of 2011

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 759 of 2011

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 760 of 2011

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 762 of 2011

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 763 of 2011

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 764 of 2011

J U D G M E N T

MARKANDEY KATJU, J.

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 755 OF 2011

Heard learned counsel for the parties.

This Appeal has come up in a reference made by a

two Judge Bench of this Court by order dated 15.03.2011.

The detenu in this Appeal Ramakrishnan (whose wife

Rekha has filed this Appeal) has been detained by a

detention order dated 08.04.2010 passed under the Tamil Nadu

Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-

offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic

:1:

Offenders, Sand

Offenders, and Slum Grabbers and Video

Pirates Act, 1982, on the allegation that he was selling

expired drugs after tampering with the labels and printing

fresh labels showing them as non-expired drugs. The habeas

corpus petition filed by the wife of the detenu before the

Madras High Court challenging the said detention order has

been dismissed by the impugned order dated 23.12.2010.

Hence, this Appeal.

Several grounds have been raised before us, but, in our

opinion, this Appeal is liable to succeed on one ground

itself, and hence we are not going into the other grounds.

The detention order reads as under :-

“No. 199/2010

Dated 08.04.2010

DETENTION ORDER

Whereas I, T. Rajendran, IPS., Commissioner

of Police, Chennai Police, is satisfied that the

person known as Tr. Ramakrishnan, male aged 35,

S/O Devaraj, No. 82-B, South Mada Veethi,

Villivakkam, Chennai-49 is a Drug Offender as

contemplated under Section 2(e) of the Tamil Nadu

Act 14 of 1982 and that with a view to preventing

him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the

maintenance of public order, it is necessary to

make the following order.

Now therefore in exercise of the powers

conferred on me by sub-section (1) of Section 3

of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous

Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Forest

Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders,

Sand Offenders, and Slum Grabbers and Video

Pirates Act, 1982 (Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982)

read with orders issued by the Government in G.O.

(D) No. 6, Home, Prohibition and Excise (XVI)

Department dated 18^th January, 2010 under sub-

section (2) of Section 3 of the said Act, I

hereby direct that the said Drug Offender Tr.

:2:

Ramakrishnan, S/o Devaraj, be detained and kept

in custody at the Central Prison, Puzhal,

Chennai.

Given under my hand and seal of this office

the 8^th day of April, 2010.”

The relevant part of the grounds on which the said

detention order has been made is as follows :-

“Thiru. Elango, M. Pharm, male aged 43, S/O

Ramasamy is working as a Drug Inspector, Drug

Control Department, Perambur Range, Zone-II,

D.M.S. Complex, Teynampet, Chennai-18.

On

15.03.2010, Thiru. Elango appeared before the

Inspector of Police, Crimes P-6 Kodungaiyur

Police Station and lodged a complaint against

Thiruvalargal, Prabhakar @ Ravi, 2) Venkatesan,

3) Sanjay Kumar, 4) Sekar, 5) Baskar, 6) Pradeep

Kumar Chordia and 7) Meenakshi Sundaram.

In his complaint, he has stated that expired

drugs collected from the medical shops of Chennai

city and Suburban used to be dumped at dump yard

of Corporation ground at Ezhil Nagar,

Kodungaiyur, Chennai. On 15.3.2010, Thiru,

Elango received a secret information that expired

drugs dumped at the dump yard at Corporation

ground, Ezhi