MADRAS HIGH COURT HABEAS CORPUS PETITION: SPLIT VERDICT ON SENTHIL BALAJI ARREST CASE

On following the hearing of the case of Megala vs. State, the Madras High Court announced a split verdict in the Habeas Corpus plea pertaining to the arrest of Senthil Balaji, where the plea was filed by Megala (the wife of Senthil Baaji) on June 14, 2023. He was previously arrested in a Money Laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act by Enforcement Directorate. Later, he was allowed to be transferred to Kauvery Hospital for treatment after the court denied him interim bail.

‘The matter will be now placed before Honourable Chief Justice for further orders’, it has been said today by the bench of Justice J Nisha Banu and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy. 

As per the ruling of Justice J Nisha Banu, the Habeas Corpus petition is viable, and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act does not give the Enforcement Directorate the authority to request police custody, she also dismissed the Enforcement Directorate's request to deduct Balaji's treatment period from the calculation of the period for custodial interrogation.

Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy held against this ruling, stating that the Habeas Corpus Petition is not maintainable. He noted that HCP cannot be upheld absent proof of the illegality of the arrest and detention. In this instance, he said, the petitioner had failed to establish a claim that the remand was illegal. Hence, the HCP could not be maintainable. It was further observed by Justice Chakravarthy that it was in the best interests of the detainee that he had not been in ED custody for even a day because he had been receiving medical care since his arrest. As a result, he determined that the length of treatment that Balaji received should be excluded when determining the period of custodial interrogation. 

Megala's senior counsels, NR Elango and Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the case, argued that the ED had infringed Balaji's fundamental and statutory rights. Balaji's wrongful detention and violations of his fundamental rights were the reasons for the petitioner's request for the court to step in and secure Balaji's release. The central agency was accused of violating Section 41 of the CrPC and Article 22 of the Indian Constitution. The family further claimed that the remand order issued by the Chennai Principal Session Court was mechanical, and hence the Habeas Corpus petition was maintainable. It further argued that the ED could not request police detention because the Prevention of Money Laundering Act did not grant it the power to do so. That is why, it was equally unjust for the Sessions court to award them custody for 8 days.

As opposed to that, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General ARL Sundaresan and Special Prosecutor N Ramesh argued against the Habeas Corpus petition’s maintainability. It was argued that because the trial court had not ruled that the custody was unlawful, the High Court could not intervene in the order through a habeas corpus petition. However, executive action can be challenged when they violate fundamental rights. The Session Court passed the order upon considering the facts. As a result, it was not a mechanical one that required intervention.

The ED also attempted to eliminate the treatment period from calculating the duration for custodial interrogation, claiming that it could not interview Balaji during the treatment period. Balaji's family argued that there was no legal provision for this and that it could not be extended once the 15-day limit expired.