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Sapkale was detained beneath the Maharashtra Prevention of Harmful Actions (MPDA) Act on July 18, 2024, regardless that he was already in judicial custody on the time in reference to a separate legal case. The preventive detention order was not served till Might 27, 2025, practically 11 months later, when he was launched on bail and instantly re-arrested.
Advocate Harshal Randhir, representing Sapkale, argued that the delay in serving the detention order and its execution after bail amounted to a blatant abuse of authorized course of.
A division bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Hiten S Venegavkar famous that preventive detention is an “distinctive measure” that intrudes upon private liberty and should strictly conform to constitutional safeguards.
“The regulation doesn’t authorise the detaining authority to sit down over the execution of an order at its pleasure,” the bench acknowledged. “When the particular person is already in judicial custody and simply accessible, the authority is anticipated both to execute the order in jail or to indicate cogent materials indicating an actual and proximate risk of the detainee being launched on bail.”
The court docket took critical word of the “deliberate and unexplained delay” in executing the order, remarking that the authorities had saved it in “chilly storage” for practically a yr. It additional criticised the state for counting on a 2023 legal case within the detention order that had no connection to Sapkale, he was neither an accused nor a witness within the matter.
The reason provided, that the reference to the unrelated case was a “typographical error”, was dismissed by the bench as irresponsible. “This defect goes to the basis of the subjective satisfaction [required for preventive detention] and can’t be cured by any subsequent clarification,” the court docket stated.
The judges additionally famous procedural lapses, together with the failure to offer Marathi translations of key paperwork to Sapkale, a Marathi-medium scholar, thereby rendering his proper to make an efficient authorized illustration meaningless.
Calling the conduct of the state authorities “an arbitrary and colourable train of energy,” the court docket ordered that the Rs 2 lakh compensation be paid by the state authorities however recovered from the wage of the district Justice of the Peace answerable for the unlawful detention.
The ruling is being seen as a powerful reaffirmation of constitutional protections and a cautionary message to authorities misusing preventive detention legal guidelines.
– Ends
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