Armstrong murder: Madras High Court quashes detention of 17 accused under Goondas Act

Wondering how Greater Chennai Commissioner of Police A. Arun could have scrutinised 14,000 pages of voluminous documents in a single day, the Madras High Court on Wednesday (August 6, 2025) quashed the preventive detention orders passed by him against 17 accused in the murder of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Tamil Nadu unit president K. Armstrong.

A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and V. Lakshminarayanan pointed out that the sponsoring authority (Assistant Commissioner of Police, Koyambedu Range) under the Goondas Act had submitted a proposal before the detaining authority (Commissioner of Police) on September 19, 2024, along with around 14,000 pages of supporting materials.

The detaining authority had accepted the proposal and passed the detention orders on the same day. Allowing a batch of habeas corpus petitions filed against the detention orders, the judges agreed with the detainees’ counsel that it would be humanly impossible for an indvidual to go through such voluminous documents in a single day and take a decision after applying his mind.

“The detaining authority appears to have scrutinised approximately 14,000 pages in one single day… which is an impossible task for any human being… In light of these observations, we are constrained to hold that the detaining authority had not applied his mind while passing the grounds of detention as well as the detention order,” the Division Bench wrote.

Authoring the verdict, Justice Ramesh pointed out the object of preventive detention was not to punish a man for an offence committed by him but to intercept him before he commits an offence and to prevent him from causing disturbance to public order on the basis of his antecedents. Therefore, the detaining authorities must be highly circumspect before issuing the detention orders.

“Any indifferent attitude on the part of the detaining authority… would defeat the very purpose of the preventive detention and turn the detention order as a dead letter and frustrate the entire proceedings,” the judges highlighted.

Effect on bail proceedings

When Additional Advocate General P. Kumaresan feared that the quashing of the preventive detention orders could become an influencing factor for the grant of bail to the accused in the murder case, the judges made it clear that both were mutually exclusive and that in no case, the quashing of a preventive detention order could be considered as a factor to grant bail in a criminal case.

“We intend to remind the bail courts that the standard or grounds for consideration of bail application is distinct from that of the grounds of consideration adopted by the High Court in interfering with the preventive detention orders. While punitive detention is made after proper application of mind, preventive detention touches upon a subjective satisfaction of a detaining authority,” the Bench said.

“In light of these discussions, we make it unambiguously clear that the bail court, in such cases, shall not give weightage to quashing of the detention order, as a ground for the grant of bail. This observation shall hold good for the present case also,” the judges concluded.