The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has observed that though the Police Department has been provided with infrastructure and guidelines in tracing missing persons there appears to be some lacuna or ignorance regarding the guidelines, which culminates in filing of habeas corpus petitions. It is a sorry state of affairs and needs to be curtailed, the court has said.
A Division Bench of Justices A.D. Jagadish Chandira and R. Poornima observed that the Constitutional courts across the country had already condemned the recurrent abuse of the process by invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of the court with regard to man/woman missing cases without establishing a prima facie case of illegal detention, as habeas corpus petition was a speedy remedy to be invoked exclusively in the cases of illegal detention.
For simple man/woman missing cases, especially when the persons concerned went on their own volition, there was an alternative and efficacious remedy available and the extraordinary jurisdiction of the court need not be invoked. The sharp rise in the number of habeas corpus petitions being filed in respect of man/woman missing cases bothered the court, the judges observed.
Hearing two separate habeas corpus petitions, the court took note of the fact that in both the petitions the missing persons went out of their homes on their own volition and thereby the petitions were not at all maintainable.
Guidelines had been issued by the Director General of Police in the matter of man/woman missing cases and children missing cases. It was painful to note that at many instances the police were said to have not dealt with the man/woman missing cases properly, and they filed a closure report stating ‘undetected’ before the court concerned.
The court disposed of the petitions and directed the police to continue the investigation to trace the missing persons, which should be monitored by the higher officials concerned.
Published – October 08, 2025 11:12 pm IST
