Chennai: The Madras High Court has criticised the police for registering various cases and FIRs against a person, said to be a journalist and even detaining him under the stringent Goondas Act, saying law enforcers should not be going after such whistleblowers.
It is high time the higher echelons in the law enforcing department take up the matter seriously and keep a watch on the performance of their subordinates so that the law enforcing agency acts within the rule of law and for the betterment of the citizens and the society, the court said.
"For the illegal affairs, as is being brought to the eyes of the common man by such of those whistleblowers, the law enforcing agency should take steps to apprehend such persons, who are corrupt and not go after the persons, who bring to light such illegal acts," Justice M Dhandapani said in his recent order.
The judge was allowing a batch of more than 25 criminal original petitions filed from 2017 from V Anbazhagan and his wife challenging the FIRs registered against him and the arrests, even under the Goondas Act.
The charge against Anbazhagan was he had threatened the respective complainants that he will publish scandalous materials against them in a vernacular daily, if they fail to accede to his demand for payment of ransom money, in some cases as lump sum and in some other cases also monthly payments.
After going through the materials and listening to the arguments of both the parties, the judge found the charges against the petitioner were not proved.
The counters filed by the prosecution were mere "pieces of papers", filed just to fulfill the mandatory requirement.
Holding the FIRs as also the respective cases on the file of the Magistrates concerned are wholly unsustainable and do not stand the test of legal scrutiny and that they deserve to be set aside, the judge set aside all the FIRs registered by the Ukkadam police in Coimbatore and the cases pending before the respective Magistrates.
The judge further observed that the law enforcing agency is for the purpose of safeguarding the citizens, who lead their life according to the rule of law and it is not for the purpose of safeguarding such of those individuals, who, with least respect and regard to the rule of law, flaunt their powers in an illegal manner to enrich themselves and their corrupt acts are flashed by the whistleblowers in the society.
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"It is to be pointed out that corruption has got itself deeply rooted in our day-to-day life that without the aid of corruption, even the day-to-day affairs are not being discharged by the officials, who block and clog the functioning and the image of the governmental machinery in the eyes of the common man."
"Such being the affairs, as is being brought to the eyes of the common man by such of those whistleblowers, the law enforcing agency should take steps to apprehend such persons, who are corrupt and not go after the persons, who bring to light such illegal acts", the judge added.
In the case on hand, the law enforcing agency, rather than being law enforcers, have acted as law breakers by going after the petitioner, without proper materials.
The law enforcing agency, forgetting their duty to the society and also forgetting the oath that they have taken as the custodian of law have breached the barriers and acted in a manner, which is wholly unlawful and deprecatable, the court said.
The common man looks upon the law enforcing agency as his saviour and in that scenario, the "fence should not eat the crops," the judge added.
If such a situation is allowed to surface, then the rule of law will vanish and there will be total lawlessness in the society, which will lead to anarchy.
It is also to be pointed out that the authorities higher up the hierarchy in/judis/ the law enforcing department are bound to keep a watch on their subordinates and their functioning, which should be in the interest of the common man and not for the purpose of guarding and perpetrating illegal acts, the court added. PTI
