HC Rejects Plea Of Accused In Trafficking Case

HC Rejects Plea Of Accused In Trafficking Case 27 Jan 2009, 0319 hrs IST, TNN Text: CHENNAI: The efforts of an accused in an immoral trafficking case, Mohan Reddy, to get out of jail failed with the Madras high court dismissing his habeas corpus petition last week. A division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice R Subbiah rejected the petition, pointing out that an identical petition filed by Reddy's wife had been dismissed by the court earlier. Noting that there were no new grounds or facts to entertain the new petition, the bench said Reddy had failed to show that there was no requirement for his continued detention. The Chennai city commissioner of police passed an order to detain Reddy on June 11, 2008 under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Sand Offenders, Slum Grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982. The order was passed after the city police arrested him in connection with criminal cases, which led to the rescue of two girls from his custody. His wife Jyothi moved a habeas corpus plea which was dismissed by the high court in October 2008. While no appeal has been filed against that order, Mohan Reddy preferred the present petition stating that there were new facts and circumstances. Dismissing it, the judges said typographical errors in detention orders could not be construed as contradiction, and that other grounds of challenge such as variation in the time of arrest, confession statement and arrest report could have been raised before the earlier bench where the first habeas corpus petition was filed. Rejecting Reddy's claim that he did not know Tamil and that he had been furnished all documents in Tamil, the judges referred to the prosecution statement that Reddy was facing a criminal trial in a magistrate court since 2003 and that he never asked for copies in Tamil.

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