In a noteworthy development, the Telangana Police has once again come under fire from the Supreme Court for regularly using the power of preventative detention to hold people without taking into account their constitutionally protected basic rights.
The Telangana Police faces censure over frequent misuse of preventative detention powers, raising concerns for citizens’ rights and legal standards by the Supreme Court Division Bench, which included Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra in addition to Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, not to issue detention orders without careful consideration.
The court expressed, “We hope that the State of Telangana takes what has fallen from this Court very seriously and sees to it that the orders of preventive detention are not passed in a routine manner without any application of mind.”
The court made this statement while considering the appeal of the individual who had been arrested by the Telangana Police in preventive custody for repeatedly committing the crime of “chain snatching.” The Telangana Police used this as justification for the detention: the women’s anxiety and terror caused by the detainee’s actions disrupted the “public order.”
Invoking the powers of preventative detention, the Supreme Court annulled the detention order, ordering that the detainee’s actions did not harm the “public order.”
It’s significant to remember that the Telangana Police was chastised by the Court in the Ameena Begum case last year for their careless use of the Telangana Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, 1986, while detaining people.
In Ameena Begum, the Apex court made observations ,“Interference by this Court with orders of detention, routinely issued under the Act, seems to continue unabated. Even after Mallada K. Sri Ram [Mallada K. Sri Ram v. State of Telangana] , in another decision of fairly recent origin in Sk. Nazneen v. State of Telangana [Sk. Nazneen v. State of Telangana,] , this Court set aside the impugned order of detention dated 28-10- 2021 holding that seeking shelter under preventive detention law was not the proper remedy.”