Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Gurumukh Singh vs The State Of Tamil Nadu on 23 July, 2025
Bench: Sudhanshu Dhulia, Aravind Kumar
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.____________ OF 2025
[@ SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO. 7442 OF 2025]
GURUMUKH SINGH …APPELLANT
Versus
THE STATE OF TAMIL NADU & ORS. …RESPONDENTS
ORDER
1. Leave granted.
2. The appellant has challenged the impugned order dated 28.03.2025 whereby the Madras High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by the appellant challenging his son’s detention, who has now been under preventive detention for more than eleven months.
3. The brief facts of the case are:
(a) On 29.06.2024, an FIR at Police Station Theni (Tamil Nadu) was registered under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in relation Signature Not Verified to a cyber fraud of about Rs. 84 lacs. During the investigation, Digitally signed by JATINDER KAUR Date: 2025.08.02 12:23:54 IST Reason: the appellant’s son (Abhijeet) was found to be involved in the crime, and he was arrested on 25.07.2024 from his residence in Delhi.
(b) Thereafter, on 23.08.2024, the District Magistrate of Theni, Tamil Nadu passed a detention order under Section 3(2) read with Section 3(1) of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, 19821 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) by which appellant’s son (hereinafter referred to as ‘detenu’) was detained as he was declared a ‘Cyber Law Offender’, under the Act.
(c) This detention order was affirmed by the State government under Section 3(3) of the Act vide order dated 03.09.2024, and subsequently, with the approval of the Advisory Board constituted under the provisions of the Act, the State government confirmed the detention order of the detenu under Section 12 of the Act for a period of twelve months from the date of detention.
(d) The appellant filed a Habeas Corpus petition challenging the order of detention, and the same was dismissed by the High Court vide the impugned order dated 28.03.2025. Now, the appellant is before us.
4. We have heard the counsel for both sides and perused the material on record.
5. The appellant’s case is that their representation dated 02.09.2024 was not considered by the State government while approving the detention order under Section 3(3) of the Act on 03.09.2024. Further, it is contended that the representation dated 02.09.2024 was not even placed before the Advisory Board, which had approved the detention order on 25.09.2024. Thus, according to the appellant, the detention of the detenu is in violation of the procedure prescribed by the Act. We do not find any force in these arguments of the appellant, for the reasons given hereunder.
6. Under Section 3(1) of the Act, the State Government is empowered to issue a detention order against any bootlegger, cyber law offender, drug offender, goonda, immoral traffic offender, sand offender, sexual offender, slum grabber or video pirates in cases where State Government is of the view that it is necessary to detain a person in order to prevent such person from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. In accordance with Section 3(2) of the Act, these powers can be conferred on a District Magistrate or Police Commissioner; however, in cases where such an officer passes an order of detention, he shall forthwith send a report to State government informing about the detention order along with other materials related to the case and such detention order would remain in force only for a maximum of twelve days unless the same is approved by the State Government.
7. In the present case, the District Magistrate had passed an order detaining the detenu on 23.08.2024, and it was approved by the State government on 03.09.2024, i.e. before the expiry of 12 days as stipulated above. According to the appellant, a representation dated 02.09.2024 was submitted on behalf of the detenu, and since the State government approved the detention order on 03.09.2024 without considering the representation dated 02.09.2024, the order of detention becomes illegal and liable to be quashed. But this argument is not correct. Although Section 3(3) of the Act provides that the detention order passed by a District Magistrate or Police Commissioner cannot remain in force for more than twelve days unless the State Government approves it in the meantime, but it does not put the State Government under any obligation to hear or take into consideration any representation made by the affected person before approving the detention. There may be a case where the State government may pass an order under Section 3(3) of the Act approving a detention on the same day on which such a detention order is passed by the District Magistrate or the Police Commissioner. In such a case, no question of consideration of any representation by the State government would arise. Thus, we are of the view that till the stage of the Government’s order dated 03.09.2024, the detenu had no right to have his representation considered.
8. Once an order of detention is approved under Section 3(3) of the Act by the State government, then according to Section 10 of the Act, it is required to be sent to the Advisory Board within three weeks from the date of detention along with detention grounds, report of the officer and the representation, if any, made by the person affected. Thereafter, the Advisory Board submits its report on the detention to the State government within a period of seven weeks from the date of detention, which has been done.
9. The appellant though also challenges the detention order on the ground that their representation dated 02.09.2024 was not placed before the Advisory Board, and the Advisory Board gave its opinion in favour of detention on 25.09.2024 without considering their representation. We are not impressed by this argument as well. Though it is mandatory for the State government to place such representation before the Advisory Board and truly in the present case, the representation dated 02.09.2024 was not placed before the Advisory Board when it passed an order supporting the detention, but it is an admitted fact that before passing the order dated 25.09.2024, the Advisory Board had considered another subsequent representation made by the detenu, i.e. representation subsequent to 02.09.2024 which was against order of 25.09.2024. Further, the High Court was of the view that the contents of the earlier representation dated 02.09.2024 and the subsequent representation dated 25.09.2024, which was considered by the advisory board, are exactly the same. In other words, the High Court records in very clear words that the grounds raised in the representation dated 02.09.2024 were repeated in the subsequent representations dated 25.09.2024 and 12.10.2024, which were duly considered by the Advisory Board and the State Government respectively, before passing orders supporting the detenu’s detention. We agree with the observations of the High Court that there has been substantial compliance with the procedure laid out under the Act. Thus, we do not think that any prejudice has been caused to the detenu or that there is any violation of the scheme of the Act.
10. Once the Advisory Board expresses its opinion, the State government has to finally confirm or revoke the order of detention as per Section 12 of the Act. The perusal of the impugned order reveals that after the approval by the Advisory Board, another representation dated 12.10.2024 was filed before the government, which was considered and rejected by the State government before passing the final order dated 09.11.2024 under Section 12 of the Act, confirming the detention. Thus, in no way can it be said that the detention order was approved without considering an effective representation made on behalf of the detenu.
11. The other aspects, like allegations of not serving documents in the Punjabi language, the mother tongue of the detenu, have already been dealt with by the High Court. As rightly observed by the High Court, the detenu is a highly educated person and representations made on his behalf make it clear that he as well as his representatives are well conversant with the Hindi and English language, and thus, not serving the documents in his mother tongue (Punjabi) did not cause any prejudice to him since documents were served in Hindi and English language.
12. This appeal hence stands dismissed.
13. Before parting, we also make it clear that no observation made in this order shall affect any other proceedings pending against the detenu.
14. Pending application(s), if any, stand(s) disposed of. Interim order(s), if any, stand(s) vacated.
………………….……………J. [SUDHANSHU DHULIA] .....………………………….J. [ARAVIND KUMAR] New Delhi July 23, 2025 ITEM NO.55 COURT NO.8 SECTION II-C S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s). 7442/2025 [Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 28-03-2025 in HCPMD No. 1274/2024 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Madras at Madurai] GURUMUKH SINGH Petitioner(s) VERSUS THE STATE OF TAMIL NADU & ORS. Respondent(s) IA No. 124666/2025 - EXEMPTION FROM FILING C/C OF THE IMPUGNED JUDGMENT IA No. 124667/2025 - EXEMPTION FROM FILING O.T. IA No. 126138/2025 - PERMISSION TO FILE ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS/FACTS/ ANNEXURES Date : 23-07-2025 This matter was called on for hearing today. CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SUDHANSHU DHULIA HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARAVIND KUMAR For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Laxmikant Matadan Shukla, AOR Mr. Ravindra Kumar, Adv.
Mr. Satya Prakash Shukla, Adv.
Mr. Amit Shukla, Adv.
Mr. Rajnish Kumar Jha, Adv.
For Respondent(s) :Mr. Balaji Subramanian, A.A.G. Mr. Sabarish Subramanian, AOR Ms. Arpitha Anna Mathew, Adv.
Mr. K.s.badhrinathan, Adv.
Mr. Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Adv.
Ms. Jahnavi Taneja, Adv.
Mr. Veshal Tyagi, Adv.
Mr. Danish Saifi, Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R
1. Leave granted.
2. The appeal stands dismissed in terms of the signed order placed on the file.
(JATINDER KAUR) (RENU BALA GAMBHIR) P.S. to REGISTRAR ASSISTANT REGISTRAR