MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed former Transport Minister K N Nehru, his brother K N Ramajayam and former Tiruchy Deputy Mayor M Anbazhagan to surrender before a judicial magistrate on November 9 in connection with a case of vandalising a Thiruvalluvar statue in Tiruchy. Allowing an appeal from the Inspector, Anti Land Grabbing Special Cell, Tiruchy, challenging a Judicial Magistrate’s (JM) refusal to remand the three in the case, a bench comprising Justices M Jaichandren and S Nagamuthu said if the respondents failed to surrender before 9.30 am on November 9, non-bailable arrest warrants must be issued against them. According to the petitioner, on October 3 he had effected “formal arrest” of Nehru, Ramajayam and Anbazhagan in the statue vandalising case while they were lodged in Cuddalore, Palayamkottai and Salem prisons in connection with two land grabbing cases.The following day he filed a petition before the JM-V (Tiruchy) Maheswari Bhanurekha and obtained a Prisoner Transit warrant against the three. She had directed to produce the accused on October 7 since the intervening days were holidays. However, on October 7 since she was on leave, the three were produced before the JM-IV Pushparani, who was holding additional charge. But the latter refused to remand the accused and directed the police to produce them before Bhanurekha on October 10 for “suitable orders”. Subsequently, when the police produced the accused before the JM-V on October 10, she declined to remand them holding that they were not produced for remand within 24 hours from the time of formal arrest. She had relied upon an order passed by a single judge of the HC in April 2009, which was circulated by the court registry to all magistrates. Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Nagamuthu overruled the single judge’s order and said: “Since we have held that, by effecting formal arrest, the accused did not come into the custody of the police, there is no legal mandate that they should be produced within 24 hours before the learned JM, from the time of formal arrest. Thus, we hold that the order passed by the learned JM-V is not sustainable and the same is liable to be set aside.” The bench also found fault with Bhanurekha for initially directing the police to produce the accused on October 7, i.e., after a gap of two days. The judges also pulled up the Judicial Magistrate IV for passing an “erroneous order” as when the accused were produced before her she had merely posted the case before the regular magistrate. They also directed the court registry to place a copy of their order before the Chief Justice of the HC for considering the need to withdraw its earlier circular (based on the April 2009 order). “We further direct that the magistrate shall not adjourn the proceeding (on November 9) at any cost,” the bench concluded.
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