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Supreme Court terms  PD Act as extraordinary Act, says it can’t be invoked against citizens in normal circumstances in violation  of personal  liberty of citizens

In a land mark judgement, the apex court of the country, Supreme Court of India, has termed  PD (Preventive Detention ) Act as an extraordinary Act and said that the Act can’t be used against the citizens of the country in violation of their fundamental right of personal liberty under normal circumstances. A vacation bench of Justice CT Ravi Kumar and Justice Sudanshu Dhulia made these important observations while dealing with a case involving the invocation of the PD Act against two accused of chain snatching by Rachakonda police of Hyderabad. The police invoked the Act against the two accused in October last year . In their orders, the police said that most of the victims of the accused were women and added that the invocation of the PD Act would act as a deterrent to the accused and prevent them from committing such crimes in future. Arguing the case on behalf of the accused before the vacation bench,  Telangana High Court Advocate D. Sudarshan said that although the accused had 38 pending cases against them, the case related to chain snatching incidents were only four. He also told the SC that the accused got bail in all the four chain snatching cases from magistrate courts from Hyderabad between May 6,2022 to July 26,2022.   Agreeing with the arguments of the counsel for the accused , the vacation bench allowed the petitions of the accused urging it to set aside the orders passed by the Telangana High Court and quash the orders of the Rachakonda  police invoking the PD Act against the two accused. The wives of the two accused approached the SC following dismissal of their Habeas corpus petitions by the Telangana High Court on March 25 this year. The wives of the two accused urged the Telangana High Court to quash the orders of the police sending their husbands to jail under the PD Act and set them free. Speaking on the occasion, the counsel for the wives of the accused D. Sudarshan expressed his happiness at the verdict of the Supreme Court. He said that the police had violated the fundamental right of personal freedom privacy of the accused and added that the police should have invoked the PD Act after the cancellation of the existing bail of the accused, which had already  been granted by the magistrate court in the four cases. He said that the police had not mentioned the names of the accused in the four chain snatching cases cited by them before the Telangana High Court to support their decision for invoking the PD Act .

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