Chennai: The Madras high court on Thursday upheld an order of a lower court granting 10-day police custody of five Maoists arrested on May 4 in Coimbatore. Disposing of the petitions filed by Maoists Roopesh, Kannan, Veeramani, Shyna and Anup Mathew George, challenging the order of Vacation judge of a sessions court in Coimbatore, dated May 6, Justice M. M. Sundresh said already eight days of custody were over.
The Q Branch CID police were not entitled to file any application seeking anymore custody, the judge added. According to petitioners, the lower court ignored the apprehension about the life threat of the accused in the hands of Q Branch police. The accused were already examined for more than 24 hours and their statements were recorded and they have nothing to add further and entrustment of the five accused in the hands of Q branch police was a futile exercise and it will only lead to adopting third degree methods to extract involuntarily confessions, which will lead to violations of fundamental rights of the accused, they added.
They said the lower court ought to have seen that what was seized from the accused namely the cellphone, tab and cash, was nothing to do with terrorist activities and showing sympathy towards terrorist organisation was permissible.The vacation court has no jurisdiction to grant police custody. The special court was already constituted and functioning in Poonamallee and usurping the jurisdiction of the special court was unsustainable, they added.
