Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
Markandey Katju, S.S. Nijjar and Gyan Sudha Misra

JUDGMENT

Markandey Katju, J.

Criminal Appeal No. 755 of 2011

1. Heard learned Counsel for the parties.

2. This Appeal has come up in a reference made by a two Judge Bench of this Court by order dated 15.03.2011.

3. The detenu in this Appeal Ramakrishnan (whose wife Rekha has filed this Appeal) has been detained by a detention order dated 08.04.2010 passed under the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Sand Offenders, and Slum Grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982, on the allegation that he was selling expired drugs after tampering with the labels and printing fresh labels showing them as non-expired drugs. The habeas corpus petition filed by the wife of the detenu before the Madras High Court challenging the said detention order has been dismissed by the impugned order dated 23.12.2010. Hence, this Appeal.

4. Several grounds have been raised before us, but, in our opinion, this Appeal is liable to succeed on one ground itself, and hence we are not going into the other grounds.

5. The detention order reads as under:

DETENTION ORDER

Whereas I, T. Rajendran, IPS., Commissioner of Police, Chennai Police, is satisfied that the person known as Tr. Ramakrishnan, male aged 35, S/O Devaraj, No. 82-B, South Mada Veethi, Villivakkam, Chennai-49 is a Drug Offender as contemplated under Section 2(e) of the Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982 and that with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order, it is necessary to make the following order.

Now therefore in exercise of the powers conferred on me by Sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Sand Offenders, and Slum Grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982 (Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982) read with orders issued by the Government in G.O. (D) No. 6, Home, Prohibition and Excise (XVI) Department dated 18^th January, 2010 under Sub-section (2) of Section 3 of the said Act, I hereby direct that the said Drug Offender Tr. Ramakrishnan, S/o Devaraj, be detained and kept in custody at the Central Prison, Puzhal, Chennai.

Given under my hand and seal of this office the 8^th day of April, 2010.

6. The relevant part of the grounds on which the said detention order has been made is as follows:

Thiru. Elango, M. Pharm, male aged 43, S/O Ramasamy is working as a Drug Inspector, Drug Control Department, Perambur Range, Zone-II, D.M.S. Complex, Teynampet, Chennai-18. On 15.03.2010, Thiru. Elango appeared before the Inspector of Police, Crimes P-6 Kodungaiyur Police Station and lodged a complaint against Thiruvalargal, Prabhakar @ Ravi, 2) Venkatesan, 3) Sanjay Kumar, 4) Sekar, 5) Baskar, 6) Pradeep Kumar Chordia and 7) Meenakshi Sundaram.

In his complaint, he has stated that expired drugs collected from the medical shops of Chennai city and Suburban used to be dumped at dump yard of Corporation ground at Ezhil Nagar, Kodungaiyur, Chennai. On 15.3.2010, Thiru, Elango received a secret information that expired drugs dumped at th........