Chennai Police defend order seeking details of tenants

The city police today defended in the Madras High Court its order directing house owners here to furnish details of their tenants, saying the measure was aimed at preventing anti-social and anti-national elements from indulging in criminal and subversive activities using residential premises as hideouts.
In their joint affidavit before a bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sathish K Agnihotri and Justice K Ravichandra Babu to a batch of petitions challenging the December 5, 2013 order, police authorities submitted that the order was legal, constitutional and valid and passed as per law and taking into consideration relevant issues.
Metropolitan cities in the country faced grave threats from terrorist and subversive elements. Police have to maintain high vigil constantly to prevent and thwart such attempts by anti-national forces and any slackness will be a great threat to public order and national security, the affidavit said.

Similar notifications and orders were already in existence in other metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, it said.
Prosecution had been envisaged only as a last measure to be used in rare cases when it is clear that there was malafide intention on the part of the landlord not to furnish the details of the tenant, the affidavit said.
The order placed no restriction on the landlords to rent their premises to any person of their choice. It only required landlords to furnish some basic information regarding their tenants, it said and prayed that the petitions be dismissed.