PIL to detain Vijayakanth under Goondas Act dismissed

The Madras High Court today dismissed a PIL seeking to detain DMDK leader Vijayakanth under the Goondas Act, observing that it had been filed with the intention of gaining publicity.
Justices V Ramasubramanian and N Kirubakaran, who dismissed the PIL filed by advocate A Jeyaram, suggested that the print and TV media black out the names of such litigants.
"The same (blacking out) may act as an disincentive for people to come up frivolous publicity oriented litigations," the bench said.
Giving a list of categories of PIL, Justice Ramasubramaniam, who wrote the judgement, said the petitioner, who was a worker of a political party, had filed the petition to draw the attention of his party leader.

The judge noted that in older days, the way in which party workers could gain recognition and appreciation from his political bosses was to work tirelessly on the field, pasting posters, distributing publicity materials and organising meetings.
"But after the political bosses became too busy to take note of sacrifices of small-time party workers of unnoticeable status, some of them invented an ingenious way to attract attention. Filing a PIL for initiating action against the leader of another political party has become one such method. This case is of that type."

The petitioner had submitted yesterday that Vijayakanth, leader of the opposition, had been implicated in many criminal cases and prayed that a preventive detention order be slapped on him.

The judge said the petitioner unfortunately did not even know the types of complaints filed against Vijayakanth.
Moreover, the Preventive Detention Act as per the Constitution, should be resorted to only under exceptional circumstances, subject to the satisfaction of the competent authority with reference to various parameters, he said.
The judge said it was common knowledge that most orders of preventive detention were set aside by the court. While so, it was strange that a practising advocate, who is duty-bound to advance the cause of freedom of individuals, had come up with a prayer to curtail the freedom of an individual, he said.