The Madras High Court has directed the State government to pay a compensation of ₹10 lakh to two women who were branded as bootleggers and detained illegally for over four months due to the delay in receipt of files from the office of Minister V. Senthil Balaji after an Advisory Board did not find sufficient cause for their preventive detention.
Justices S. Vaidyanathan and A.D. Jagadish Chandira ordered that ₹5 lakh each should be paid to M. Muthulakshmi, 38, and S. Sathiya, 34, of Nagapattinam district within six weeks. The orders were passed while disposing of habeas corpus petitions challenging the preventive detention orders passed by the Collector on January 28.
When the HCPs were listed for hearing on July 21, an Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) informed the court that an Advisory Board, constituted under the preventive detention Act, had found that there was no sufficient cause for their detention and therefore, the detention orders passed by the Collector had been revoked by the government.
