In a major relief to Tamil YouTuber A Shankar, widely known as ‘Savukku’ Shankar, the Madras High Court, on Friday, August 9, quashed the Goondas Act invoked against him. The court has also directed that Shankar be released if his detention was not needed in any other case. A bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam passed the order while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Shankar’s mother Kamala.
Shankar has been booked in several cases and was detained under Goondas Act by the then Chennai Commissioner of Police Sandeep Rai Rathore on May 12. He was booked in various districts for multiple offenses, including for possession of ganja, forgery, stalking and harassment of women.
The Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Cyber law offenders, Drug-offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Forest-offenders, Sand-offenders, Sexual-offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982, is shortly referred to as The Goondas Act. It is a stringent act that allows authorities to make preventive detention of habitual offenders, including murder accused, immoral traffic offenders, sexual offenders and other such offenders to prevent their dangerous activities that could be detrimental to public order.
Shankar was arrested for making derogatory remarks about police personnel. During an interview in April, he alleged that women police personnel were giving sexual favours to a senior police officer in order to get promotions.
The high court order comes close to a month after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the case. On July 18, the top court granted interim bail to Shankar in the case pertaining to his preventive detention under the Goondas Act.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said that the bail was concerning only the preventive detention and would not apply for the other cases he was booked under. The bench also ruled that it would not decide on the merit of the case but he should be released till the case was decided by the Madras High Court.
