SC lauds Tamil Nadu's preventive detention against cyber offenders

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday lauded Tamil Nadu for taking action against cybercrime offenders under the preventive detention law.

“This is a good trend that preventive detention laws are being used against cybercrime offenders. It’s a very welcome approach,” remarked a Bench of Justices Sandeep Mehta and Joymala Bagchi, adding that the ordinary criminal laws were not proving “successful” to deter cybercriminals.

The Justice Mehta-led Bench was hearing a special leave petition(SLP) filed by the father of a detenue, suspected to be one of the members of the cyber crime gang, against the detention order.

Earlier, the Madras High Court had dismissed the habeas corpus writ petition, rejecting the contention that the detention order violated Article 22(5) of the Indian Constitution as well as the procedures laid out under the preventive detention law.

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The Tamil Nadu Cyber Police arrested the petitioner’s son after a complaint was filed by a cybercrime victim alleging that she had been duped of a sum of Rs 84,50,000, and a part of the crime money had gone into his current account maintained in the name of M/s Creative Craft.

In the course of the investigation, it has come to light that the accused had created four companies in his name and his family members’ names and opened multiple bank accounts to siphon off the cheated money.

After the Cyber Crime Branch had sponsored the preventive detention, the District Collector passed the detention order in August last year. Subsequently, in an order passed in December 2024, the Tamil Nadu government confirmed the detention and ordered the cybercrime accused to be detained preventively for a period of 12 months.

The SLP filed before the apex court argued that the detenue, who hails from Punjab and his mother tongue is Punjabi, was served with documents in Tamil, Hindi and English, denying him a fair opportunity to make a representation against the order of preventive detention The language related argument was rejected by the Madras High Court, observing that though the detenue’s mother tongue may be Panjabi, but, he was well conversant with English and Hindi languages because of his educational qualification and long domicile in New Delhi.

Further, the SLP contended that the sole case of alleged cybercrime cannot justify his detention as the preventive detention law is aimed at preventing the detenu from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order.

The Supreme Court will now hear the matter on Wednesday (June 25) since the counter-affidavit filed by the Tamil Nadu government could not come on record.

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