Suspects in heinous crimes cannot avoid police custody anymore by surrendering before judicial magistrates in far away districts. Similarly, notorious criminals cannot follow the modus operandi of making unconnected individuals surrender before such magistrates to divert the investigation, thanks to the Madras High Court.
The High Court on Friday ordered that henceforth all judicial magistrates in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry should not remand in judicial custody persons who surrender voluntarily in connection with criminal cases investigated at police stations located outside the territorial jurisdiction of those magistrates.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh held such practice, in vogue for decades together, as illegal. He said, the magistrates could invoke their power to remand under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure only when the suspects are produced by the police and not when they surrender voluntarily.
