The Madras High Court Monday gave a clean chit to a senior journalist two months after it deprecated a magistrate for allowing him to make submissions when the editor of a Tamil magazine was produced for remand.
Tasking the magistrate to file a report on why and under what provisions of law he allowed former editor-in-chief of The Hindu, N Ram to make submissions in the case, Justice Anand Venkatesh had observed in November that court proceedings should revolve around law and facts of the case.
The matter pertains to the arrest of Tamil magazine Nakkeeran’s editor, R R Gopal, in October and his release by XIII Metropolitan Magistrate S Gopinathan.
‘This Court does not find anything wrong with the procedure adopted by the magistrate and the submissions made by Ram in this case, had not in any way affected the decision taken by him (magistrate) since he (Ram) had not made any submissions on the merits of the case,’ the judge said Monday when the case came up.
The magistrate had, in fact, perfectly applied his mind and given scope for the police to collect further materials, and for that purpose, had got an undertaking from the petitioner to appear for interrogation as and when required.
The magistrate had not closed his mind and the openness in his approach is very clear from the fact that he had given liberty to the investigating officer to again approach the court after collecting sufficient materials.
He also ensured that Gopal appeared for interrogation before the police and also before the court at the time of hearing.
Hence, ‘this court does not find any uncertainty in the procedure adopted by the magistrate and he has, in fact, adopted the correct procedure,’ the judge said.
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