New Delhi, Aug 18 The Delhi High Court was informed by police on Tuesday that AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar, who was leading a protest against the murder of a sanitation worker, was taken into preventive detention and has now been released, after his family urged the court to step in over apprehension of "illegal" custody.
The submission was made before a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja that was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Kumar's kin who claimed that police personnel in plain clothes "picked up" the legislator at around 4 am on Tuesday and since then they have not been able to contact him.
Earlier in the day, the matter was mentioned for urgent hearing before a bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia that allowed the petition to be listed on Tuesday.
The police informed the high court that Kumar was taken into preventive detention early morning and was released at 3:48 pm.
The bench said, "We are of the opinion that the purpose of the present petition has been served after Kumar's release. For other reliefs, the petitioner's family will be at liberty to take appropriate legal recourse."
Senior advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for Kumar, said that some 20-25 policemen in plain clothes "picked up" the legislator and since then he is not contactable until the matter was mentioned before the bench headed by the chief justice.
The family of the MLA from Kondli has tried to contact the police but there is no information on his location, he said.
"He was leading a protest yesterday against the murder of a sanitation worker in his constituency and seeking compensation. Today morning, he was picked up. Can that be a reason for invoking such a draconian preventive detention arrest?" the counsel added.
He further said that minutes before the hearing commenced, they were informed that the MLA has been released.
The counsel said the men, who picked up Kumar, also damaged and destroyed the CCTV cameras installed at the MLA's I P Extension residence and took away the digital video recorder (DVR) of the CCTV system with them.
He sought compensation for the MLA's "illegal detention" and for damage caused to his property.
"The husband of the petitioner has been illegally detained without any arrest warrant and without following the due process of law and has been deprived of his life and liberty," the petition, filed by Kumar's wife, said.
Hundreds of sanitation workers and auto-tipper drivers from across Delhi protested at Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital on Monday over the killing of an on-duty sanitation worker in Kalyanpuri.
They demanded Rs 1 crore compensation and a permanent government job for a member of his family.
The victim, Anil, was a contractual sanitation worker engaged by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) through a private company and was allegedly stabbed while collecting garbage in Kalyanpuri on the morning of August 16.
