Two villagers who removed illegal pipes from a water catchment, and were arrested for it, will have their bail heard at a special sitting on October 10, the Madras High Court has ordered, asking whether citizens can be blamed for acting on their own when the official machinery fails.
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Madurai: Directing the Principal Sessions Judge, Sivagangai, to sit specially on October 10 and dispose of the bail petitions of two men arrested for removing culvert pipes laid across a water catchment without permission, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court asked, “When the official machinery fails, can we blame the citizenry for acting on their own ?” [Baskaran and Others v. The District Collector and Others].
Justice G.R. Swaminathan and Justice B. Pugalendhi passed the order on October 9, 2026 in WP(MD) No. 29140 of 2026, taking up the matter on their own motion under the Court’s supervisory jurisdiction in Article 227 of the Constitution. The Court expressed no view on the outcome of the bail pleas.
A sitting fixed for 11 a.m.
The special sitting of the Principal Sessions Judge, Sivagangai, is set for 11 a.m. on October 10, when the bail petitions of Natarajan and Xavier Kennedy are to be heard with the jurisdictional police represented by the Assistant Public Prosecutor. They are to be disposed of by that afternoon, and the Court expressly declined to indicate the outcome. The inspector of the Keelasevalpatti police station, who was impleaded on October 8, and the other respondents are to report compliance. The matter is listed on October 12 at 4.40 p.m.
“Deprivation of liberty even for a single day is one day too many.”
Pipes under a mud road
The petitioners come from Ammapatti and Nagappanpatti in Thiruppattur Taluk, Sivagangai District. As the order records it, a commercial entity put up solar panels on 65 acres of patta land through a private respondent. To get to the land, a mud road was formed across a water catchment next to a tank, with cement culvert pipes laid beneath it. The order notes it was conceded that both the road and the pipes were made without permission.
The villagers protested, and Crime No. 105 of 2026 was registered on September 15, 2026 at the Keelasevalpatti police station under Sections 191(2), 296(2) and 395(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act, 1992. Natarajan and Xavier Kennedy were arrested on September 23 and remanded to judicial custody until October 13, and the Principal Sessions Judge, Sivagangai, dismissed their bail petition on October 6. These are allegations, they are untested, and the High Court has expressed no view on the merits of the case, with the presumption of innocence continuing to apply.
Why the Bench was unconvinced
On the Bench’s reading, the solar panels were not damaged; what was removed were the culvert pipes, and that happened after the villagers got no response from the authorities. It observed that the bail dismissal had rested on an overstated claim of damage and held that the two men’s continued incarceration was not warranted. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Arnab Goswami, it recalled that deprivation of liberty for even a single day is one day too many.
“When the official machinery fails, can we blame the citizenry for acting on their own ?”
What the order does and does not do
Here a High Court used its supervisory power to put a bail hearing on a fixed timetable because liberty was at stake, and treated the administration’s failure to act on an admitted illegality as part of the context for that urgency. The order does not decide whether any offence was made out, and it leaves the bail decision to the Sessions Court.
Case Title: Baskaran and Others v. The District Collector and Others [WP(MD) No. 29140 of 2026]
Bench: Justice G.R. Swaminathan and Justice B. Pugalendhi, Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court
Date of Order: October 9, 2026
Appearances: Mr. K. Navaneetharaja for the petitioners; Ms. M.R. Priyanka Jothi, Mr. A. Shanmugam, Mr. S. Srinivasa Raghavan and Mr. I. Murugesan, Government Advocates, for the respondents