The Supreme Court has quashed the NSA detention of Mulla Afroz, an accused in the 2024 Sambhal violence, holding that the State could not have passed the order on the basis of a confession allegedly made in police custody, and imposed costs of Rs 10 lakh on the Uttar Pradesh government.
Two questions have become tangled in the debate over the Supreme Court’s September 23 order in Medha Roopam v. Akriti Chaudhary: whether Justice Satish Chandra Sharma ought to have sat on the matter, and whether the stay he passed was legally sound. The answers, this analysis argues, point in opposite directions, the propriety concern deserves an institutional answer, but the stay on the compensation and strictures was close to inevitable on settled precedent.
The Supreme Court has stayed the operation of paragraphs 27 to 33 of the Allahabad High Court judgment that had directed the recovery of ₹5 lakh from the personal salary of Noida DM Medha Roopam, and recorded strictures against her, over a student’s quashed NSA detention. Issuing notice on her plea and a connected State petition, the Court stayed the strictures until the matter is heard on merits, and listed it for October 7.
The Supreme Court has reserved orders on a plea by Noida District Magistrate Medha Roopam challenging the Allahabad High Court’s direction to recover ₹5 lakh from her personal salary as compensation to a student whose National Security Act detention, over the Noida workers’ protest, the High Court quashed as based on a ‘concocted’ story. The State and the DM argued that the personal strictures and cost were unwarranted, and pressed for a stay. The student’s counsel opposed the plea.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside a National Security Act detention order, holding that it was vitiated by non-application of mind, as the District Magistrate had relied on stale cases and on cases in which the detenu had actually been acquitted, but which were shown as pending or ending in conviction. The Court reiterated that preventive detention requires a live and proximate link between past conduct and the apprehended breach of public order, and that a measure curtailing personal liberty demands strict adherence to its safeguards.
Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam has moved the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court order directing that Rs 5 lakh compensation awarded to Delhi University student Akriti Chaudhary be recovered from the salaries of the officers responsible for her NSA detention. The petition is yet to be listed.
