Illegal detention case: GB Nagar DM challenges ₹5L compensation in SC

District Magistrate Medha Roopam has petitioned the Supreme Court against a high court ruling ordering ₹5 lakh compensation for a student’s illegal detention.

Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate Medha Roopam has moved the Supreme Court challenging an Allahabad high court order directing ₹5 lakh compensation to a Delhi University student for her illegal preventive detention under the National Security Act, with the amount ordered to be recovered from the IAS officer’s salary.

The DM’s challenge is understood to focus particularly on the direction fastening monetary liability on her personally, besides strictures against her. (Photo for representation)

Roopam’s petition, filed on September 10, comes days after solicitor general Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court that the Uttar Pradesh government would challenge the high court judgment that quashed the detention of 25-year-old history graduate Akriti Chaudhary. The DM’s challenge is understood to focus particularly on the direction fastening monetary liability on her personally, besides strictures against her.

The petition is yet to be listed before the Supreme Court.

In its September 2 judgment, the Allahabad high court ordered Chaudhary’s immediate release after finding that her detention under NSA was based on a “concocted” story put together by state authorities. It directed payment of ₹5 lakh compensation to her and ordered the amount to be recovered from the Gautam Budh Nagar DM’s salary.

A bench of justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdeva also directed that its displeasure with Roopam and the police be recorded in their service records, making strong observations about the conduct of the district administration.

The court said Roopam’s conduct was “worthy of derision” and appeared to indicate an attempt to “set an example” out of Chaudhary, a student activist, to deter others from participating in protests.

Describing the preventive proceedings as “ex post facto the arrest and nothing more than a sham”, the court said the state had offered no satisfactory explanation for what it termed the “visible fabrication in the record”.

It examined WhatsApp chats, videos, case diary entries and other material relied upon by the authorities but found no evidence that Chaudhary had incited people to riot, commit arson or damage public or private property.

The court also criticised the use of administrative machinery against peaceful protesters and said the state should instead equip police to manage large gatherings and use videography to establish accountability when violence occurs.

In a sharp warning, the court said IAS and IPS officers must remember that their loyalty was to the Constitution and not the political executive. Continued “despotic” conduct by “errant” bureaucracy, it said, could reduce UP to “an Orwellian dystopia”.

The case has acquired additional significance following another episode involving the Gautam Budh Nagar administration.

On September 4, an executive magistrate had issued a preventive notice to Akshat Tripathi, a 20-year-old second-year student of Gautam Buddha University, alleging that he was spreading “anti-government propaganda” and encouraging fellow students to participate in protests led by the Cockroach Janata Party at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.

The notice required Tripathi to furnish a ₹5 lakh personal bond and two sureties of the same amount. It was withdrawn the next day after a police inquiry found that the information on which it was based was false. Tripathi had left campus for his semester break and was in Prayagraj when the alleged activity took place.

The Supreme Court had on September 1 invoked its powers under Article 142 to close criminal proceedings arising from the July CJP protests. It directed that FIRs registered between July 20 and 25 over the demonstrations be treated as closed and that no fresh FIRs be registered over the same incidents.

The bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant had also made clear that mere participation in the protests could not be treated as an offence under penal laws, while keeping separate the cases of 2,837 people whom Delhi Police claimed had criminal antecedents and were prima facie present at the protest site.

It was against this backdrop that Mehta informed the Supreme Court on September 9 that the Uttar Pradesh government and the DM would challenge the Allahabad high court’s order in Chaudhary’s case.