Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a three‑judge bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday that an appeal will be filed against an Allahabad High Court order that quashed the detention of Delhi University student and activist Akriti Chaudhary under the National Security Act.
Mehta made the statement before Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana. He referred to a senior counsel’s earlier mention of a notice issued to a Greater Noida student for participating in a Cockroach Janta Party protest at Jantar Mantar, clarifying that the notice was issued by an executive magistrate of Greater Noida and not the district magistrate. The SG noted that the Noida DM was inundated with media queries about the order.
The bench recalled that the Allahabad High Court had recently quashed an order of the Gautam Buddha Nagar administration that detained another student and awarded her compensation. Mehta said the Supreme Court would challenge that decision. Earlier that day, the Chief Justice strongly criticized the Greater Noida executive magistrate for issuing a notice to a student despite the court’s earlier order, and the apex court said it would seek an explanation from the magistrate.
On September 2, the Allahabad High Court, in a division bench headed by Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev, condemned the manner in which the Noida district magistrate passed the detention order, warned that continued “despotic” conduct could turn Uttar Pradesh into an Orwellian dystopia, and awarded Chaudhary Rs 5 lakh in compensation. The court also directed that the amount be recovered from the salaries of the Gautam Buddha Nagar DM, the officers who prepared the dossier, and the SHO, noting that officers bear responsibility for upholding constitutional rights and that their conduct must be recorded in service files.
