Greater Noida DM moves SC against HC order on student’s NSA detention

Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam has approached the Supreme Court against an Allahabad High Court order, which directed the recovery of ₹5 lakh from her salary and that of other officials to compensate Delhi University student Akriti Chaudhary for detaining her under the National Security Act (NSA) over a workers’ protest in Noida in April this year.

A Division Bench of the High Court had quashed the nearly five-month detention as illegal.

Ms. Roopam's petition has arraigned Ms. Chaudhary as the primary respondent.

The move comes a few days after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who had appeared for the authorities in the High Court, orally indicated that the government would separately challenge the September 2 order.

The High Court had criticised Ms. Roopam’s lack of application of mind to a police report against the student activist. It had allowed Ms. Chaudhary’s habeas corpus petition and ordered her immediate release, unless she was required in another case. The High Court had flagged discrepancies in the arrest notice and termed the State’s version a “concocted story”.

Ms. Chaudhary was among several activists arrested in connection with the protest held between April 10 and 18, during which industrial and contractual workers demanded a hike and parity with wages paid in neighbouring Haryana. The protest had turned violent on April 13.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had invoked the NSA against Ms. Chaudhary a month later, alleging that she had instigated protesters to engage in stone-pelting and arson. During a press conference, the police claimed to have “strong electronic and videographic evidence” against her.

The High Court had said the District Magistrate, by invoking the oppressive provisions of the NSA against a student activist without a criminal record, was setting an “example of her and deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in public spaces in support of the labourers”.

“The District Magistrate Gautam Buddha Nagar is guilty of violating her oath of allegiance,” the High Court had observed in the decision.