THE Allahabad High Court, in a habeas corpus petition disposed of on September 2, has quashed the preventive detention of Akriti Chaudhary, a 24-year-old first-year law student at Delhi University, holding that her continued incarceration under the National Security Act, 1980, was violative of Article 21 of the Constitution. A division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev ordered her immediate release and directed that Rs. 5 lakh in compensation be recovered from the personal salary of the District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), along with the officers responsible for compiling the dossier against her.

The petition arose out of a labour agitation in Gautam Buddha Nagar in April this year, in which workers, several earning between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 15,000 a month for twelve-hour shifts, protested stagnant wages amid rising costs of living. The protests turned violent on April 13, resulting in damage to factory premises and vehicles, including those belonging to the police. Chaudhary, who has no prior criminal antecedents, was arrested in connection with the underlying criminal case and subsequently detained under the NSA on the ground that she had conspired to incite the violence.

PROCEDURE A “SHAM”

The court's central finding was one of chronology. It is undisputed, the bench noted, that the violence commenced on April 13, while the State's own case placed Chaudhary in custody from April 12. The detention order nonetheless sought to attribute the subsequent violence to a conspiracy allegedly hatched before her arrest. On examining WhatsApp records relied upon by the State, the bench found that Chaudhary had ceased responding to messages from an associate from the evening of April 11 onward, a circumstance the court held corroborated her case that she had been taken into custody on that date, a day earlier than the State's official version.

The bench also returned an adverse finding on the notice purportedly issued to Chaudhary under Section 130 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita prior to her arrest, intended to record her refusal to furnish a bond for good behaviour. The notice bore a General Diary number that, as the court reasoned, could only have been generated after her arrest, indicating that the document had been prepared post facto and rendering the stated procedure, in the court's words, "nothing more than a sham."

NO EVIDENCE OF PLANNED VIOLENCE

On the substantive question of subjective satisfaction, the court held that the grounds of detention disclosed no material capable of sustaining the District Magistrate's opinion that Chaudhary's continued liberty posed a threat to public order or the security of the State. Counsel for the State, despite being granted additional time, was unable to identify any communication or visual material amounting to incitement. The court characterised the WhatsApp exchange most heavily relied upon by the prosecution, in which Chaudhary is said to have called on others to resist alleged police high-handedness against peacefully assembled workers, as being, at its highest, an appeal in defence of the workers' rights rather than an incitement to violence. Visual evidence placed on record showed unarmed assemblies, which the court found consistent with the exercise of the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a), rather than any imminent threat to public order.

PREVENTIVE DETENTION AN EXCEPTION

The judgment reiterated settled principles governing preventive detention: that such detention is an exception to the ordinary criminal process and cannot be resorted to as a substitute where the material available may, at best, sustain prosecution under the general law. The bench observed that the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority must be founded on cogent material and not on surmise, and that the absence of such material renders the order of detention arbitrary and liable to be set aside. The bench further recorded its displeasure at the conduct of the District Magistrate and directed that the same be entered in the service records of the officers concerned.

On the question of compensation, the court declined to award the full Rs. 50 lakh claimed, taking into account the State's submission that Chaudhary remains in judicial custody as an undertrial in the underlying criminal case, in which her bail application has been rejected, and that the period of her detention under the NSA has, in effect, merged with that custody. The bench nonetheless held the exercise of authority by the detaining authority to be sufficiently arbitrary to warrant compensation of Rs. 5 lakh, to be recovered from the officers found responsible rather than from the public exchequer.

The order adds to a developing body of precedent in which constitutional courts have scrutinised the invocation of preventive detention statutes against individuals associated with protest activity, reaffirming that such statutes cannot be deployed in the absence of demonstrable material connecting the detenue to a threat against public order or the security of the State.