The Uttar Pradesh government will challenge in the Supreme Court the Allahabad High Court’s decision to cancel the detention of Delhi University graduate and student activist Aakiriti Chaudhary under the National Security Act (NSA).
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed a three-judge Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant on Wednesday that the High Court’s ruling will be challenged.
On September 2, the Allahabad High Court set aside Chaudhry’s NSA detention and directed the Uttar Pradesh government to pay her compensation of 5 lakh. Further, the court ordered Rs. 5 lakh compensation to her, which is to be recovered from the salaries of officials involved in the legal actions against her.
On Wednesday the case came up before the Supreme Court during the clarification by the Solicitor General on a separate matter that involved a student receiving a notice from an executive magistrate in Greater Noida over his participation in a protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party at Jantar Mantar.
“I am not on the matter… (but) the Noida DM is flooded with queries from media, etc. What order have you passed, etc?” SG Mehta said.
While the court referred to the recent Allahabad High Court ruling of the Chaudhary case during the proceedings. Mehta responded by saying, “That we are challenging.”
The Allahabad High Court on September 2 quashed the National Security Act invoked against Akriti Choudhry in the Noida workers’ protest case. A Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdev noted that the grounds for Akriti’s detention under NSA did not contain a “single shred of evidence” against her. The court has ordered Rs 5 lakh compensation to her to be recovered from the salaries of officials involved in the legal actions taken against her.
The High Court was hearing the habeas corpus plea of Choudhary, a 25-year-old Delhi University graduate, Akriti Choudhry, hailing from Durgapur in West Bengal. Choudhry, a history graduate from DU, theatre artist, and activist, was allegedly abducted by male policemen in plain clothes from the Botanical Garden Metro Station on the night of 11 April, FoEJ Media has learnt.
The Court noted that “Akriti was first arrested, and then the notice was prepared,” which contradicts their version of the story. The Court also questioned the State’s claim that Akriti was involved in the violence. It observed that “Whatever violence has happened is after her arrest,” the Campaign for Release of Workers and Activists of Noida (CaRWAN) told FoEJ Media.
“It appeared that Aakriti had been arrested first, and the notice proceedings were carried out later. The court also questioned the allegation that she had instigated workers to engage in violence. “The court said,
“People had started gathering for the protest from April 11. Justice Shridharan then asked, If no violence had taken place on April 11, what violence had Aakriti allegedly instigated on that day?” The government said,
