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. 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. 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. It directed payment of ₹ 5 lakh compensation to her and ordered the amount to be recovered from the Gautam Budh Nagar DM’s salary.
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. 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. 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 petition is yet to be listed before the Supreme Court.
