Quashing an order of the Gonda district magistrate externing a Gonda resident from the district for six months in a criminal case in which he was acquitted nearly nine years ago, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court observed that the UP government has repeatedly misused the Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act, 1970, as an instrument of oppression.
It reiterated that the Goonda Act is preventive, not punitive, and cannot substitute for prosecution under ordinary criminal law. Holding that the orders passed by both the DM and the commissioner were legally unsustainable, the high court quashed them and allowed Ali’s petition.
The court said the Goonda Act is a “very powerful” legislation and must be invoked with great caution, only in clear cases and for maintaining public order.
The court also took exception to the police report mentioning the case in which Ali had already been acquitted, observing that it indicated that an incorrect picture of the petitioner had been placed before the DM.
The high court found that Ali had already been acquitted in the 2010 case by the chief judicial magistrate, Gonda, in August 2017. It observed that a case in which a person had already been acquitted could not subsequently be used as a ground to declare him a goonda.
The bench observed that “numerous cases are being presented before this court, indicating that the State is persistent in its approach of using the Goonda Act as a tool of oppression,” calling Ali’s case “a glaring example of the abuse of the aforesaid statute.
