The Allahabad high court on Thursday reserved judgment on a habeas corpus petition filed by journalist Satyam Verma, challenging his preventive detention under the National Security Act, 1980 (NSA), over his alleged role in the April 2026 workers’ protest in Noida.
The plea described this as an ironclad alibi and argued that an NSA detention order based on physically impossible and demonstrably false premises was liable to be quashed. It further alleged that the investigating officer deliberately suppressed the CDRs and CCTV footage from Hasanganj police station from the detaining authority, thereby vitiating the latter’s subjective satisfaction. The bench comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdev reserved the verdict after hearing the parties for two days on Wednesday and Thursday (October 7 and 8). The petition claims that, according to the CCTV footage and Call Detail Records (CDRs), Verma was approximately 500 kilometres away in Lucknow, where he was allegedly detained by the Hasanganj Police at 2.14 pm on the same day. The petition also contends that Verma was not named in any of the 11 FIRs relied upon by the State for the detention.
Advocate Abhishek Dwivedi, counsel for Verma, said the court reserved the verdict after hearing the parties concerned but refused to comment on the court room proceedings and said that he would be in a position to speak anything only once the judgment is made public. The detention order rests upon statements allegedly made by a co-accused/witness named Mangal while in police custody, according to the plea.
