THE ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT has come down heavily on the District Magistrate of Noida, Medha Roopam, for detaining a Delhi University student, Akriti Chaudhary, under the National Security Act (‘NSA’) in connection with protests by labourers demanding better wages.
A Division Bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev held that the grounds of detention given by the District Magistrate were repetitive, speculative, and based solely on opinion, without referring to a shred of evidence or material in support of those opinions.
The Bench observed that the District Magistrate had tried to make an example of a female student activist in order to deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in public spaces in support of the labourers.
“The District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, is guilty of violating her oath of allegiance, making this a fit case for the imposition of compensation to the petitioner,” the Bench said.
The Bench awarded compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to the petitioner, to be recovered from the salary of the District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, who passed the detention order without application of mind, and from all such other officers who may have been responsible, right down to the Station House Officer (‘SHO’) of the police station who prepared the initial report warranting the detention of the petitioner under the provisions of the NSA.
“The displeasure of this Court against the conduct of the District Magistrate concerned and all such other officers of the police who were involved in preparing the dossier against the petitioner be noted in their service records,” the Bench said.
Background
On April 11, 2026, there was widespread agitation in Gautam Buddha Nagar by labourers who were aggrieved by the payment of low salaries without any increase for several years, working twelve hours at a stretch, and receiving salaries of between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 15,000, which was inadequate to lead a dignified and wholesome life in view of rising prices.
Workers, numbering in the thousands, came out into the streets near the industrial establishments and allegedly indulged in acts of vandalism and arson. They destroyed the façades and glass panes of the factories and also set ablaze vehicles, including police vehicles.
Several FIRs were initially registered without naming the petitioner, but she was later added as an accused.
The police alleged that the petitioner was the agent provocateur on account of whose actions and dissemination of information the riots commenced from April 13. It was further alleged that the petitioner and her associates, between 6, 7 and 8 April 2026, commenced the agitation and incitement to violence by the labourers from Manesar in Haryana, and thereafter shifted their focus towards Noida and hatched a conspiracy, allegedly in a library, on how the violence against the State and its entities should be executed.
Interestingly, the Bench noted that the petitioner was taken into custody on April 12, while the violence commenced only from April 13.
The State argued that WhatsApp chats between the petitioner and her associates revealed that the petitioner had allegedly told her associates that the police had gathered in large numbers in order to arrest those who were agitating peacefully and were scaring them by misusing their authority, and therefore anyone who could see and read this message should come in large numbers to prevent the unlawful actions of the police and to stand in support of the labourers who were being exploited.
Grounds on which the NSA was invoked
The Bench pointed out that the first ground related to April 12, the date on which the petitioner was arrested and produced before the Magistrate for remand, and how, at her indication, her mobile phone was recovered on April 25 (thirteen days after her arrest), from which the WhatsApp chats were recovered.
The second ground, the Bench pointed out, related to April 10, where the allegation against the petitioner was that, in order to make the impending agitation by the labourers violent, she met her associates and created groups over WhatsApp, and thereafter the violence erupted from April 13, 2026 on account of the conspiracy hatched by the petitioner and her associates.
“Paragraph 3 relates to the commencement of violence on 13.04.2026 and how on 11.04.2026 the petitioner, along with her co-conspirators, at about 9.00 a.m. in the morning, gathered at Hosiery Complex, N.S.E.Z., Phase-2, Gautam Buddha Nagar, along with 300–400 workers and tried to prevent labourers from going to their work. The date on which this is supposed to have happened is 13.04.2026 pursuant to the alleged conspiracy which is stated to have been hatched on 11.04.2026, after which she was arrested on 12.04.2026, though it is the consistent case of the petitioner that she was arrested by the police on 11.04.2026,” the Bench noted.
When exactly was the petitioner arrested?
The State argued that the petitioner was arrested on April 12, while the petitioner’s counsel, Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, asserted that she was arrested on 11 April itself.
The State argued that a notice under Section 130 of the BNSS was issued to the petitioner on 12.04.2026 before she was taken into custody. The notice required her to furnish a bond of Rs. 50,000 for good behaviour. When the petitioner refused to furnish the bond, she was taken into custody on the basis of General Diary Entry No. 37 dated April 12 at 10.56 a.m. by the District Unit (Commissionerate Gautam Buddha Nagar).
The arrest was said to have been made at 10.20 a.m. on April 12. The notice under Section 130 was also given to the petitioner on April 12.
The Bench pointed out that General Diary Entry No. 37 was generated at 10.20 a.m. on April 12, and the mention of the G.D. number in the notice under Section 130 revealed that the notice was prepared after the arrest of the petitioner.
Had the same been prepared before the arrest, the G.D. number would not have been mentioned on the notice under Section 130 BNSS, the Bench said.
“Mentioning the G.D. number in the notice under Section 130 of the BNSS reveals that the petitioner was already arrested and the procedure of giving a notice under Section 130 of the BNSS was ex post facto the arrest and nothing more than a sham,” the Bench ruled.
“An answer was sought from the learned counsel for the State with regard to the visible fabrication in the record, for which no answer is forthcoming from the learned counsel for the State,” the Bench noted.
The Bench also examined the extracts from the WhatsApp conversation between the petitioner and one of her associates that were produced and relied upon by the State.
On page 1 was the conversation between one Priyambada, an associate of the petitioner, messaging the petitioner. The date of the message is April 11 at 17:56 hrs, to which there is no reply from the petitioner. Then there were two messages at 17:57 hrs, one at 17:58 hrs, next at 18:14 hrs, 18:35 hrs, 18:56 hrs, 19:11 hrs, and a missed call at 19:31 hrs. None of these messages and the call were answered by the petitioner.
The State referred to a WhatsApp chat showing messaging between the petitioner and Priyambada, which shows a video clip of the gathering sent by the petitioner to Priyambada at 13:41 hrs on April 11, which was replied to with an emoji by Priyambada at 13:50 hrs, and thereafter Priyambada messaged at 13:56 hrs, which was replied to by the petitioner at 14:03 hrs.
“Thus, the messages at page 1, which are of 11th April 2026 from 17:56 hrs onwards, sent to the petitioner Akriti Chaudhary by her associate Priyambada, have not been answered by the petitioner. The only probable reason was that the mobile was not with the petitioner or that she was in a situation that she could not reply to the messages from Priyambada, which probabilises as true the version put forth by the petitioner that she was in the custody of the State from 5.30 p.m. of 11.04.2026, while her formal arrest was shown from 12.04.2026, and concomitantly falsifies the contention of the State that the petitioner was in the custody of the State only from 12.04.2026,” the Bench held.
No ground for detention under NSA
The Bench said it repeatedly asked the State to point out from the WhatsApp chats and the video recordings as to which one of them incited people or disclosed a conspiracy inciting people to indulge in acts of rioting, arson and destruction of public and private property. But the State could not show a single message from the WhatsApp chats between the petitioner and her associates, or any video clip, which would reveal any incitement from the petitioner, either evidently or by necessary implication, which would disclose that it was the involvement of the petitioner and the conspiracy hatched by her that resulted in the violence which erupted from April 13 much after the petitioner was taken into custody by the State on April 11.
“The video images relied upon by the State show a large number of people having gathered, which include men and women in traditional rural clothing, all standing near lamp posts, and one video image of a person who seems to be addressing the public. None of these videos disclose that the crowd is agitated or armed with lathis, stones or any such articles which may be used in an act of violence, but appear to be exercising their constitutional right and freedom of speech and agitating their demands for higher pay and humane working hours,” the Bench held.
The Bench underscored that the petitioner had called for citizens to support the labourers and to agitate for their rights. There is no material, the Bench said, to reflect that such agitation would have to be violent or challenge the authority of the State.
“The freedom of speech and expression extends to coming out on the streets and agitating a cause, and gathering peacefully without arms or without threat to public order. However, the State must also realise that a peaceful agitation where people collect without arms or ammunition can still be scuttled by mischievous elements who may be sent by parties interested in ensuring that such an agitation is broken, and also where such elements may indulge in acts of violence, which thereafter gets attributed to the entire group, which is patently unjust,” the Bench ruled.
It added that the State must also realise that every society has its own tensions and its share of disagreements with the Government in the manner in which it functions, and that allowing agitations is like the safety valve in a pressure cooker, which ensures that the building-up of pressure is released rather than preventing such agitations and bottling up feelings to such an extent that when people do spill out onto the streets, violence becomes inevitable and difficult for the law-enforcement agencies to control and contain.
The Bench also lamented that those in the bureaucracy and the police, when they act in a manner which is harmonious with their oath of allegiance, the thankful citizens of this State shall elevate them, and very rightly so, to a position which would be envied by the gods themselves.
“However, every time they ignore that solemn oath and act contrary to it, the people of the State of Uttar Pradesh would view them as an oppressive vestige of the British Empire, arousing angst and hatred towards them and creating an environment of civil unrest”, the Bench said.
The Bench warned that an errant bureaucracy could reduce the State of Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian dystopia.