Indore, Jul 1 (PTI) The Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed a May 2 order of the Indore district administration to invoke the stringent National Security Act against a 28-year-old man allegedly involved in a pub brawl stating that it was "unsustainable".
A division bench of Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Amarnath Kesharwani, which annulled the NSA order against Ranvir Nekia on Thursday, also directed that Rs 10,000 be paid to the petitioner.
The order of detention dated 02.05.2022 is unsustainable and is accordingly quashed, and the writ petition is allowed with the cost of Rs. 10,000.00 payable to the petitioner, the division bench's order said.
"Under the National Security Act, a person is liable to be detained if there is an apprehension that with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State for maintenance of public order. It means his free movement in society is liable to be curbed by passing the order of detention," the order said.
"But in the present case, the petitioner was already under custody and the order of detention has been passed only on the basis of the strong possibility that he would be released on bail and thereafter would repeat the crime," the HC order added.
NSA was invoked on May 2 against Nekia and another person identified as Irfan Ali (35) after the two were accused of beating up a 23-year-old woman and her friends after a minor altercation in a bar on April 30.
Nekia was arrested for the incident and was later released on bail, only to be booked soon after under CrPC section 151 (arrest to prevent the commission of cognizable offences) and sent to jail, his lawyer Anshuman Shrivastava said.
"When the district administration had ordered that Nekia be sent to jail, he was already in jail at the time," Shrivastava added.
Officials, meanwhile, said while invoking NSA against Nekia, police had cited four cases against his name, including one of molesting a woman and another under the Arms Act.
