India

Madhya Pradesh Court Orders Release of Two Brothers Detained Under NSA

By Ashutosh Shukla

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered the release of Rajendra Thakur and Rajesh Thakur, who had been held under the National Security Act (NSA) for an alleged threat to public order. A division bench headed by Justice Vivek Agarwal quashed their preventive detention, stating that authorities had failed to establish the required grounds and had acted without applying their minds. The Jabalpur district collector had ordered their detention on 6 January for three months, later extending the period. The court noted that the brothers were named in 14 cases and had been acquitted in 11 where the NSA was invoked. It also highlighted that the authorities could have verified their criminal records through the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems. Three pending cases against the duo involved an obscene act, causing hurt and wrongful confinement, and throwing a crude bomb to create unrest. The bench expressed concern that the NSA invocation and the collector’s detention order were processed through four officials and completed on the same day, indicating a lack of independent application of mind. Citing the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Ameena Begum vs State of Telangana, the court stressed the importance of constitutional safeguards under Articles 14, 19 and 21 to prevent arbitrary detention. The order, delivered on 11 September and made public on 5 October, comes amid similar criticism of NSA detentions in Uttar Pradesh, where the Allahabad High Court recently ordered the release of a Delhi University graduate and fined officials for improper use of the law.