Highlights:
- Supreme Court dismissed UP Government’s appeal seeking Dr Kafeel Khan’s detention
- UP Government sought Dr Khan’s detention under NSA
- Allahabad High Court, too, denied Dr Khan’s detention
On Thursday, the Supreme Court of India dismissed the appeal from the Uttar Pradesh Government against the order from Allahabad High Court saying Dr Kafeel Khan cannot be detained under the NSA also knows as National Security Act.
Uttar Pradesh which is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court of India challenging the verdict of the Allahabad High Court dated 1st September.
On the 1st of September, the Allahabad HC quashed the detention order and allowed the habeas corpus petition which was filed by Nuzhat Perween, mother of Dr Kaleef Khan.
Dr Kaleef Khan is a lecturer who hails from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh and was arrested in January 2020 from Mumbai over the alleged “inflammatory” speech he gave on the 13th of December 2019 at the Aligarh Muslim University during one of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019.
Dr Khan was then slapped with charges under the strict NSA, 1980 for “disturbing public order in the city and creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity within the citizens of Aligarh”.
On the 1st of June, his month Pweween moved a habeas corpus petition before the Allahabad High Court after the Supreme Court of India court refused to intervene in the matter, stating that High Court is more “appropriate forum”.
Dr Khan only walked out of the Jain in September when the Allahabad High Court dismissed his detention under the National Security Act and ordered his immediate release.
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Earlier the court also declared that the extension on his detention was illegal and ordered that he must be released immediately and further asked the NSA charges to be dropped against him. The relief came after months of detention for Kafeel who had been in the jail for making inflammatory speeches in December.
Dr Khan was put behind bars in January.
Days after Dr Khan was released from the jail, he appealed to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, to reinstate his job in the state medical services. Dr Khan was addressing a press conference in Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan, where he said he felt safe as it is a state under the rule of Congress, indirectly comparing it with Uttar Pradesh.
Dr Kaleel Khan was suspended from the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur after several children in the hospital died back in 2017, apparently, it was due to lack of oxygen cylinders at the hospital run by the government.
After a departmental inquiry cleared Dr Khan of most of the charges, he later found himself in trouble for an allegedly provocative speech he gave at the Aligarh Muslim University last December during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
