The Uttar Pradesh government, governed by the BJP, filed a special license petition in the Supreme Court against the September 1 verdict of the Allahabad High Court, which overturned the arrest of Dr. Kafeel Khan under the Security Act National (NSA) calling it “illegal” on Saturday.
The matter is likely to be listed before the Supreme Court on December 17. On September 1, the Allahabad High Court overturned the arrest warrant and allowed the habeas corpus petition filed by Dr. Khan’s mother, Nuzhat Perween.
Dr. Khan, a Gorakhpur-based lecturer, was arrested in Mumbai in January this year for an allegedly “incendiary” speech delivered on December 13 at the Muslim University of Aligarh during one of the protests against the Amendment Act. of Citizenship of 2019.
He was then indicted on charges under the strict National Security Act of 1980 for “disturbing public order in the city and creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity among the citizens of Aligarh.”
On June 1, Perween filed a habeas corpus petition with the Allahabad High Court after the high court refused to intervene in the matter, stating that the High Court is a “more appropriate forum”.
Dr. Khan was released from jail in early September after the Allahabad High Court overturned his detention under the National Security Act and ordered his immediate release.
Previously, the court declared the extension of his detention illegal and ordered the immediate release of the detained Dr. Khan and the withdrawal of the strict NSA charges against him. The relief came after months in detention for Kafeel, who had been in prison for delivering inflammatory speeches in December. Dr. Khan had been in prison since January.
Days after his release, Dr. Khan had said that he will appeal to the Prime Minister of Uttar Pradesh to return his job in the state medical services. Dr. Khan addressed a press conference in the capital of Rajasthan, where he said he felt safe as it is a congressional-run state that indirectly compares it to Uttar Pradesh.
He was suspended from Gorakhpur BRD Medical College after several children died there in 2017, apparently due to a lack of oxygen cylinders at the government hospital. A departmental investigation later cleared Dr. Khan of most of the charges, but he found himself in trouble for an allegedly provocative speech in Aligarh during protests last December against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).