LUCK: The Yogi Adityanath Government in Uttar Pradesh has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging Allahabad High Court order that annulled the National security law against the suspended Gorakhpur physician Dr. Kafeel khan, for supposed speech against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The arrest of Kafeel Khan, the Uttar Pradesh doctor, was “illegal,” the higher court said in its order on September 1, adding that the doctor’s speech showed no effort to promote hatred or violence.
In its petition, the government of Uttar Pradesh has alleged that Dr. Khan had a history of committing crimes, which resulted in disciplinary action, suspension from service, registration of police cases and indictment under the National Security Act (NSA ).
Dr. Khan was indicted under the National Security Act for his speech delivered against the CAA at a meeting in Aligarh Muslim University at the end of last year.
The Gorakhpur doctor was arrested on January 29. While he was first charged with allegedly promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, the charges under the NSA were later invoked after he was released on bail on February 10 of this year.
After Dr. Khan was released from a prison in Mathura, he had said that he would ask Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, to give him back his job in the state medical services.
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 the charges, but his suspension was not overturned. He later found himself in trouble for the allegedly provocative speech in Aligarh about the amended citizenship law.
The NSA authorizes the government to detain people, without charges being brought in court, for up to one year if they suspect they may disrupt public order, endanger the security of India or its ties to foreign countries.
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