Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu, sitting as a Supreme Court bench, struck down the Uttar Pradesh government’s National Security Act detention order against Mulla Afroz, ruling that a confession made in police custody cannot justify preventive detention. The court also imposed a Rs 10 lakh fine on the state for the unlawful order.
Mulla Afroz was named the chief conspirator behind the Sambhal mosque clash that erupted during a November 2024 survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid. He was arrested roughly 54 days after the incident and, after the Allahabad High Court granted him bail, was re‑arrested on October 13, 2025 under the NSA.
The NSA allows state authorities to detain individuals deemed a threat to national security for up to 12 months without presenting them before a court, but such orders must be ratified by a board headed by a former high court judge.
Uttar Pradesh defended the detention as essential to prevent a repeat of violence, yet the court questioned the reliance on a legally inadmissible confession. The bench also dedicated the judgment to law clerk Ritvik Deshwal, who died shortly before his 27th birthday, underscoring the human cost behind procedural disputes.
Afroz is freed from preventive detention, the state must pay the fine, and the Supreme Court has set aside the Allahabad High Court ruling—tightening future NSA applications and signaling a stricter scrutiny of preventive detentions.