Noida DM moves SC against HC's 'dystopia' rebuke over student's detention under NSA

NEW DELHI: Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate Medha Roopam moved Supreme Court days after she was reprimanded over the detention of a student protester under the National Security Act.This comes after Allahabad high court quashed the NSA against Akriti Chaudhary - a 25-year-old student - who was taken into custody in connection with Noida worker's protest in April.The court found that the detention was based on a story "concocted" by the state and directed her immediate release if her arrest was not warranted in any other case. It also directed that a compensation amount of Rs 5 lakh be deducted from Medha Roopam's salary. It had also directed that the high court's displeasure against the DM and police officers involved in preparing the dossier be recorded in their service records.Allahabad high court had also warned Roopam that continued "despotic" conduct by "errant" bureaucracy could reduce Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian dystopia.The court stressed that bureaucrats must remember that their "loyalty is towards the constitution and not the political executive". It further said that officers are servants who serve the people, who are "the masters in a democracy".On September 9, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the apex court that an appeal would be filed against the high court decision quashing the detention order. Rohitashwa Ranjan is a digital journalist with The Times of India, where he decodes Indian politics as a carefully staged production with scripts, subtext and everything behind. His stories track elections, party dynamics and the things that often are buried beneath the headlines. When not parsing vote shares or alliances, he is usually reading between the lines, where the real story tends to reside.