‘Abhorrable’: Allahabad HC Pulls Up UP Police for Treating Woman as ‘Possession’ in Case Diary

The Allahabad High Court on November 28, 2025, ordered the release of a young woman who had been sent to a Saharanpur protection home by the Child Welfare Committee, Muzaffarnagar. Earlier, during the November 20 proceedings, the bench had sharply criticised the Muzaffarnagar police for recording in the case diary that she had been taken into “kabza police”, a term the court said referred to possession of chattels and “not humans".

Ordering the woman's immediate release, the bench of Justices J.J. Munir and Sanjiv Kumar held that the police had deprived the woman of her liberty in violation of an earlier stay order and had compounded the illegality by preparing a “fard or memo of possession” relating to a person. 

"To think that in the twenty first century, a man of contemporary society, working in the ranks of the Police, can think that a human being can be taken into possession, on the basis of a memorandum of possession or fard, makes it seem to us that at least the persons concerned in this transaction have not come a long way from the days of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)," the bench said in the order dated November 20. 

Court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Vikas alias Ramkishan, who said that Saniya, daughter of Muneer, was his wife and had been unlawfully confined in the Rajkiya Bal Girha, Pushpanjali Vihar, Saharanpur.

According to the petition, the couple had married on January 29, 2024, in Delhi and lived there as husband and wife. After a fresh complaint by her father in June 2025, Saniya was taken away, subjected to an age-determination process, and later placed in the protection home by the Child Welfare Committee, Muzaffarnagar.

The matter pertained to an FIR lodged by Saniya’s father on June 29, 2025, alleging that Vikas, his brother, and two others had enticed away his minor daughter on June 18.

Before the present plea, in August 2025, a Division Bench had stayed the arrest of Saniya and Vikas in a writ petition challenging that FIR. The High Court recorded that the stay order had been communicated to the Senior Superintendent of Police and the Station House Officer and was even entered in the case diary.

Despite this, on September 8, 2025, the investigating officer made a case diary entry describing Saniya’s custody as “kabza police liya jata hai” and drew up a memorandum of possession. Calling the act “abhorrable,” the bench said the language reflected a mindset that treated a human being as a possession and noted that the memo itself eliminated any doubt about the intention behind it. Saniya was thereafter taken for medical examination.

An ossification and dental assessment conducted at the District Hospital, Muzaffarnagar, on September 9 and 10, 2025, placed her age at around eighteen years. However, the Child Welfare Committee mechanically relied on a school register entry showing her date of birth as April 25, 2009, and ordered her placement in the protection home on September 12, 2025.

To verify the authenticity of the school record, the bench summoned the original registers and the Principal of Ucchh Prathmik Vidyalaya, Ratheri. The principal produced the admission register and the results register, which both carried the same date of birth. He informed the court that Saniya had joined the school in Class V and that her date of birth had been entered on the basis of her Aadhaar card.

The High Court held that such an entry, unsupported by a certificate from a municipal or panchayat authority, had “no fidelity” under Section 94(2) of the Juvenile Justice Act and could not override medical evidence.

With no statutory birth certificate available, the bench accepted the medico-legal assessment and held Saniya to be a major. She was produced before the court pursuant to the rule nisi earlier issued.

In response to questions from the bench, she identified Vikas as the person she wanted to marry, stated that she did not wish to live with her parents, and conveyed her desire to go with him.

Since she had attained majority, the judges held that Saniya was entitled to decide where and with whom she wished to live, and that neither her parents nor the State could interfere with her choice. Court confined its determination to the issue of unlawful detention, clarifying that the question of marriage did not fall for consideration in the habeas corpus petition.

Allowing the petition, the bench ordered that Saniya be “set at liberty forthwith” and declared that she was free to go anywhere she wished, including with Vikas.

Case Title: Smt Saniya And Another vs. State of UP and 3 Others

Order Date: November 28, 2025

Bench: Justices J.J. Munir and Sanjiv Kumar