MP High Court Quashes NSA Detention Order Over "Non-Application Of Mind" By Jabalpur DM

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside a National Security Act detention order against two brothers from Jabalpur, holding that the District Magistrate relied on incorrect and stale criminal records while ordering their preventive detention, and that this amounted to a clear case of non-application of mind.

A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh was hearing writ petitions filed by Rajendra Thakur alias Chhotu and Rajesh Thakur alias Bhaiya, challenging an order dated January 6, 2026, by which the District Magistrate, Jabalpur, had ordered their detention under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act, 1980. The detention, initially for three months, had since been extended twice, on April 1 and July 6, 2026.

The petitioners, represented by advocate Nikhil Tiwari, argued that the District Magistrate had listed twenty-two criminal cases against them to justify the detention, most of which were either stale, dating back to 2001, or had already ended in acquittal, and that the detaining authority had acted without providing any opportunity of hearing. Tiwari submitted that the petitioners had been acquitted in sixteen of these cases, with only nominal fines imposed in three others, while the detention order wrongly described several of these matters as still pending trial.

The State, represented by Government Advocate Abhishek Singh, defended the order, submitting that the petitioner was found involved in a bomb explosion at the house of a complainant within the jurisdiction of Police Station Ghamapur, Jabalpur, on January 4, 2026, and that this triggered the recommendation for preventive detention. The State relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in Arun Ghosh v. State of West Bengal, to argue that detention is justified wherever an act is prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. An intervenor, Ms Neelam Thadani, also opposed the petitions, contending they amounted to an abuse of the process of law.

Examining the record, the bench found that the detention order at Annexure R/4 had shown fourteen cases, at serial numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, as "subjudice." However, court judgments placed on record by the petitioners showed that in eleven of these fourteen cases, the petitioner had, in fact, already been acquitted, some as far back as 2004 and 2006, and one as recently as February 2025. The bench also noted that there was "manipulation" in the CCTV footage of the January 4, 2026 incident, for which the Superintendent of Police, Jabalpur, had already issued a show-cause notice to a sub-inspector.

The court observed that the report prepared by the City Superintendent of Police was mechanically forwarded up the chain, from the Additional Superintendent of Police to the Superintendent of Police and finally to the District Magistrate, all on the same day, January 6, 2026. "The sequence and timing of the three different police personnel acting together on the same day and the language of the three communications... reveals non-application of mind," the bench held.

Relying on the Supreme Court's judgment in Ameena Begum v. State of Telangana & Others, the bench reiterated that preventive detention, though conceived as an extraordinary constitutional measure, "has been rendered ordinary with its reckless invocation over the years as if it were available for use even in the ordinary course of proceedings." It added that courts must ensure the safeguards under the "golden triangle" of Articles 14, 19 and 21 are diligently enforced.

The bench concluded that the District Magistrate had relied on incorrect data supplied by the police without any effort at verification, even though this could have been checked easily through the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems. "When the factual matrix is not correct then application of law cannot be expected to be correct," the court held, setting aside the detention order dated January 6, 2026, and allowing both writ petitions in their entirety.

Case Title: Rajendra Thakur @ Chhotu v. The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others with connected matter

Date of Order: September 11, 2026

Bench: Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh