The government of Uttar Pradesh filed a petition in Supreme Court against the order of Allahabad High Court that quashed the detention of a doctor Dr Kafeel Khan charged under National Security Act for an alleged speech against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The High Court had declared Khan’s detention as ‘illegal’ in its September 1 order. It also added that the doctor’s speech did not show any effort to promote hate or violence, reported NDTV.

In the petition, the UP government alleged that Dr Khan had a history of committing offences, which led to disciplinary action, suspension from service, registration of police cases and being charged under the National Security Act (NSA).

The doctor was charged under the act for his speech against the CAA last year at the Aligarh Muslim University. He was arrested on January 29. The charges under the NSA were invoked against him after he was given bail on February 10 this year, for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion.

After Dr Khan was released from jail in Mathura, he had said he would ask Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to give him back his job in the state medical services.

He was suspended from Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College after several children died there in 2017, reportedly due to lack of oxygen cylinders at the government hospital.

But a departmental enquiry cleared him of most of the charges. However, he landed in trouble later for his allegedly provocative speech in Aligarh over the amended Citizenship Law.

Introduced in 1980, the NSA empowers the government to detain people without being charged in court, for up to a year if they suspect that they could disrupt public order, endanger the security of India or its ties with foreign countries.

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