The Supreme Court on Monday stayed an Allahabad High Court direction requiring the Uttar Pradesh government to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to a man who was allegedly kept in illegal detention by the state police for more than three months.
The Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva passed the interim order while hearing an appeal filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against the High Court judgment. The Apex Court issued a notice on the matter and put a temporary hold on the fine of Rs 10 lakh, clarifying that the stay will remain in effect until the next scheduled hearing.
The High Court had held that the arrest of Manoj Kumar was illegal because the police failed to provide written grounds of arrest, as mandated by recent Supreme Court rulings interpreting Article 22(1) of the Constitution.
The counsel appearing for the state government before the Supreme Court conceded that the grounds of arrest had not been supplied to Kumar. However, the State confined its challenge only to the compensation imposed by the High Court. Noting that the police failed to provide the grounds for arrest, the counsel argued that the appeal was strictly focused on challenging the Rs 10 lakh fine. He added that the Station House Officer (SHO) involved had already been suspended.
The case arose from a habeas corpus petition filed by Kumar before the Allahabad High Court after he was arrested on January 27, 2026, in connection with an FIR registered in September 2024 in Unnao district.
While examining the arrest memo, the High Court found that it merely referred to the crime number without disclosing the actual grounds of arrest. Relying on Supreme Court judgments in Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra and Dr Rajinder Rajan v. Union of India, the High Court ruled that the arrest and subsequent remand were illegal.
The High Court had strongly criticised the conduct of the state authorities and directed Kumar’s release while imposing Rs 10 lakh costs on the government for violating constitutional safeguards protecting personal liberty.
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