The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Uttar Pradesh’s director-general of police (prisons) and the superintendent of Ghaziabad prison to appear before it in connection with the alleged violation of the court’s order to release a person arrested for illegal conversion.
Calling it a “travesty of justice”, a bench of Justices K.V. Viswanathan and N. Kotiswar Singh said the petitioner, Aftab, had claimed that he was not released on bail on the ground that a sub-section of a provision of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, was not mentioned in the bail order.
The top court had granted Aftab bail in the illegal conversion case on April 29.
The bench warned that the officials would have to face contempt proceedings if the allegations were true.
It also said the petitioner would have to face consequences if he misled the court about any other criminal case for which he had been detained in jail.
“The matter calls for a serious inquiry,” the bench said.
The court summoned the two officials to appear before it on Wednesday after
the counsel for the petitioner and the lawyer representing the state government both insisted that they were not at fault.
While the Ghaziabad jail superintendent had been asked to appear physically, the DGP (prisons) was asked to appear through videoconference.
The top court called its April 29 order “categoric” and said the appellant should be released on bail during the pendency of the trial in the FIR registered with a police station in Ghaziabad on January 3, 2024, on conditions set by the trial court.