'Typo' lands man in jail under NSA, HC fines collector

BHOPAL/JABALPUR: A bureaucratic bungle passed off as a "typing error" led a young man named in a private dispute to be charged under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) and jailed for over a year before MP high court stepped in to have him released this Sept.

Shahdol district collector Kedar Singh, the official responsible for what the court termed "non-application of mind", was fined Rs 2 lakh after he admitted to "mixing up" names while checking and signing separate orders. The amount will go to Sushant Bais, the newly married man who languished in jail for no fault of his.

Singh apparently put his signature on a document mentioning Sushant as an NSA detainee instead of one Nirajkant Dwivedi, who had been charged in that particular case. Sushant, a native of Budwa village in Shahdol district, was sent to judicial custody despite having arrived at a settlement in his "minor dispute" with another party.

The division bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and A K Singh issued notice to the collector for contempt of court over his initial "fake" affidavit in the case after Sushant's father Hiramani Bais moved court, saying his son was unfairly put in jail on Sept 9, 2024.

The bench directed the chief secretary of MP to also initiate action against the additional chief secretary of home for endorsing the collector's order.

"There is absolutely no application of mind by the state govt as well, otherwise it would have bothered to read the order of detention," states the court's order. The additional chief secretary of home had told the court that the goof-up was caused by a clerk's "typographical mistake" and that the employee received a show-cause notice for it.


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