This order's operative directions are the two costs orders and disposal. Its operative paragraphs contain no express direction for Afzal Ahmad's release, and it does not decide the three first information reports arising from the underlying dispute; the wider question of CCTV failures in Uttar Pradesh is reserved in Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 1117 of 2026.
- Case
- X v. State of Uttar Pradesh
- Court
- High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
- Decision
- Bench
- Atul Sreedharan; Achal Sachdev
- Case numbers
- Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 1538 of 2026
- Outcome
- Habeas corpus petition allowed; detention held unlawful on the CCTV presumption; two costs directions of ₹20,000 each; petition disposed of. The three FIRs and the wider CCTV-failure issue remain undecided.
Petition allowed on the CCTV presumption
The Allahabad High Court has allowed a habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Afzal Ahmad, holding that his detention from 5 September 2026 was unlawful. His formal arrest was shown only on 7 September 2026, two days after he was taken from outside Police Station Nangal in Bijnor district.
A Division Bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev reached that conclusion after the State failed to produce the police station's CCTV recordings, which the court had directed it to produce by an order dated 13 October 2026. The State said the footage was unavailable because a thunderstorm had damaged the CCTV system.
The court rejected that explanation. It held that the excuse of a CCTV malfunction is not available to the police in a case of unlawful detention, and that non-production of the footage was itself sufficient to accept the petitioners' case. It imposed costs of ₹20,000 on the respondents and a further ₹20,000 on the station house officer personally, both payable within two months.
Taken from outside the police station; arrest shown two days later
According to the petition, petitioner no. 1, a student pursuing chartered accountancy, filed the petition on behalf of petitioner no. 2, Afzal Ahmad. The petition stated that she had known Shahbaz and Aman since school, and that Shahbaz had obtained obscene photographs of her and was blackmailing her.
The background, as set out in the order, is a chain of complaints between the two sides. On 26 June 2026, Shahbaz and eight to ten others are said to have fired gunshots in the air near the petitioners' house; petitioner no. 2 and his family members are also stated to have fired back, and some persons were injured. Petitioner no. 2 complained to the Mandawali station house officer and the Circle Officer, Najibabad, without result.
Three first information reports followed. On 29 June 2026 Shahbaz lodged Crime No. 71 of 2026 at Police Station Mandawali against petitioner no. 2 and family members, under Sections 115(2), 352 and 351(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. On 8 July 2026 petitioner no. 1 lodged Crime No. 77 of 2026, later transferred to Police Station Nangal. On 6 October 2026 Mohd. Ahsan lodged Crime No. 706 of 2026, alleging a honey trap by petitioner no. 2; the order records that it is this last report with which the case is concerned.
The petitioners were called to Police Station Nangal and went there by car at about 2:30 pm on 5 September 2026. As they contacted the station house officer from the vehicle, a white Bolero bearing registration UP 20 AG 0290 entered the premises near the station gate, and four persons came out and forcibly took Afzal Ahmad out of the car. A companion, Farman, tried to record the incident on his mobile phone, was stopped, and immediately called the emergency number UP 112 to report it.
The court sought the CCTV; the State said it was gone
Afzal Ahmad's formal arrest was shown on 7 September 2026. To test whether he had in fact been detained since 5 September, the court directed the State on 13 October 2026 to produce the CCTV recordings of the police station from 5 September at 1 pm to 7 September at 10 am.
When the matter came up, the State said the footage was unavailable because of an incident at the police station on 5 September itself. It relied on the affidavit of Ms Annu Kumari, the station house officer at Nangal, and general diary entry no. 20 dated 5 September 2026 at 1:03 pm.
The entry's account, as summarised by the court, was that a thunderstorm had affected the CCTV system: water was said to have trickled down the LAN cable into the system, damaging the power-over-Ethernet unit and causing the entire CCTV system at the police station to fail. The entry recorded that the damaged unit had been sent for repair so the cameras could be restarted.
The question: what follows when the footage is missing?
The question before the court was whether the detention between 5 and 7 September 2026 was unlawful, and what consequence followed from the State's inability to produce the recordings the court had called for.
The petitioners' case was that Afzal Ahmad was taken by police and Special Operations Group personnel in plain clothes and kept in custody for two days before any arrest was recorded. The State's case, in substance, was that nothing could be verified because the recordings no longer existed.
The court had to decide whether the missing footage left the petitioners' account unproved, or whether the State's failure to produce evidence it had been directed to keep answered the question.
The CCTV excuse is not available in unlawful-detention cases
The court observed that the state of civil liberty in Uttar Pradesh was shameful, to say the least, and that the police showed little regard for fundamental rights. Despite orders for production of CCTV recordings, it noted, the police continued to be in denial and had never provided footage to the court for one reason or another.
It then stated the rule that governs the case. The excuse of a CCTV malfunction is not available to the police in a case of unlawful detention. The State is expected to preserve CCTV footage and make it available to the court whenever required, because the footage is a vital piece of evidence in such cases. Any averment of malfunction is not to be believed.
On that basis, the court held the non-production of the footage sufficient to accept that the corpus was unlawfully detained, and that the footage was deliberately withheld to obfuscate the truth maliciously. The wider CCTV issue is being dealt with in Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 1117 of 2026, reserved for judgment.
Petition allowed; two costs orders; officer's conduct recorded
The writ petition was allowed. The respondents were directed to pay costs of ₹20,000 to the petitioners within two months. Separately, the court held that Ms Annu Kumari, the station house officer, had deliberately withheld the footage and tried to mislead the court, and directed her personally to pay costs of ₹20,000 within two months, failing which the petitioners may revive the petition for compliance.
With those observations, the petition stood disposed of.
The order does not decide the three first information reports, and it contains no express direction for Afzal Ahmad's release in its operative paragraphs; the relief it grants is the declaration that the detention was unlawful, together with the two costs directions. The broader CCTV directions will be laid down in the reserved petition, Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 1117 of 2026.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students: the adverse inference from withheld evidence
Habeas corpus is the court's device for testing whether a person's liberty has been taken lawfully. Here the State did not dispute the dates: the petitioners said Afzal Ahmad was taken on 5 September, and the arrest was recorded only on 7 September. The dispute was over proof, and the court resolved it against the party that controlled the proof.
That is the practical core of the judgment. When the State holds the only record that can settle a detention dispute, and that record goes missing after the court has ordered its production, the court will not treat the gap as neutral: the missing evidence is presumed to support the detenu.
Note also what the order does not do. It does not acquit anyone, quash any first information report, or decide the wider CCTV question. It decides this detention on this record, imposes costs for withholding evidence, and leaves the systemic directions to the reserved petition. A habeas petition can end that way: the finding of unlawful detention stands, even where the operative relief is costs rather than a release direction.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why did the court treat the missing CCTV footage as proof of unlawful detention rather than merely an unexplained gap in the record?
- What were the two costs directions in the order, who must pay each, and within what time?
- What does the order leave undecided, and in which pending petition will the wider CCTV question be dealt with?
