HC orders immediate release of builder in Noida case

The Allahabad High Court has ordered the immediate release of Abhay Kumar, director of MZ Wiztown Planners, after finding out that his arrest in connection with a techie’s death in Noida was carried out without following mandatory procedures.

A bench of Justices Siddhartha and Jai Krishna Upadhyay observed that police had failed to follow the procedure under clause 13 of the arrest memo, which requires informing the accused of the reasons for their arrest and providing them with a copy of the memo before taking them into custody.

The order was passed on Thursday, allowing a habeas corpus petition filed on Kumar’s behalf.

The plea had sought a direction to the respondents to produce and release Kumar from their illegal custody and a declaration that his arrest, detention and remand were illegal, null and void as the Supreme Court’s directions in the Mihir Rajesh vs State of Maharashtra case were not followed.

The second prayer was to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari, quashing the remand orders dated January 20 and January 21, and subsequent remand orders passed by the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) of Gautam Buddha Nagar.

Kumar’s counsel relied upon the high court judgment in the case of Umang Rastogi vs State of Uttar Pradesh and submitted that in this case also, the clause-13 requirement of the arrest memo has not been complied with.

The High Court quashed the judicial remand orders issued by the CJM on January 20 and 21.

Kumar was arrested by the Greater Noida Police following the registration of an FIR in connection with the death of 27-year-old software engineer Yuvraj Mehta, who drowned after his car fell into a water-filled trench at an undeveloped site in Sector 150, Noida, on January 16.

The trench had developed due to inadequate stormwater management and the site had remained undeveloped under Wiztown Planners’ control for years.