The Supreme Court, on Thursday, dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the Uttar Pradesh government, challenging the release of Dr Kafeel Khan by the Allahabad High Court, which had quashed charges under the National Security Act.
In a hearing, which lasted for just under a minute as per Khan, Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde, heading a three-judge bench, said he saw no need to interfere.
Khan, who was at the centre of the what is known as the oxygen gas tragedy of August 2017, in which more than 60 children had died, had been detained under the NSA and lodged in Mathura jail for delivering an ‘allegedly provocative’ speech at the Aligarh Muslim University on December 12, 2019, against the backdrop of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
After almost seven months in jail, on September 1, 2020, the Allahabad High Court had declared Khan's detention illegal. The court had observed that the arrest was “not sustainable in the eye of law.” It had also observed that the speech had called for national integrity and unity.
On December 8, the Supreme Court verified the SLP filed by the state government and listed it for hearing.
For Khan it could not have come at an more inopportune time. His younger brother is to get married on Thursday.
“After four years of suffering, when there was finally some reason to celebrate in the family, the petition brought by the state government put us under strain yet again. This morning when I left home, I hugged my mother and children and told my wife there was every possibility that I would not return and be sent to jail,” he told THE WEEK.
Justice Bobde, however, took very little time to dispel these fears saying that the HC order was good.
Khan said neither his lawyer Indira Jaisingh nor the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta were allowed to argue.
The court, however, on Mehta’s plea added that this order was limited just to the NSA charge and would have no bearing on the other ongoing investigations. There are three of these—one into the BRD tragedy, another a FIR in Bahraich (September 2018) that alleges that Khan forcibly entered a paediatric ICU and attempted to treat a patient, and the third relates to his speech at AMU.
Khan’s lawyer, Fuzail Ayyubi (an advocate on record, Supreme Court of India), told THE WEEK, that this was not something new. “Even the Allahabad HC order had said it related only to the NSA charges and would have no bearing on any other case.”
He added, “This is a good closure for us and it puts to bed the NSA controversy”.
Khan said even though he had been in prison for 500 days under the current state government, he never regretted his actions on the night that allegedly oxygen supply in the hospital ran out, leading to the death of children.
“If I could go back to the night and save just one life, I would do so without hesitation. There were 160 doctors at BRD. No one chose to speak out. I am still fighting for those lives lost and the bereaved parents left behind. I don’t want to be a politician. My repeated plea to the government is just this that I be allowed to serve as a doctor”.
