Allahabad High Court Quashes Goonda Act Order, Faults UP Over Misuse

The Allahabad High Court has quashed an externment order passed against a Gonda resident under the Goonda Act, holding that the Uttar Pradesh government appears determined to wield the stringent law as a tool of harassment.

A Lucknow Bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi observed that the Goonda Act is a very powerful piece of legislation and must be invoked with great caution, only in clear cases and for the purpose of maintaining public order.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Zahid Ali, whom the Gonda District Magistrate had declared a "goonda" and externed from the district for six months through an order dated May 11, passed under Section 3(1) of the Act. The DM had relied on two criminal cases and a beat information report. One case dated to 2010 and the other to 2020.

The Bench found that Mr. Ali had already been acquitted in the 2010 case by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gonda, on August 26, 2017. A case in which a person has already been acquitted cannot later be used as a ground to declare him a goonda, the court said.

It further noted a gap of nearly six years between the 2020 case and the 2026 order, holding that no rational nexus could be established between the two.

The court took exception to the police report citing the case in which Mr. Ali had already been acquitted, observing that an incorrect picture of the petitioner had been placed before the District Magistrate.

Mere involvement in a single criminal case of 2020, the Bench said, could not establish that Mr. Ali was a habitual offender or that he habitually committed or abetted offences.

The court also declined to accept the beat information report as a valid basis for invoking the Act, noting that no criminal case had been registered on the basis of that information and that Mr. Ali had not been given an opportunity of hearing in relation to it. Relying on such material would violate the principles of natural justice, it said.

The Bench additionally found that the divisional commissioner, while hearing the appeal, had treated the acquitted case as a pending one against Mr. Ali, reflecting a failure to properly exercise discretion.

Holding that the orders passed by both the District Magistrate and the commissioner were legally unsustainable, the High Court set aside the appellate order and quashed the externment direction, allowing Mr. Ali's petition.