New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday rebuked the Gautam Buddha Nagar administration and said it would seek an explanation from District Magistrate Medha Roopam after an executive magistrate issued a Rs 5-lakh personal-bond notice to a Gautam Buddha University student, despite a clear apex court bar on coercive action against student protesters.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, reacted after senior advocate Bishwajit Bhattacharyya mentioned that Akshat Tripathi, a second-year law student of Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, had been served a show-cause notice on September 4.
The notice came from the Court of the Executive Magistrate (Third), Greater Noida Commissionerate. It was based on a police report from Ecotech-1 police station, submitted by Sub-Inspector Shiva Pandey and forwarded by Station House Officer Arvind Verma. The report alleged that Tripathi was spreading “anti-government” statements and instigating university students to join a Cockroach Janata Party protest at Jantar Mantar.
Invoking Section 130 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the magistrate asked the student to show cause why he should not execute a personal bond of Rs 5 lakh with two sureties of like amount to keep the peace for six months. The notice was withdrawn the next day after police later described the underlying information as false. ACP Ravi Shanker said no further action was taken.
The Chief Justice was unsparing. “How could a magistrate dare to issue notice? We made clear no coercive action against any student. No magistrate could violate that order,” he said, adding that the September 1 order was simple enough for a layman to understand. The bench said it would call for an explanation from the District Magistrate.
Medha Roopam, a 2014-batch IAS officer, has been District Magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar since 29 July 2025. Executive magistrates in the district function under her administrative control. The Supreme Court therefore treated the notice as an act of the district administration, not an isolated local order.
Legal implications for the DM
The September 1 Supreme Court order, issued under Article 142, had quashed FIRs against students in the nationwide NEET-related and CJP protests and barred further coercive steps. Disregarding that direction can amount to contempt of the Supreme Court.
Section 130 BNSS is a preventive power. It requires credible information that a person is likely to breach the peace. Using it against a student who said he had not been on campus for three months, after the court had already shielded student protesters, exposes the administration to the charge of mechanical and intimidatory use of preventive law.
This is the second recent judicial setback for the same DM. On September 2 the Allahabad High Court quashed the NSA detention of student activist Akriti Chaudhary and ordered Rs 5 lakh compensation to be recovered from Medha Roopam’s salary, holding that she had failed to scrutinise the police dossier before invoking extraordinary powers.
Possible consequences now include a formal explanation to the Supreme Court, recording of displeasure in service records, departmental proceedings, and, if the court finds wilful disobedience, contempt action. The episode underlines that a District Magistrate cannot treat binding Supreme Court directions as optional when executive magistrates under her charge act against students still pursuing their graduation.