The Allahabad High Court has stayed, until further orders, the arrest of suspended Banda Jail superintendent Anil Kumar Gautam, who was booked for the allegedly illegal releasing a Noida scrap mafia in January without any court order.
While granting interim protection, the court has allowed police to continue investigations but restrained it from filing reports before the jurisdictional magistrate until further orders.
A division bench of justices Rajeev Mishra and Satya Veer Singh issued the order while hearing petitions from the suspended officials seeking quashing of the FIR and protection from arrest.
The court has issued notices to all respondents, including the state government, granting six weeks to file counter-affidavits. The next date of hearing is fixed as May 27.
The FIR, lodged on February 2, 2026 was by Jail Chowki In-charge Anurag Pandey, invokes the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 260(C).
The controversy erupted after Ravindra Singh, alias Ravi Kan, held in Banda Jail since August 2024 in another case, was produced via video conference on a B-warrant but allegedly released on January 29, 2026, before a custody warrant was received.
The court in its order, dated April 1, observed, “Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and also the submissions urged by the learned counsel for petitioners in support of present writ petition as noted herein above, as an interim measure, it is hereby provided that until further orders of this Court, petitioners shall not be arrested in Case Crime No. 64 of 2026, under Sections 260(C) BNS, Police Station- Kotwali Nagar, District- Banda.”
“Accordingly, we further direct that investigation of concerned case crime number shall go on but the Investigating Officer shall not submit the Police report in terms of Section 193 (3) BNSS before the Jurisdictional Magistrate, till the pendency of present writ petition,” the court added.
