Police Cannot Treat Humans As Property Or Take Them Into ‘Kabza’: Allahabad High Court Raps UP Police For ‘Possession’ Memo Evoking ‘Dred Scott’ Era Mindset
Safiya Malik
The High Court of Allahabad, Division Bench of Justice J.J. Munir and Justice Sanjiv Kumar, sitting at Allahabad, hearing a habeas corpus petition, ordered the release of an adult woman from a government protection home and affirmed her right to live with and marry a person of her choice, free from interference by the State or her family. The Bench also took serious exception to the conduct of Uttar Pradesh Police officials who, despite a prior stay on her arrest, recorded her detention as taking her into “possession” (kabza) and prepared a “memo of possession” to suggest she was not being arrested. Clarifying that kabza in law refers to possession of property, not of human beings, the Court directed an inquiry into the officers’ actions.
The habeas corpus petition was filed by the second petitioner seeking production and release of the detenue, who is his wife, from the Government Women Shelter Home, Muzaffarnagar. The detenue and the second petitioner claimed to be majors who had married on 29.01.2024 and were living together in Delhi. The detenue’s father lodged an FIR on 02.10.2023 alleging that his minor daughter, aged fourteen, had gone missing and was last seen with the second petitioner. Her statement was recorded before the Magistrate, where she stated that she left home due to fear of violence and intended to marry the second petitioner.
A second FIR was lodged on 29.06.2025 alleging that the detenue, described as a minor aged seventeen, had been taken away by the second petitioner and others. The petitioners had obtained a stay on arrest in connected proceedings. The police nevertheless took the detenue into custody, recording this as “कब्ज़ा पुलिस लिया जाता है” in the case diary.
She was subjected to medico-legal age determination, which assessed her to be approximately eighteen years old, and was then produced before the Child Welfare Committee, which ordered her placement in a Protection Home relying on a school register date of birth of 25.04.2009.
The Court recorded that the police action violated a subsisting stay on arrest: “the first petitioner was deprived of her liberty, virtually taken into custody and effectively arrested in violation of the stay order passed… on 13.08.2025.”
It noted the problematic language used by the police: “the Police have effectively arrested the petitioner by describing it… that they are taking her into kabza police.” The Court stated that “‘Kabza’ is a word which connotes most closely to the English word ‘possession’… reserved for chattels not humans.”
"The idea and the action - the idea more than the action are both abhorrable. To think that in the twenty first century, a man of contemporary society, working in the ranks of the Police, can think that a human being can be taken into possession, on the basis of a memorandum of possession or fard, makes it seem to us that at least the persons concerned in this transaction have not come a long way from the days of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)", the bench remarked.
Regarding age determination, the Court stated that the school records required scrutiny because the photocopy in the case diary was “not a complete document but truncated.” Upon examining the original registers, the Court recorded: “the petitioner’s name figures at S.R. No. 6645… her date of birth mentioned… is Twenty Fifth April Two Thousand Nine.”
When asked about the basis of these entries, the Principal stated they were taken from the Aadhar Card. The Court observed: “the date of birth entered in the Aadhar Card hardly affords any basis to ascertain a person’s date of birth… It is not cross-checked by any authentic record… On this short ground alone, we find that the school record… is entirely unreliable.”
It noted the absence of a municipal or panchayat birth certificate: “there is no date of birth certificate issued by a Corporation, a Municipality or a Panchayat.”
The Court examined the medico-legal age assessment: “the doctors… have opined the detenue to be aged about eighteen years.” Applying the permissible variation, the Court stated: “we hold the detenue to be a major aged eighteen years or more.”
When questioned in Court, the detenue answered:
“विकास… जिस से मैं शादी करना चाहती हूँ।” and “विकास के साथ।” and “नहीं” (regarding going with her parents).
The Court recorded: “The detenue is an adult and has expressed an unequivocal choice… She is free to go anywhere she likes and stay with whomsoever she wants.”
The Court stated: “the habeas corpus petition succeeds and is allowed. The detenue… is ordered to be set at liberty forthwith. She is at liberty to go anywhere she likes and stay with whomsoever she wants, including Vikas. The police personnel, who have brought forth the detenue, are discharged of their assignment and shall go back and report to the office… whence they came.”
“Let the records of the school be returned forthwith to the Principal, Ucch Prathmik Vidyalaya, Gram Ratheri, Muzaffarnagar.”
Advocates Representing The Parties
For the Petitioners: Arjit Srivastava, Usha Srivastava, Vinod Kumar Srivastava
Case Title: Smt. Saniya and Another v. State of U.P. and Others
Case Number: Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 1042 of 2025
Bench: Justice J.J. Munir, Justice Sanjiv Kumar
