Jabalpur, May 21 -- Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the state government to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to a businessman, who had spent 57 days in jail after airport screening machines allegedly wrongly detected narcotic substances in packets of 'aamchur' and 'garam masala' he was carrying.

Justice Deepak Khot passed the order while hearing a writ petition filed by Ajay Singh, who had challenged his arrest and prolonged incarceration in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) case that was eventually closed after a forensic examination found no contraband in the seized samples.

According to the court order, Singh was travelling from Bhopal to Delhi on May 7, 2010, en route to Malaysia, when an Explosive Trace Detector...