Lucknow, May 2 -- . The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, while allowing a habeas corpus petition, declared the arrest and subsequent detention of a man illegal and ordered his immediate release.

The HC found that the police officers had not provided written grounds to the man at the time of arrest. The court considered this a "gross violation" of the Supreme Court's orders and imposed a fine of Rs.10 lakh on the Uttar Pradesh government. The court directed the state government to pay this amount to the petitioner within four weeks and also granted the government the liberty to recover it from the erring officials.

A division bench of Justicesl Abdul Moin and justice Pramod Kumar Srivastava delivered the ruling on April 29 on t...