NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed a preventive detention order issued under the National Security Act (NSA) against an individual in connection with the November 2024 Sambhal violence, and imposed a cost of Rs.10 lakh on the Uttar Pradesh government. A bench comprising justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu set aside the detention order issued in October 2025 by the Sambhal district magistrate, ruling that a confessional statement cited by the state authorities could not serve as the sole justification for keeping a citizen under preventive detention. "The power of detention was illegally exercised by the authorities. The detaining authorities did not consider the appropriate material. The order of detention issued on October 13, 2025 is quashed and a cost of Rs.10 lakh is imposed on the state," the bench said. The ruling came on a petition filed by Mulla Afroz, who was detained following violence during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal on November 24, 2024. Four people were killed in the resulting clashes. The Sambhal civil judge ordered the survey on November 19, 2024, in a suit filed by Hindu petitioners claiming that Sambhal's Shahi Jama Masjid was built over a temple. Advocate Divyesh Pratap Singh, who appeared for Afroz, said the petitioner was illegally detained on January 17, 2025, and was coerced into making a police confession under threat of a staged encounter. He said the police implicated him solely on the basis of the alleged confession made in police custody, and the police claimed to have seized a .32 bore pistol at his instance to implicate him in the murder case. But as per the forensic report, the man whom the petitioner was accused of murdering died due to injuries sustained by a .315-bore firearm. While Afroz was in custody, the Sambhal DM passed a detention order under Section 3(2) of the NSA Act, 1980, on October 13, 2025. Afroz filed representations and petitions under the law to the state and central governments, but they were rejected. On November 8, 2025, the state government confirmed the detention order and directed that he remain detained until October 12, 2026. Afroz filed a Habeas Corpus Writ Petition before the Allahabad high court which was rejected on June 8 this year, prompting him to approach the top court. The High Court had also held that while exercising judicial review over a preventive detention order, the court was required to examine whether the detaining authority had applied its mind to relevant material rather than sit in appeal over the sufficiency of that material. The Supreme Court, however, found that the detention could not be sustained on the material considered by the authority. The bench considered whether an extra-judicial confession could form the basis of a preventive detention order and whether the material relied upon by the detaining authority was legally sufficient. The Court held that an extra-judicial confession cannot, by itself, justify preventive detention. Other relevant and substantive circumstances must also be considered by the detaining authority before exercising the power. A court in Chandausi here on Tuesday postponed the hearing in the Shahi Jama Masjid-Harihar temple dispute to October 16 in the wake of a Supreme Court stay on proceedings. The matter was listed for hearing before Civil Judge (Senior Division) Aditya Singh. The Supreme Court had in November 2024 imposed an interim stay on the survey of the 16th-century Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal and halted all proceedings regarding the dispute in the trial court. Counsel for the Hindu side, Shrigopal Sharma, said the matter was listed for hearing on Tuesday, but no proceedings took place as the case remains stayed following the Supreme Court order. The legal dispute emerged on November 19, 2024, when Hindu petitioners, including advocates Hari Shankar Jain and Vishnu Shankar Jain, filed a suit in the Sambhal district court claiming the mosque was built over a temple. The Muslim side challenged the maintainability of the case in the Allahabad High Court, but on May 19, 2025, the high court upheld the trial court's order permitting a court-monitored survey and directed it to proceed with the matter. A court-ordered survey was conducted at the site on November 19, 2024. The second survey on November 24 led to significant unrest in Sambhal, resulting in the death of four persons and injuries to 29 police personnel. The police had booked Samajwadi Party MP Ziaur Rahman Barq and mosque committee head Zafar Ali in connection with the violence, besides an FIR against 2,750 persons....