The Allahabad High Court has quashed the detention of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha leader Kamlesh Tiwari under the National Security Act for derogatory remarks he made against Prophet Mohammad. The Bench of Justice SN Shukla and Justice Anant Kumar ruled that his detention was unlawful when they took up the matter on Friday after Tiwari's wife Kiran had filed a petition, reported The Times of India.

Tiwari was arrested on December 2 last year under Sections 153-A (promoting enmity between groups on ground of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the India Penal Code.

On December 9, 2015, the district magistrate invoked the National Security Act against him, which was later approved by the Uttar Pradesh Advisory Board. On January 29 this year, the state government issued an order saying that Tiwari would be in detention for one year beginning December 9, 2015. Tiwari is currently lodged in Lucknow district jail.

Tiwari's lawyer HS Jain cited Section 3(3) of the NSA to argue that a person cannot be detained for more than three months continuously, and that the government can extend it only after a review. Jain told the court that “the state government through its order dated January 29, 2016, on the basis of report of the Advisory Board, has extended the period of detention for 12 months from the date of detention i.e. December 9, 2015 at a time, which could not be done.”

The matter snowballed into a huge issue after Tiwari first made derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammad and then posted inflammatory comments on social media when people started reacting. Soon, protests against him were held in Uttar Pradesh' Deoband city and later in other parts of the country, including Bengaluru, Delhi and West Bengal, reported The Indian Express.