3 min readLucknowFeb 6, 2026 08:40 PM IST
First published on: Feb 6, 2026 at 05:49 PM IST
The Allahabad High Court Thursday ordered the release of Abhay Kumar, director of real estate firm Wiztown Planners Ltd, noting that his arrest in connection with the Noida engineer’s death last month was made without following mandatory procedures.
On January 16, software engineer Yuvraj Mehta drowned after his car plunged into a deep pit full of water in Noida’s Sector 150 — even as he screamed for help for around two hours. The Gautam Buddha Nagar Police arrested Kumar on January 20 on charges of culpable homicide, causing death by negligence and negligent act endangering human life. Wiztown had been in possession of the land since 2019-20.
Hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Kumar challenging his arrest, a division bench of Justices Siddharth and Jai Krishna Upadhyay directed the authorities concerned to release the petitioner on grounds that the police made the arrest in violation of a High Court direction by not providing the arrest memo to the accused disclosing the grounds of arrest.
Significantly, hearing a similar habeas corpus petition on January 22, the same division bench had ordered release of a man, Umang Rastogi, who had challenged his arrest on the same grounds of not being served an arrest memo by the Gautam Buddha Nagar Police.
In the present petition, builder Kumar sought directions for his release from illegal custody and to declare the arrest, detention and remand illegal, null and void for not following set legal procedures. The petition also prayed to quash the remand orders passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar.
Relying on the judgment passed in the Umang Rastogi case, Kumar’s counsel submitted that in this case too, requirement of Clause 13 of the arrest memo was not complied with nor was it supplied to the petitioner before his arrest.
On January 16, software engineer Yuvraj Mehta drowned after his car plunged into a deep pit full of water in Noida’s Sector 150. (Express Photo)
The division bench, after hearing the submissions, observed, “… We find that the facts of this case are covered by the aforesaid judgment of this Court… by violation of Clause 13 of memo of arrest, arrest of accused was made.”
“In view of above, the authority concerned is directed to release the corpus/petitioner forthwith,” the court directed in its order.
In its January 22 order, the division bench had issued directions to the UP DGP to strictly deal with police officials not disclosing grounds of arrest to the accused, in the prescribed document, while making the arrest. It had also said such officers should face a departmental inquiry after suspension to stop them indulging in such “illegality”.
The bench directed the authorities to release the petitioner on grounds that the police made the arrest in violation of a High Court direction. (Express Photo) 
On January 16, software engineer Yuvraj Mehta drowned after his car plunged into a deep pit full of water in Noida’s Sector 150. (Express Photo)
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