NEW DELHI, Feb 2: The Centre and the Union Territory of Ladakh administration told the Supreme Court on Monday that jailed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk tried to instigate Gen Z for protests like in Nepal and Bangladesh.
A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and P V Varale was told by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that Wangchuk even referred to ‘Arab Springs’ like agitation which has led to the overthrow of multiple governments in countries of the Arab world.
“He carefully crafted his speech to instigate Gen Z and asked for agitations like in Nepal and Bangladesh and used speeches of Mahatma Gandhi to cover the real intention,” Mehta said.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by Gitanjali J Angmo, the wife of jailed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, against his detention under the stringent National Security Act (NSA).
The NSA empowers the Centre and states to detain individuals to prevent them from acting in a manner “prejudicial to the defence of India”. The maximum detention period is 12 months, though it can be revoked earlier.
Mehta said Wangchuk referred to the Central Government as “them” and separated people of Ladakh as “us” and called for “plebiscite” and “referendum”, the calls which were made once in Jammu and Kashmir.
“There is no them or us but we are all Indians. Ladakh is a place which shares borders with two countries — China and Pakistan”. The area is very fragile.
“The speeches made by him have to be taken into account in totality. He was misleading young people and carefully using the speeches of Mahatma Gandhi to cover it. Gandhi ji never instigated people against their own government,” Mehta said, adding that Ladakh is important for the supply chain for the security forces guarding the borders.
He contended that the district magistrate had to pass the order for his preventive detention after going through the relevant materials placed before him and the videos of his speech.
“It took four hours for the order of preventive detention to get executed as after the district magistrate passed the order, a DIG rank officer went to him and explained everything and showed him videos of his speeches. Grounds of detention were explained to him,” Mehta informed the bench.
Countering the argument of Wangchuk’s wife made through senior advocate Kapil Sibal, Mehta said that the district magistrate has not relied upon any “borrowed material” for passing the detention order.
“This argument of ‘borrowed material’ itself suffers from inherent fallacy as the district magistrate does not need to go to each and every place where he made the speech and hear it firsthand. Some officials who heard the speech and made videos of it placed before the district magistrate and based on such relevant materials, an order was passed,” the solicitor general contended.
The arguments remained inconclusive and would continue on Tuesday. (PTI)
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