The Central government and the Union Territory of Ladakh administration told the Supreme Court on Monday, February 2, that Sonam Wangchuk, the climate activist, had tried to instigate a Nepal and Bangladesh-like Gen Z protest in India too.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and PV Varale that Sonam Wangchuk had even referred to ‘Arab Springs’ like agitation.
Tushar Mehta said, “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.”
The remarks were made as the Supreme Court heard a plea filed by his wife Gitanjali J Angmo against his detention under the National Security Act (NSA) which has a maximum detention period of 12 months.
During the arguments, Tushar Mehta said Sonam Wangchuk, during his speech, referred to government as “them” and people of Ladakh as “us” and called for “plebiscite” and “referendum”, the calls which were made once in Jammu and Kashmir.
The solicitor general said, “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.”
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 was explained to him,” Mehta informed the bench.
Speaking of the “borrowed material” allegations on Sonam Wangchuk’s detention under NSA, Mehta said, “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 arguments remained inconclusive and would continue on Tuesday.
