The Supreme Court on Wednesday posted for November 24 a plea filed by climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, against his detention under the National Security Act (NSA) and seeking his release.
A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria took on record the amended plea of Angmo and sought the response of the Centre and the Union Territory of Ladakh.
“Petitioner permitted to amend the petition and file the amended copy within a week, and amended counter to be filed within 10 days thereafter. Rejoinder, if any, within a week thereafter. List on November 24,” the bench ordered.
Earlier, the apex court adjourned the plea of Wangchuk’s wife after she sought to file an amended petition with additional grounds for challenging Wangchuk’s detention.
Wangchuk’s wife had filed the habeas corpus plea seeking release of her husband on the basis that no grounds of detention were supplied by the detaining authorities.
In a fresh application seeking the addition of grounds to challenge his detention, Angmo has referred to a series of actions taken against Wangchuk before his arrest, including the cancellation of the foreign funding certificate for his NGO.
The plea filed earlier had said that the grounds of detention had not been supplied to the family, and it should be served on her.
Wangchuk was detained on September 26 and shifted to Jodhpur Central Jail in Rajasthan for allegedly inciting a violent protest in Ladakh. He was booked under the NSA after the violence in Leh, in which four people were killed and 80 others were injured.
The protesters have been demanding statehood for Ladakh and inclusion of the region in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
The plea had stated that Wangchuk’s detention was not genuinely linked to national security or public order but intended to silence a respected environmentalist and social reformer for espousing democratic and ecological causes.
According to the petition, the activist resorted only to peaceful Gandhian protest within Ladakh, an exercise of his constitutional right to speech and assembly. The detention amounts to a violation of free speech under Article 19, it stated.
It had said the charges were “baseless and floated with the sole object of defaming, maligning and discrediting his peaceful Gandhian movement” aimed at protecting the ecology of Ladakh.
The plea had said that a “systematic campaign” had been “unleashed against” Wangchuk, alleging “links with Pakistan and China.”
“In particular, a blasphemous narrative suggesting links with Pakistan and China is being intentionally floated in certain quarters with the sole object of defaming, maligning and discrediting a peaceful Gandhian movement for the protection of Ladakh, its fragile ecology, its mountains, glaciers, and the livelihood of its people,” stated the plea.
Angmo had also challenged the transfer of Wangchuk to the Central Jail in Jodhpur over a thousand kilometres from Ladakh, the site of protests. (ANI)
