The central government and the administration of the Union Territory of Ladakh told the Supreme Court on Monday, February 2, that climate activist Sonam Wangchuk tried to incite a Gen Z protest in Nepal and Bangladesh as well as in India.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told Justices Aravind Kumar and PV Varale that Sonam Wangchuk even referred to ‘Arab Springs’ as an agitation.
Tushar Mehta said: “He carefully prepared his speech to galvanize Gen Z and asked for agitations like in Nepal and Bangladesh and used speeches of Mahatma Gandhi to cover up the real intention.”
The remarks came 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 called the government as “them” and the people of Ladakh as “us” during her speech and called for a “plebiscite” and “referendum”, calls that were once made in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Solicitor General said: “It is not them or us, but we are all Indians. Ladakh is a place that shares borders with two countries – China and Pakistan… The area is very fragile. The speeches he made must be taken into account as a whole. He misled the youth and carefully used Mahatma Gandhi’s speeches to cover it up. Gandhi never encouraged them to rule on their own.”
He claimed that the order for his preventive detention had to be issued by the District Magistrate after going through the relevant materials placed before him and the video recordings of his speech.
“It took four hours for the remand order to be executed because after the district magistrate issued the order, an officer of the rank of DIG went to him, explained everything and showed him the videos of his speeches. The reasons for the detention were explained to him,” Mehta informed the bench.
Talking about the ‘borrowed material’ allegations regarding the NSA’s detention of Sonam Wangchuk, Mehta said, “This ‘borrowed material’ argument itself suffers from an inherent fallacy because the district judge does not need to go to every place where he has delivered the speech and hear it firsthand.” Some officials who heard and filmed the speech based on such relevant materials forwarded and ordered videos of it.
Arguments remained inconclusive and will continue on Tuesday.