The wife of imprisoned climate activist Sonam Wangchuk submitted a plea, calling his incarceration under the National Security Act “illegal, and an arbitrary exercise violating his fundamental rights.” The Supreme Court on Monday postponed the case until December 8.
After Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Center and the Union Territory of Ladakh, requested time to reply to Wangchuk’s wife’s response, a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria postponed the case. The top court asked the Center and the Ladakh government to respond to Wangchuk’s wife’s modified request on October 29.
“The detention order is founded upon stale FIRs, vague imputations, and speculative assertions, lacks any live or proximate connection to the purported grounds of detention and is thus devoid of any legal or factual justification,” the amended plea states. “Such arbitrary exercise of preventive powers amounts to a gross abuse of authority, striking at the core of constitutional liberties and due process, rendering the detention order liable to be vitiated by this court,” it stated.
According to the petition, it is completely absurd that Wangchuk would be singled out after more than thirty years of state, national, and international recognition for his services to environmental protection, grassroots education, and innovation in Ladakh and throughout India. She claimed that Wangchuk’s words or deeds had nothing to do with the terrible violence that occurred in Leh on September 24.
Wangchuk himself criticized the violence through his social media handles and explicitly warned that violence will lead to the failure of Ladakh’s “tapasya” and peaceful pursuit of five years, his wife claimed, adding that “it was the saddest day of his life”. Two days after violent demonstrations calling for Ladakh’s statehood and Sixth Schedule status resulted in four fatalities and ninety injuries in the Union territory, Wangchuk was arrested on September 26 under the strict National Security Act.
He was charged by the authorities with inciting the violence. The NSA gives the Center and states the authority to imprison people in order to stop them from operating in a way that is “prejudicial to the defense of India.” Although it may be canceled early, the maximum imprisonment period is 12 months.
