Image Courtesy:indianexpress.com
It appears that the regime has put Jignesh Mevani firmly in its crosshairs. Just days after he was granted bail and released in two cases by Assam courts, the independent Member of Parliament (MLA) from Vadgam in Gujarat has now been found guilty of unlawful assembly.
The case pertains to a protest organised by the Dalit rights activist on July 12, 2017. This was one year after the incident in Una where men from a Dalit family were flogged publicly in a blatant display of caste-based violence in Gujarat. Mevani and nine others, including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Reshma Patel, were held guilty of holding the rally without police permission.
Bar and Bench quoted the court as observing, “It is not an offence to hold rally but it is an offence to hold rally without permission… disobedience can never be tolerated.”
Amidst all this, it is noteworthy that a member of Mevani’s team had sought permission for the rally from the Mehsana Executive Magistrate and permission was granted initially. However, it was revoked later. According to Bar and Bench, the Court said that the accused could have challenged the order of the executive magistrate revoking permission for the rally and then held the same with permission.
Chief Judicial Magistrate JA Parmar convicted ten people and sentenced them to three months in jail along with a fine of Rs 1,000/- each.
Mevani returned to Gujarat from Assam just this weekend after getting bail in two cases. The first pertained to two allegedly offensive tweets against Narendra Modi, and the second one regarding assaulting an on-duty police officer. The Assam police had arrested Mevani on the night of Thursday, April 20, 2022 from a circuit house in Palanpur in Gujarat and first took him to Ahmedabad overnight and then flown him to Assam the following day. Throughout this process, neither Mevani, nor his team were given a copy of the FIR or even told what charges he was picked up on. Mevani claims he wasn’t even allowed to talk to his lawyers or his family until he was at the Kokrajhar Police Station.
He was granted bail in that case on Monday, April 25, but re-arrested shortly under what were seen as trumped-up charges where he was not only accused of assaulting a police officer on duty but also outraging her modesty in the process. Mevani was granted bail in this case too on Friday, April 29, and the Barpeta court even made scathing observations against the police. The court had surmised, “In view of the above testimony of the victim woman, the instant case is manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused Jignesh Mevani in detention for a longer period, abusing the process of the court and the law.” However, these comments were later stayed by the Gauhati High Court.
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