SC adjourns hearing on plea challenging Sonam Wangchuk's detention under NSA to October 29

New Delhi [India], October 15 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned to October 29 the hearing of 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 adjourned the plea after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Wangchuk's wife, said she wants to amend her petition.
The bench permitted her to amend the petition challenging Wangchuk's preventive detention to address the grounds of detention supplied by the Central government.
Wangchuk's wife had filed a habeas corpus plea seeking release of her husband on the basis that no grounds of detention were supplied by the detaining authorities.
During the brief hearing today, Sibal sought permission to amend the plea so that the grounds of detention supplied by the government may now be challenged.
Sibal also said that Wangchuk was not allowed to share the notes with his wife.
"He has made certain notes on the detention which he wanted to pass to the lawyer for his wife. Whatever notes he prepares, he is entitled to the assistance of the lawyer. All that we want that is the notes be passed," he said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, said that he has no problem with the notes being shared with the wife, but the delay in providing the grounds of detention to the wife should not become a ground to challenge the detention.
The plea had said that the grounds of detention have 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 its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
The plea 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 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 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 also challenged the transfer of Wangchuk to the Central Jail in Jodhpur, over a thousand kilometres from Ladakh, the site of protests.