NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, FEB 15
Citing the ensuing Assembly elections, Congress leader Hardik Patel on Tuesday approached the Gujarat High Court seeking an urgent hearing on his plea against conviction in the 2015 Visnagar riot case.
Patel’s lawyer sought an urgent hearing in the case from the court of Justice BN Karia, citing that as of date, the Congress leader is barred from contesting elections. Patel’s lawyer further claimed that the Congress leader will be in a position to fight the polls only if the appeal is decided.
As per the Representation of the People Act and a related Supreme Court ruling, a convict facing a jail term of two years or more cannot contest an election unless his conviction is stayed.
Taking cognizance of the demand of Hardik Patel, the Gujarat High Court has set February 28 as the next date for hearing.
Patel, one of the most prominent faces of the Patidar reservation movement, had spearheaded the 2015 Gujarat protests. In an FIR filed at Visnagar in Mehsana district on 23 July 2015, Patel was named as an accused after a rally of the Patel community seeking reservation turned violent, resulting in damage to property and assault on some media persons. During the violent agitation, the mob had torched a car and vandalised the office of local BJP MLA Rishikesh Patel.
In July 2018, a sessions court at Visnagar in Mehsana district had sentenced Patel to two years of imprisonment and a penalty of Rs 50,000 in the case related to vandalising BJP legislator Rishikesh Patel’s office in Visnagar during the 2015 Patidar protests. Judge VP Agarwal, of the Sessions Court at Visnagar, also held two of Hardik’s aides – Lalji Patel and AK Patel – guilty under IPC sections pertaining to rioting, arson, damage to property and unlawful assembly and awarded them a similar sentence. However, the High Court had in August 2018 suspended the sentence, but not their conviction.
