Pinnacle Court stays Gujarat Patidar leader and Congress working president Hardik Patel’s conviction in riot case during 2015
12-04-2022
In July 2018, the sessions court at Visnagar had sentenced Patel to 2 years’ imprisonment for rioting and arson within the town during the 2015 Patidar quota stir. The Gujarat supreme court granted him bail in August 2018.
The Supreme Court Tuesday stayed the conviction of Gujarat Congress leader Hardik Patel in a very riot case, registered within the wake of the Patidar agitation within the state, till appeals against the tribunal verdict holding him guilty are decided.
“Having heard Senior Counsel Maninder Singh and having relevancy of the facts and circumstances, we are of the view that this can be the fit case for the supreme court to stay the conviction. The conviction is, hereby, stayed until the appeals are decided accordingly,” ordered a bench of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Vikram Nath granting him the relief.
In July 2018, the sessions court at Visnagar had sentenced Patel to 2 years’ imprisonment for rioting and arson within the town during the 2015 Patidar quota stir. The Gujarat court granted him bail in August 2018.
Patel, who wanted to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, prayed the tribunal for a stay the conviction as under The Representation of the People Act, 1951, anyone convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for not but two years is disqualified from contesting elections.
But in March 2019, the HC rejected his plea. The HC noted that he had several criminal cases and 17 FIRs registered against him despite an undertaking. It also took into consideration the amount of pending cases against him across various courts before rejecting his plea.
On Tuesday, senior advocate Maninder Singh appearing for Patel told the court that not allowing him to contest elections could be a violation of his right to freedom of expression. Singh discerned that Patel had already lost one chance to contest the election in 2019. He also contended that the state had misused police power against Patel.
Appearing for the state of Gujarat, peace officer Tushar Mehta said the question before the court isn't Patel contesting the election and added that the case should be decided by supporting legal code parameters. “In legal code, there's nobody standard guideline to mention which one is true. Your lordship may decide the difficulty. Whether Patel may have won or not, isn't the problem during this case,” said Mehta.
Mehta also submitted that there's one charge under Section 395 (dacoity) of the Indian legal code (IPC) against Patel “which is actually serious.”
