The Gauhati High Court's judgement from February 9 was being challenged in court by a petition filed by the Sibsagar MLA.
Digital Desk: The National Investigation Agency alleged before the Supreme Court on Monday that Assam MLA Akhil Gogoi is the mastermind of Maoist activity in the state, according to PTI.
The Gauhati High Court's judgement from February 9 was being challenged in court by a petition filed by the Sibsagar MLA. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was invoked by Gogoi and his three associates in December 2019 during demonstrations against the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the High Court permitted an NIA court to file charges against them.
The UAPA case against the politician and his associates was then reopened by the NIA court on February 24.
On Monday, a Supreme Court panel that included Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal was debating whether to extend the MLA's protection from arrest.
According to Live Legal, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, speaking on behalf of the NIA, claimed that Gogoi was the leader of a network of Maoist sympathisers and followers.
“Elected representatives cannot simultaneously be terrorists,” the solicitor general said. “Gogoi was associated with the proscribed organisation Communist Party of India (Maoist). He sent [his organisation] Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti cadres to train in Maoist camps, orchestrated widespread blockades in Assam, virtually paralysing the government machinery, and even provoked angry mobs to cause damage to public property.”
Several witnesses, Mehta said the court, had testified that Gogoi recruited people for Maoist training camps. 64 cases have been brought against the Independent MLA, he continued.
Huzefa Ahmadi, Gogoi's attorney, asserted that the lawmaker was the victim of political retaliation because he was "opposed to a particular political dispensation."
The matter will be heard again by the Supreme Court on March 24.
Gogoi's accusation case
The Citizenship Amendment Act, which was enacted by Parliament on December 11, 2019, grants citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, provided they entered the nation before December 31, 2014 and had remained in India for six years. For excluding Muslims, it has drawn heavy criticism. The Act triggered widespread protests of unprecedented size.
Following his protest against the Citizenship Alteration Act on December 12, 2019, Gogoi was detained in preventive prison. Gogoi was reportedly arrested for rioting, plotting, and "waging a war against the nation," according to the National Investigative Agency.
He was booked under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity between different communities), and 153B (making imputations and assertions prejudicial to national integration) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. He was also booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Gogoi was released from jail on July 1st, 2021, after serving an additional year and a half after a special court ruled that his comments did not constitute any form of incitement to violence.
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