A Gujarat court on Wednesday acquitted Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani and nine others in a case pertaining to a rally in Mehsana town in July 2017 allegedly without police permission, The Indian Express reported.
The other persons who have been acquitted include former Nationalist Congress Party member Reshma Patel and some members of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, of which Mevani is the convenor.
Patel is now a spokesperson for the Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat.
The accused persons had moved the Mehsana district and sessions court after they were sentenced to three months in jail by an additional chief judicial magistrate in May last year.
Mevani and his supporters had organised the rally on July 12, 2017, to protest inaction in a 2016 case, in which four Dalits were stripped and beaten by an upper-caste mob for skinning a dead cow. The protest march, called “Azadi Kooch”, had been organised from Mehsana to Dhanera town in the Banaskantha district.
The police had filed a first information report under Section 143 (punishment for unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code against 12 persons, including Mevani and Patel. One of the accused persons has died while another is absconding.
On Wednesday, the sessions court termed the case baseless. Additional District Judge CM Pawar said that citizens have the right to debate and discuss issues in a democracy, according to The Indian Express.
The court also said that the march had caused no harm to citizens or the police, and no prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure were in force at the time of the incident.
Responding to the verdict, Mevani said that the case against him and the others was frivolous. “Satyamev Jayate [Truth alone triumphs],” he said on Twitter.
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