By IANS,
New Delhi : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi, detained in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly communal and hate speeches, Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging his detention and seeking freedom.
Appearing for him, former additional solicitor general Mukul Rohatgi told a bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan that his client has been illegally put in preventive detention under the National Security Act (NSA), 1980, through misuse of the provision of the law.
Rohatgi told the bench, which also included Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly, that he was in the process of filing a habeas corpus petition for production of his client before the court and pleaded to the bench to accord it an urgent hearing.
The bench assured him of an urgent hearing Thursday.
In his lawsuit, filed later in the apex court’s registry, Gandhi termed his detention order, passed by the Pilibhit district magistrate March 29, as “bad in law” and issued with the motive of political vendetta to foil his electoral debut.
“The detention order and the ground supplied are bad in law and have been passed with political motivation,” said Gandhi in his petition.
In his petition, Gandhi said: “My detention by the state government is to ensure that I am not able to contest and campaign for the general elections scheduled next month.”