The Congress president, Pawan Khera, is banging on the doors of the Gauhati High Court in order to evade arrest. In Assam a high-stakes legal drama is being played after a contentious fight with Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, the wife of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Khera has just recently applied to be put on anticipatory bail. Arguments over three hours long were heard by the court on Tuesday, April 21, and the court formally reserved its order. The single-judge court headed by Justice Parthivjyoti Saikia will now sentence him
The case puts a top opposition leader squarely on the firing end of the Assam police. A criminal case was registered against Khera earlier this month against authorities. The judicial wheels turned swiftly. Police force even went to Hyderabad to locate him by visiting his house in Delhi. Being left alone without an interim protection, Khera was left no option but to stand before the jurisdictional court in Guwahati.
The Police Complaint in the Midnight.
It all started with a very blow out press conference that Khera had on April 5. He appeared in front of the media and made enormous financial charges towards the family of the Assam Chief Minister. He alleged that he had documentary evidence that Riniki Bhuyan Sarma had three separate passports. He included the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Antigua and Barbuda. Khera went a step further. He showed pictures of records that he contended revealed hidden offshore riches. He claimed that the family possessed properties in the UAE, and it had a limited liability company incorporated in the United States. In particular he contended that all these foreign assets never featured in the election affidavits of Chief Minister in his sworn affidavits
The state capital response was enraged and swift. Riniki Bhuyan Sarma strongly refuted all the assertions. She referred to the allegations as utterly false and said that the documents distributed by Khera were utter forgeries. She filed a formal complaint in the Crime Branch Police Station of Guwahati Police Commissionerate by midnight on April 6.
The complaint was not taken lightly by the police. They have filed a First Information Report citing many of the heavy sections of the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The felonies are criminal conspiracy, cheating, and false statement that is related to an election. Fraudulent instruments used by officers to falsify records of public bodies, falsify forgeries as true documents, wilful insult, and criminal intimidation were also slapped on. The supposed crimes they categorized were way past what could be considered normal political slander.
Another Complex Legal Process.
Reaching the Gauhati High Court was a shabby affair to Khera. Originally he fled to the south of the country. The Telangana High Court on April 10 gave him a temporary reprieve. They also gave him a one-week anticipatory bail on transit. The thought was to provide him with breathing space to go to Assam and present a due petition
The Assam police could not tolerate such procrastination. They went to the Supreme court of India to appeal against the order of the Telangana court. They claimed that Khera presented forged documents in order to create jurisdiction in a state that was absolutely not related to the alleged crime. The police were right to some degree as agreed by the Supreme Court. The highest court gave an interim order halting the transit bail on April 15. Khera has lost his immediate protection against arrest.
Khera, two days later, attempted to have the Supreme Court lift the stay by his legal team. They pleaded that they might be given time till Tuesday that he might safely reach the courts of Assam. The Supreme Court outright denied. Justices JK Maheshwari and Atul S Chandurkar informed him that he could do it before the effective court in Guwahati. They made it very clear that the local judges ought to make the decision based purely on its merits. The Supreme Court ordered that their previous stay order should not adversely affect the independent determination of the High Court regarding the bail plea. It was on the basis of this very decision that Khera submitted his paperwork in Guwahati.
Within the Courtroom Clashes
The hearing in the Gauhati High Court on Tuesday pitted some of the best lawyers in the country against each other. Khera was represented by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi via a video conferencing link. He pictured the whole police operation as a form of pure political revenge. He quoted recent public utterances by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to believe that Khera could not be treated in any fair manner at all when the state machinery was breathing down his neck.
Singhvi emphasized a highly easy-going point to the judge. Khera is a leading political figure in the country, and the media chairman of the All India Congress Committee. He is not at risk of taking a flight. He is not going to just turn up and disappear or flee the nation. Singhvi was supported by another senior counsel KN Choudhary. He assaulted the real contents of the FIR. Choudhary termed the accusations as malicious and scandalous. His argument was that despite the literal interpretation of the complaint, it would be criminal defamation. Criminal defamation is supposed by law, to be dealt with by a private complaint in a magistrate’s court, not by a gigantic police search that carries serious charges of forgery.
The Position of the Assam Government.
The state government resisted with a mighty effort. Assam Advocate General Devajit Lon Saikia rose to the occasion to protest against granting any relief to Khera. He advised the judge to disregard the story that it was nothing but a mere name calling between politicians.
The court focused on the physical documents that were presented by Khera on the national television as directed by Saikia. The Advocate General demanded that this was the case of the real actual physical production of counterfeit title deeds, seals and official stamps. He claimed that Khera had forwarded these forged documents just to get a political mileage before the forthcoming elections. Cheating and forgery are the prevalent crimes in the state, not defamation.
Saikia explained the immediate intentions of the police too. He alleged that the investigating officers did not even intend to drag Khera away handcuffed as soon as they had discovered him. Rather, he claimed, the police just wanted to get his real passports, and the original documents that he said he had. Yet, the Advocate General declared Khera a potential flight risk and strongly demanded the court to refuse interim protection.The debates are closed. The attorneys have gathered up their files
. The final decision lies with the single-judge bench. Khera is now hoping that the Gauhati High Court would provide him with the legal protection that he requires or expose him to arbitrary arrest at the hands of the Assam Crime Branch.
