The Gujarat High Court on Thursday slammed the head of the Patel agitation committee, Hardik Patel, and his lawyer and termed their habeas corpus petition a “publicity” petition to take the “court for a ride”.
The Division Bench said the allegation of “abduction” had not been substantiated. “It seems the whole purpose of the petition was publicity,” Justices M.R. Shah and K.J. Thaker said. “You took the court for a ride. Despite our reluctance to hear the plea at night, you insisted that it was urgent and pertained to somebody’s life, so we took it up,” the court told Hardik’s lawyer M.B. Mangukia.
The Bench also reprimanded the lawyer for giving media interviews before and after the court decided to hear the petition past midnight and told him to tender unconditional apologies to the court.
“The manner in which you addressed the media, and corpus [Hardik] continuously appeared before the media can be taken as contempt of court,” the Bench said.
Advocate-General Kamal Trivedi called the “abduction episode” a “drama.”
