Hadrik Patel led the Patidar quota stir two years ago.
Hardik Patel and his two colleagues have been charged with sedition in a case related to a protest they had organised three years ago demanding reservation for Patel community allegedly turning violent.
Mr Patel and his two associates, Dinesh Bambhaniya and Chirag Patel, have been accused of sedition, criminal conspiracy and inciting the youth to violence during an agitation they spearheaded in August 2015. All of them have pleaded not guilty. But Ahmedabad sessions Court today farmed charges against them and set January 29 as the date to begin the trial. The alleged offences carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
In the charge-sheet filed in January in 2016, the police said the trio, who were part of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), incited the Patel community youths to resort to violence as part of their "conspiracy to put undue pressure" on the government to accept their demand for giving reservation to Patel community under the Other Backward Class (OBC) category.
The police said the "inflammatory messages and rumours" that were being spread at the behest of the accused had led to riots, arson and damaging public property for almost four days.
The Gujarat High Court had later dropped the charge of "waging war against the state," an offence that has the maximum sentence of death penalty against them.
Hardik Patel said he has complete faith in the judiciary and would fight the case in a higher court if it is needed to come clean.
"Charges of sedition, war against government, instigating people have been framed against me as if I am out with weapons to wage war against the BJP. I have faith in the judiciary. I will fight and will go to higher court if need be," Hardik Patel said today.
(With inputs from PTI)