Hardik Patel has moved the Gujarat High Court seeking to set aside the sedition charges against him.
A day after he was arrested, Patel quota agitation spearhead, Hardik Patel today moved a petition before the Gujarat High Court seeking to set aside the sedition charges filed against him in Surat.
Hardik's father Bharat Patel moved the plea on behalf of his son through his advocate, BM Mangukiya. "No offence can be disclosed by spoken words of Hardik and no overt act can be attributed to him by those words, thus no offence has been made out," the plea said.
The plea is likely to come up for hearing tomorrow.
Earlier, a case of sedition was filed against Hardik Patel for his alleged controversial remarks instigating his community youth to kill cops instead of committing suicide.
The 22-year-old leader was detained by Rajkot rural police ahead of the India-South Africa One-Day International on Sunday, as he had threatened to disrupt the match. He was arrested yesterday for allegedly insulting the national flag.
Just after he was granted bail last evening by a local court in the flag case, the Surat police had arrested him in the sedition complaint. The Deputy Commissioner of Police in Surat city, Makrand Chauhan had filed a complaint against Hardik in Amroli police station for advising a Patel youth to kill policemen.
The sedition case was filed under section 124(A) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Amroli Police Station in Surat. Other IPC sections included against Hardik are section abetment of offence, promoting enmity between different groups, incite one community against another and criminal intimidation.
The emerging Patel leader had on October 3 allegedly advised a Surat-based youth from his community to kill cops rather than ending his life.
"If you have so much courage...then go and kill a couple of policemen. Patels never commit suicide," Hardik had allegedly told the youth Vipul Desai, who had announced that he would commit suicide in support of the agitation.
Hardik had visited Mr Desai's house accompanied by a team of a news channel which had aired the conversation later.
The quota stir leader has been hogging the limelight since the August 25 "mega-rally" of Patels in Ahmedabad and the subsequent violence across Gujarat in which 10 people were killed.