New Delhi: Placing before Supreme Court the videos and the transcripts of his alleged inflammatory speech and interview which were termed as anti-national and became grounds for his detention under National Security Act, climate activist Sonam Wangchuk told Court on Thursday that he was misquoted and edited videos were circulated by “certain IT cell” which was wrongly relied upon by detaining authority.Challenging the detention, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Wangchuk’s wife, told Justices Aravind Kumar and P B Varale that the activist never spoke of overthrowing the government, didn’t disrespect any Hindu goddess, never talked about a plebiscite in Kashmir nor had said Ladakhis would not support the Indian Army during war. Sibal said that these malicious and misleading statements, which he never said and debunked by fact checkers, were relied upon. The activist was detained in Sept and he has been in custody since then. Highlighting Wangchuk has been holding protests to protect ecology and environment of Ladakh, Sibal said speaking against a govt cannot be termed as an act against the country and anti-national. “He had said he will not allow violence to take place. The 6th schedule was a promise given by a political party. It was given in 2020. If in 2025 he says fulfil it before elections then what’s wrong with it? Anti-govt sentiment is not a security threat to the country. I can criticise the govt. That’s what democracy is about. And part of that is peaceful protests, marches and criticising the govt,,” he said. Reading from the transcript of his speech and interviews, Sibal put all these statements to establish that “some IT cell” took a small clip and put it in a different context to spark the controversy. “A detaining authority relying on a statement must rely on the entire statement and cannot rely on a sentence or two…The whole detention order is based on excerpts, out of context, misleading, false, thereby suggesting a selective approach, malafide in nature, to ensure that I am detained,” Sibal said. Referring to his alleged statement to overthrow the govt, Sibal made the bench to go through the transcript .”The correct translation is – I say if the govt does not have affection for citizens, care for its environment, then such a govt is an obstacle in the progress of the nation. He says I too can bring change. We all need to be prepared to save mother Ladakh and mother India. What is wrong in this?” he said. On disrespecting a goddess, Sibal said, “The unedited version brings out a complete picture. It was meant to say that after liberating Ladakh from Kashmir, the central govt failed to extend its promise of constitutional safeguards under the 6th Schedule. He says like Rama got Sita from the clutches of Ravana and left her in the market, the central govt did a similar thing with Ladakh.” He said that the activist had praised govt and Prime Minister Narendra Modi multiple times on international platforms and he never spoke against the country. He said those statements were ignored and selective things which were quoted out of context were considered for his detention.
