Mevani barred from leaving Gujarat, gets bail in 2017 case

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Apart from Mevani, the other convicted include Gujarat leader of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Reshma Patel, Kaushik Parmar, Subodh Parmar, Ramubhai Parmar, Khodidas Chauhan, Gautam Shreemali, Kapil Shah, Arvind Parmar and Joitaram Parmar.

On May 5 last month, a magisterial court had convicted the 10 for holding a march in Mehsana without permission in July 2017. The court had awarded them three months’ imprisonment and fine of Rs 1,000 each. At the time of pronouncement of judgment, the court granted them one month’s time to move appeal before appellate court as per law.

Challenging the conviction, Mevani and nine others have moved an appeal before Sessions court and the court granted them bail while admitting the appeal.

Defence lawyer Mahesh Gurjar said, “We have moved appeal against the order of conviction and the court has admitted the same while granting the 10 conditional bail. As per the bail conditions, they cannot leave Gujarat limits without court permission. They have also been ordered to submit their passports to the court.”

The march — called Azadi Kooch — was carried out by Mevani and his associates from Mehsana to Dhanera of Banaskantha district on July 12, 2017 to mark one year of public flogging of a group of Dalits in Una that had led to a large scale agitation in the state.

One of the associates of Mevani, Kaushik Parmar, had sought permission for the rally under the banner of Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, an organisation founded by Mevani, from the Mehsana executive magistrate and it was granted initially. Even though the permission was revoked by the authority later, the rally was carried out by the organisers.

Mehsana police had registered a criminal case of unlawful assembly under the provisions of the IPC in connection with the incident.

The rally was also attended by the former Jawaharlal Nehru University student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who is now part of Congress. He is also one of the accused in the case.

But since Kumar was absent at the time of framing of the charge by the court against the accused in April last year, the court had passed an order to hold a separate trial against him when he appears before the court.