Produce pen drive with speech videos given to Sonam Wangchuk: Supreme Court

The court was hearing a plea by Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo challenging his detention. While hearing it on February 12, the bench had questioned the Centre if there was any endorsement by Wangchuk that he had seen the four videos.

Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, appearing for the Centre, had then urged the court to peruse the detention order, saying, “There are 23 videos which have been relied (on) in the detention order, and everything has been supplied to him (Wangchuk) and that is with acknowledgment… All the videos which have been referred (to) in the annexure have been supplied in detail.”

Angmo’s counsel, however, said that Wangchuk had only endorsed receipt of the videos mentioned in the index, but that doesn’t mean he had seen them. Also, the four videos were missing from the pen drive supplied to him, the counsel said. “The pen drive which was supplied to us… mischievously did not have those videos… When we found out, we repeatedly wrote to them… raising issue of non-supply,” the counsel had said.

On Monday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Angmo, reiterated that the four videos were not there in the pen drive supplied to Wangchuk on September 29, following which the bench directed production of the device.

Sibal also disputed the accuracy of the translations of the speeches that were submitted before the detaining authority.

“They have supplied and relied upon incorrect transcripts of the videos — portions of which have been selectively extracted so as to mislead the detaining authority into arriving at its subjective satisfaction,” he said. The bench told ASG Nataraj, “We want the actual transcript of his speeches.”

The hearing will resume on February 18.