AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani, former NCP member and current AAP Gujarat leader Reshma Patel and eight others were exonerated by the Mehsana district and sessions court on Wednesday in connection with a rally they organised out of Mehsana town in July 2017 without getting permission from the police.
According to sources, the court cleared Mevani and other protesters by stating that the right to peaceful assembly is protected by Article 19 of the Constitution and that the charges brought against the activists were baseless.
The verdict was delivered by Additional District Judge C M Pawar. Two appeals were filed at the district and session courts following the magisterial court’s verdict convicting Mevani and nine others in May 2022.
After the Verdict, Mevani tweeted, “Upholding our rights to deliberate, discuss & debate in a democracy and quoting the prosecutors case to be “baseless,” a session court in Mehsana has acquitted us today in a frivolous case registered by Mehsana police in 2017.”