Ahmedabad

Jailed Patidar quota leader Hardik Patel had insisted on calling Chief Minister Mrs Anandiben Patel to the GMDC ground on August 25 after a pro-reservation rally to take memorandum of demands of Patidar Anamat Aandolan Samiti (PAAS) on the advice of an advocate who had helped preparing the draft of the memorandum.

The advocate in question was not B M Mangukiya, the congress legal cell leader and former counsel of Hardik who hogged the limelight owing to the sensational habeus corpus writ in the High Court post mid-night on September 22 last year after his mysterious disappearance in Tenpur of Aravalli district and who was later rather somewhat unceremoniously made to leave his cases.

In fact it was Pathik N Patel, a resident of Ghatlodiya area who is by profession an advocate.

Hardik’s current counsel Zubin Bharda today said that the investigating officer of the sedition case lodged in Ahmedabad by the crime branch in October last year had taken the statement of the advocate on November 17, 2015.

‘It has been annexed with the charge-sheet of the case. In the statement Pathik has said that it was he who advised Hardik during the rally on August 25 to call the CM to accept the memorandum in person. We have pointed it out and brought to the notice of the honourable court. He had said that he had helped the PAAS leaders in preparing the memorandum and after his advice, the idea was discussed among Hardik and his aides and was accepted later,’ Mr. Bharda said adding that the point was raised to show that the charges of conspiracy against the PAAS leader was not correct as the decision was taken at the spur of the moment.

‘The conspiracy needs three elements intention. knowledge and motive. But the above fact clearly shows that there was no intention or knowledge beforehand,’ he said.

The bail plea of Hardik in the sedition case will come up for hearing on April 22.

Many believe the demand of calling the CM to the GMDC ground on the fateful day was a shoतt of game-changer so far as the turn of events was concerned. The PAAS leaders sat on dharna with this demand following which a police action triggered state-wide violence.

– DeshGujarat