The Ahmedabad City Civil and Sessions Court has allowed the Gujarat government to withdraw a sedition case filed against BJP MLA Hardik Patel and four associates who led the 2015 Patidar quota agitation.
Additional Sessions Judge Manish Purohit passed two orders in this regard on Saturday while acting on an application moved by Special Public Prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt under the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The 2015 case against Hardik Patel, Dinesh Bambhaniya, Chirag Patel, Ketan Patel and Alpesh Katheriya was that they conspired to instigate members of the Patidar or Patel community to agitate for its inclusion in the OBC list “despite knowing that it was not “legally and sociologically possible”.
The order allowing the state government’s application to withdraw the case reads, “[I]t appears that the offence is pertaining to deliberately and knowingly by words, spoken and written, attempted to undermine public order and lawful authority of the State. It is also pertinent to note in the peculiar facts of the present case that no accusation of damages under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, therefore, no damages had been caused to public property. In the backdrop of the facts, when the State Government has decided to withdraw from the prosecution against the accused persons, which has been communicated through a letter addressed by the District Magistrate dated February 18, 2025, to the Special Public Prosecutor…and therefore, this Court is of the humble view that the permission for withdrawal from prosecution is to be granted and accordingly, this Court is granting its consent and giving the permission to withdraw from the prosecution…”
The accused were charged under Indian Penal Code sections 124A (sedition), 121 (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the Government of India), 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by section 121), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), and 153B (imputation, assertions prejudicial to national integration).
This was among the nine Patidar quota agitation cases that the BJP government last month announced it would withdraw. Around 300 cases were registered over the 2015 Patidar agitation