Sonam Wangchuk's Detention Based On Stale FIRs, Grounds Not Fully Supplied Within Time Limit : Gitanjali Angmo To Supreme Court

Dr.Gitanjali Angmo has filed an amendment application before the Supreme Court, raising additional grounds challenging the detention of her husband and Ladakh social activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been detained under the National Security Act, 1980, after the recent Ladakh protests turned violent.She has submitted that the detention order and grounds of detention are ex facie unsustainable in law as they are premised upon irrelevant grounds, stale FIRs, extraneous material, self-serving statements, and suppression of information.Detention based on stale FIRs, bears no nexus with WangchukAs per her plea, the grounds of detention rely upon five FIRs, out of which three date back to more than 1 year and in which there is neither any allegation against him nor is there specific mention of his name.The fifth FIR, dating one day prior to his detention, only states that it is against some "unknown miscreants": "“meanwhile some miscreant youths, through a deliberate conspiracy, instigated those who joined the hunger strike and turned the gathering into a procession”… “Subsequently, the of said miscreants also began stone pelting at the office the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC)”… “the miscreants attacked the police personnel".It is only the fourth FIR which names him, but it was lodged immediately after he joined the Apex Board of Leh(ABL). It is stated that this FIR pertains to completely different facts. "It is submitted that the Detention Order suffers from gross illegality and arbitrariness, as it relies upon stale, irrelevant, and extraneous FIRs. As is evident from the preceding paragraphs, out of the five FIRs relied upon, three pertain to the year 2024, bearing no proximate, live, or rational nexus to the detention of Mr. Wangchuk in September 2025. Moreover, four out of five of the FIRs, out of which three are registered against “unknown persons”, do not name Mr. Sonam Wangchuk. There is thus no clear, live, proximate, or intelligible connection between the FIRs and the preventive detention of Mr. Sonam Wangchuk under the NSA, 1980." Misleading that Wangchuk as member of ABL instigated protestsIt is stated that Wangchuk had been a general supporter of both ABL and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) in their movement for Statehood and safeguards for Ladakh. It was only in 2025 that he joined as a member, and soon after, when controversies began to emerge with ABL, its leadership unanimously passed a resolution inviting Wangchuk to join both the High Powered Committee (HPC) and the sub-committee for talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). However, the following week made it clear that the MHA had strong reservations about Wangchuk being part of the HPC delegation of ABL and KDA.This was, despite the fact that, both ABL and KDA had clearly stated that the composition of their delegation was their prerogative and should not be dictated or influenced from Delhi."It is submitted that it is incorrect to state that Mr. Sonam Wangchuk instigated the ABL to organise any protest. The question of “instigation” does not arise at all, as both the ABL and KDA leadership had, on multiple occasions, publicly announced, even prior to Mr. Wangchuk's joining and at a time when he held no decision-making position whatsoever, that they would intensify their agitation if the MHA did not resume talks after the meeting held on 27.05.2025. In fact, the ABL and KDA had already organised a joint three-day hunger strike from 10 -12 August 2025 in Kargil district demanding that talks with the Central Government be resumed."Wangchuk used protest to target government for cancelling his NGO's license false; detaining authority maliciously targeted him just before Leh electionsThe application denies the allegation that Wangchuk used protest to target the government, as he has worked tirelessly with governments in the field of nation-building."Mr. Wangchuk has, for over 30 years, worked tirelessly in the field of nation-building through educational reform and environmental solutions to climate change, and has been honoured with more than 30 awards by various State Governments, successive Central Governments, and international institutions, bringing pride to the nation. It is pertinent that such allegations surfaced for the first time only in the last two months i.e. August and September 2025, which immediately resulted in notices and actions against his institutions, including cancellation of land leases, CBI investigation, FCRA cancellation, Income Tax summons, and other proceedings."It is claimed that Wangchuk was deliberately targeted just before the Leh elections because he had raised the issue of statehood."The fact that all of these actions suddenly arose just two months before the LAHDC, Leh elections, scheduled for October 2025 and at a time when he publicly raised the issue of fulfilling the 6th Schedule promises made during the 2020 elections, prima facie reveals a malicious intent on the part of the ...

Sonam Wangchuk's Detention Based On Stale FIRs, Grounds Not Fully Supplied Within Time Limit : Gitanjali Angmo To Supreme Court

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

Angmo asserted that Wangchuk never made any provocative speech and had merely undertaken a peaceful hunger strike in support of Ladakh's demand for statehood.

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