Guwahati High Court quashes NSA detention of activist Pranab Dole

A bench of the Guwahati High Court on Friday decided to quash the detention of Assam activist Pranab Dole under the National Security Act (NSA). This information was provided by Dipesh Agrawala, one of the advocates representing Pranab Dole. It is noteworthy that under the National Security Act, the government is empowered to detain any person for a prolonged period of up to one year without trial. A copy of the court's judgment in this case is not yet available.

According to the sequence of events, Pranab Dole was arrested on July 12. This arrest took place a few days after he participated in a protest against a hotel project in Eagle Pathar village, adjacent to Kaziranga National Park in Assam. Serious allegations were levelled against him by the police. According to the police, Dole had illegally entered the premises of the Tea Tribes Museum during the protest and subsequently trespassed into an existing project of the ATDC (Assam Tourism Development Corporation) in the same area with lethal weapons.

In this matter, the Golaghat Sessions Court had granted bail to Pranab Dole on July 29. While granting bail, the court stated that the investigating officer had already recorded the statements of the main witnesses and there was no possibility of the accused concealing or tampering with the evidence. However, just one day after receiving bail, the state's Bharatiya Janata Party government detained Dole under the National Security Act.

While taking this new action, the government alleged that Dole had carried out "suspicious foreign transactions" from questionable sources in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Due to this new detention, Pranab Dole was unable to be released from jail despite the bail order from the Sessions Court.

The Congress party launched severe attacks on the entire sequence of events in August. Congress alleged that the use of this law against Dole by the Assam government is part of a "growing pattern" of the BJP, where extraordinary laws are used as weapons to suppress opposition parties and dissenting voices. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described the allegations levelled against Dole by the state government as "vague and based on conjectures."

Opposition MP Jairam Ramesh further stated that this is a known method followed by the Narendra Modi government. As evidence, he mentioned that at least two other individuals had been detained under the same law in Uttar Pradesh in April. Now, with this decision of the Guwahati High Court, Pranab Dole's detention under the NSA has been quashed. According to a report by Scroll, advocate Dipesh Agrawala played a significant role in this entire process.