Will continue quota agitation after bail: Hardik Patel

Ahmedabad: Patel quota agitation spearhead Hardik Patel, who was brought here on Sunday for appearance before a court tomorrow in connection with a sedition case, said he will continue with the stir if he gets bail.

Hardik was lodged in Lajpore jail in Surat following a sedition case against him by Ahmedabad police.

Speaking to the media before being sent to Sabarmati Central Jail here, Hardik reposed faith in the judicial process and said he will keep trying for bail. "We will continue the agitation even after I get bail," he said.

He will be produced before the court of metropolitan magistrate tomorrow.

"The court had issued notice to Lajpore jail authorities, asking them to produce him in person in Ahmedabad as per the section 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedures (CrPC)," his lawyer Rafiq Lokhandwala said.

The section mandates that an accused be produced before the court every fourteenth day after being sent to judicial custody.

"While the police had produced three other accused in the same case before the Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate on earlier dates, Hardik was not being produced," his lawyer said.

Hardik's bail plea filed on January 22 in this case is scheduled to come up for hearing in the city sessions court on Tuesday.

Hardik and his aides are facing charges under IPC section 124(A) (sedition), 121 (A) (conspiracy to wage war against government) and 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) in the case filed against them by Ahmedabad crime branch.

The police, in their chargesheet, had termed the quota agitation spearheaded by Patel as a "pre-planned conspiracy" that was hatched to put pressure on the state government to accept their "unconstitutional demand of quota."