“Am I A Terrorist?” Congressman Pawan Khera Faces Another Court Setback

On Friday, the Supreme Court declined to lift its stay of the Telangana High Court’s decision to grant Congressman Pawan Khera transit bail. Khera is facing legal action in Guwahati for remarks he made against Riniki Bhuyan Sharma, the wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Khera may be arrested by Assam Police as a result of the decision made by a bench consisting of Justices JK Maheshwari and Atul S Chandurkar. The court did, however, grant Khera the right to submit an anticipatory bail plea in the Guwahati High Court right away and requested that this hearing not have any bearing on the forum.

“The (Guwahati) court should decide on bail application strictly on merits of the case,” it said, also reprimanding Khera for submitting incorrect documents, i.e., an incorrect Aadhaar.

However, Khera’s attorney, prominent lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, stated that the Guwahati High Court plea will be filed on Monday after the court denied a request for protection till Tuesday. “Am I (Khera) a terrorist?” Singhvi bemoaned after the plea was turned down.

The Telangana High Court’s ruling giving Khera one-week anticipatory transit bail was later stopped by the Supreme Court after Singhvi claimed that Wednesday’s order had been ex-parte. Khera requested that the order be revoked during this hearing. Khera was given a week’s transit anticipatory bail by the High Court on April 10. Despite the case being brought in Assam, Justice K Sujana cited Supreme Court decisions to grant limited protection. 

The judge also observed that Khera showed a legitimate fear of being arrested, especially following Assam and Delhi Police’s search and seizure operations at his Delhi home. At that time, the court emphasized that the relief was just temporary and meant to give Khera seven days to request regular anticipatory bail from the appropriate Assamese court.

However, Assam Police later appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court. The case comes after Khera claimed at a news conference on April 4 that the Chief Minister’s wife had passports from three different nations. Additionally, he charged Sarma with engaging in illicit activity. 

In addition to having three passports, he had claimed that the Chief Minister’s wife had opulent homes in Dubai that were registered to a US state firm. The Sarma family has vehemently refuted these allegations, calling the documents “AI-generated fabrications” that were shared on social media in Pakistan. After then, a complaint was filed with Guwahati Police.