Kerala HC restrains police from detaining Twenty20 Party Chief Sabu Jacob

The Kerala High Court has precluded the police from apprehending the Managing Director of Kitex Garments Limited., Sabu M. Jacob, the Chief Coordinator of Twenty20 Party, an ally of the AAP in Kerala, over a complaint registered under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The court has directed Jacob and the other accused to appear before the investigating officer when and as ordered.

CPIM legislator PV Sreenijan filed a complaint against Twenty20 chairman Sabu M Jacob, claiming that Jacob and his party socially shunned him and refused to sit with him on the dais in August as he is a Dalit.

In his complaint to the police, Sreenijan said that the panchayat president and two others from Twenty20 got off the dais at an event as soon as he joined them and preferred to sit with the audience. This, he said, was aimed at “insulting him” in public. He further added that Jacob frequently made personal attacks, calling him out for belonging to a Dalit community.

According to the police, the FIR was filed in accordance with the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 on the direction of Director General of Police Anil Kant. A case was registered against five other members of Twenty20 under 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(u) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The leader of the Kitex group of industries refuted the accusations and stated that since his party was unaffiliated with any political party, it was agreed not to share the dais with those in charge of political organisations.

In Kochi, the Twenty20 party is in power in four local bodies. In 2021, it ran candidates for seven Assembly seats and came in third in two of those seats. Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi and the leader of the AAP, announced the alliance with the Twenty20 party in May of this year.