Wangchuk not given videos which led to his detention: Angmo to SC

New Delhi: Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali J Angmo alleged in the Supreme Court on Thursday that four videos which formed the basis of her husband’s detention were not shown to him and only the thumbnails on pen drive were displayed.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing in the court for Angmo, told a bench of justices Aravind Kumar and Prasanna B Varale that not supplying the videos violated Wangchuk’s right to effective representation before the advisory board as well as the government.

“It is now alleged by the State that that DIG came with a laptop and shown four videos. The laptop was provided to detenue on October 5, 2025, but those four vidoes were not there.

“Let us assume they showed it to be, that is not the requirement of law. The requirement is to give it to me. They have to provide the document, I don’t have to ask. It is there constitutional duty to supply. We have said that time and again that the four was never supplied,” Sibal said.

Another lawyer assisting Sibal informed the court that the pen drive was inserted in the laptop before Wangchuk and he only saw the thumbnails.

“The videos were not actually played. None of the thumbnails were actually clicked,” the lawyer said.

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj submitted that there is a video in which the conversation with the DIG and detenue will show everything.

The top court said it see the relevant video recordings, including a 40-minute video of the interaction between police officials and the detenue.

The matter is now posted for hearing on February 23.

On Monday, the apex court had questioned the Centre about the transcripts of videos submitted by it against Wangchuk and said the translations should be precise in the age of artificial intelligence.