Videos cited for his detention never shown to him, only saw thumbnails: Sonam Wangchuk's wife

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would watch the relevant video recordings, including a 40-minute video of the interaction between police officials and activist Sonam Wangchuk as his wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, alleged that four videos forming the basis of his detention were not shown to him and only the thumbnails on a pen drive were displayed.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal for Angmo contended before a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Prasanna B Varale that the state claimed the DIG, the police officer, came with a laptop, showed him four videos, and that the laptop was provided to the detainee on October 5, 2025, but those four videos were not there.

It was claimed that the pen drive was inserted into the laptop before Wangchuk, but he only saw the thumbnails and that none of the thumbnails was clicked, and the videos were not played.

Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj for the authorities countered that there is a video showing the conversation between the DIG and the detainee.

Arguing the habeas corpus petition filed by Wangchuk's wife against the detention, Sibal claimed that not supplying the videos violated his right to effective representation before the advisory board as well as the government.

The counsel said that if it is assumed that they showed him, but that is not the law, and the requirement is to give it to him.

They have to provide the document, and he does not have to ask for it, he submitted.

"It is their constitutional duty to supply. We have said that time and again that the four were never supplied," he claimed.

The court then said it would watch the relevant video recordings, including the video of the interaction between police officials and the detainee.

The court fixed the matter for further hearing on February 23, 2026.

Earlier, the court had on Monday questioned the Centre over translations of the transcripts of videos submitted by it against Wangchuk, saying it should be precise in the age of Artificial Intelligence.