CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday directed that the controversial Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh should not be taken to Punjab on production warrant in connection with Punjab sacrilege case.
The high court, however, made it clear that the Punjab police can go to Rohtak jail to question him, if needed.
The detailed orders of the court were not released till the filling of this report.
“The HC has ordered that the petitioner (Gurmeet Ram Rahim) will not be taken from Rohtak to Faridkot, instead if the SIT wants to investigate him, they can go to Rohtak jail to question him in relation to the case,” advocate Kanika Ahuja, one of the counsel representing the accused, said.
Justice Manoj Bajaj of the HC passed these orders while hearing a plea filed by the dera chief, who is at present lodged in Rohtak jail following his conviction in multiple rape and murder cases.
Dera chief main accused, needs to be quizzed: Pb
In his plea, the dera chief had sought directions to the arresting officer to release him on bail forthwith in event of his arrest arrest in connection with the FIR No. 63, registered on June 2, 2015, under Sections 380, 295-A of IPC registered at Bajakhana police station in Punjab’s Faridkot district. Later on, some more sections were added in this case.
A local court in Faridkot had passed an order on October 25 allowing the application filed by the Punjab Police SIT in connection with one of the sacrilege cases involving the theft of a Bir from a gurdwara in Faridkot’s Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village and the court issued production warrants of the dera chief for October 29.
In his plea, the dera chief mainly argued that with the change in the head of the state government in Punjab, belatedly after more than one year and four months, the Punjab Police SIT had moved an application for production warrants to arrest him in this case.
DIG Ranbir Singh Khattra-headed SIT had on July 6, 2020 filed a challan in court in which the dera chief had been nominated as a conspirator. However, in January this year, the high court had ordered the setting up of a new SIT. It is this new SIT that has now sought the dera chief ’s presence on production warrant in Faridkot.
The counsel representing the Punjab government, however, argued that the dera chief is the main accused in this case and required to be questioned in this case.
