CBI files review petition in Supreme Court on Punjab’s 2015 sacrilege cases

Move comes after the apex court had dismissed investigating agency’s plea on February 20 and upheld the Punjab government’s notification to withdraw the probe into the Bargari sacrilege cases from the CBI

MOHALI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the dismissal of its plea on February 20 that upheld the Punjab government’s notification to withdraw the investigation in the 2015 sacrilege cases from the central probe agency.

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During the resumed hearing before the CBI special magistrate, Mohali, GS Sekhon, on Friday, the investigating agency told the court it had filed the review petition on March 5. The court was to hear the CBI’s application to keep in abeyance the closure report in the three Bargari sacrilege cases.

The court deferred the hearing till April 1.

The Supreme Court had upheld the Punjab and Haryana high court’s January 25 order. The high court had dismissed the petitions challenging consent by the Punjab government to withdraw investigation in the Bargari sacrilege cases from the CBI.

On July 4, 2019, the CBI filed a closure report, giving a clean chit to Dera Sacha Sauda followers Mohinder Pal Bittu, who was murdered in Nabha jail; Sukhjinder Singh, alias Sunny; and Shakti Singh, in the three cases of sacrilege. The cases are of the theft of a ‘bir’ of Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village on June 1, 2015; putting up handwritten posters in Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on September 25; and torn pages of the ‘bir’ found at Bargari on October 12, the same year.

The high court had dismissed the petition, saying the chain of events showed that the three cases are linked so the court “does not feel the necessity to interfere in the decision of the state government to withdraw the investigation from the CBI or set aside consequent notifications”.