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2015 sacrilege case: HC stays trial court proceedings against Sirsa dera chief
High court bench of justice Vinod S Bhardwaj also referred the petition to a larger bench to determine if the consent given by the state government for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe can be withdrawn later by the state government. Multiple lawyers associated with the case, including Jitender Khurana, one of Ram Rahim’s counsels, confirmed the development. However, detailed order is awaited.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday stayed further proceedings before a trial court in 2015 sacrilege cases against Sirsa Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
High court bench of justice Vinod S Bhardwaj also referred the petition to a larger bench to determine if the consent given by the state government for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe can be withdrawn later by the state government. Multiple lawyers associated with the case, including Jitender Khurana, one of Ram Rahim’s counsels, confirmed the development. However, detailed order is awaited.
It was on December 13, 2021, Ram Rahim had moved the high court demanding that the CBI be asked to continue with the probe into three sacrilege FIRs of 2015. The plea also challenged the Punjab government notification of September 6, 2018, wide which the consent given to the CBI to investigate these FIRs of sacrilege cases was withdrawn. These FIRs included FIR number 63 registered on June 1, 2015, for theft of a ‘bir’; September 25, 2015, FIR number 117 of anti- Sikh posters; and FIR number 128 of October 12, 2015, of a sacrilege incident reported in Bargari, all in Faridkot district.
A Punjab Police SIT had named the dera chief in the chargesheets filed in all three FIRs and claimed that he had emerged as the “main conspirator”. The trial is underway at a special court in Chandigarh, transferred from Faridkot in February 2023 by the apex court.
After the sacrilege incidents in 2015, protests started at two places in Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan. On October 14, 2015, two anti-sacrilege protesters were killed in Behbal Kalan in alleged police firing incident. Following this, the then SAD-BJP government handed over the probe to the CBI. However, subsequently in 2018, the then Congress government got a resolution passed in the Vidhan Sabha, taking back cases from the CBI, and handed it over to a special investigative team, a decision challenged in these proceedings by the dera head.
Ram Rahim, who was in the news recently due to nine paroles/furloughs granted by the Haryana government in around six years, is lodged in the Sunaria jail of Rohtak, since his arrest in August 2017.
He is serving two convictions of 10 years each (to run consecutively) in rape cases of two women disciples on dera premises in Sirsa in 2002, awarded in 2017. His two life terms awarded in murder cases would start after completion of 20 years of jail in rape cases.
