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Akali leader Majithia gets interim protection from arrest in Punjab drugs case
High court bench directs Bikram Majithia to join probe and police have been told not to arrest him till the next date of hearing
Shiromani Akali Dal leader and former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia, 46, on Monday got interim protection from arrest in the drugs case registered against him by Punjab Police in Mohali on December 20.
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The order was passed by the Punjab and Haryana high court bench of justice Lisa Gill. The detailed order is awaited. However, lawyers associated with the case said that he has been directed to join the probe and police have been told not to arrest him till the next date of hearing.
Majithia was booked by Punjab Police under sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, including Sections 25 (punishment for allowing premises), 27 (A) (whoever is financing any activities pertaining to narcotic drugs) and 29 (party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence). Majithia’s whereabouts are not known since.
On December 24, a Mohali court had dismissed Majithia’s plea.
The plea had termed the FIR an “election stunt” and alleged that the government has changed three Punjab Police chiefs in three months to get this FIR registered. The Bureau of Investigation has also seen three departmental heads change, it said. The plea also accused Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu of indulging in “unwarranted propaganda” and deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa of demonstrating “intense hatred” towards Majithia.
The plea said the STF report, which is the basis of the FIR, was either superseded or merged with the subsequent report of a state government committee. In all drug cases registered, trials have been concluded with the acquittal of some accused and the conviction of others. None of the accused made any reference of the petitioner, it said.
Punjab Police, in its response, had said that the government machinery was used for the benefit of drug cartels during the Akali regime in the state. Majithia was a key minister in the Akali government and it was during the SAD term that the offences of drug trade had taken place, the police submitted, adding that without his custodial interrogation, the case could not be cracked and “backward and forward linkages” can’t be established.
The SIT also said incriminating material had come on record against Majithia. A sealed cover report was also given to the court.
The SIT denied allegations of political vendetta and stated that the FIR had been registered on the basis of prima facie evidence. The statement of Harpreet Singh Sidhu, the STF head, who had submitted the 2018 report in the high court on the “role” of Majithia, which became the basis of the FIR, has been recorded, along with that of former deputy director, Enforcement Directorate, Niranjan Singh, who had summoned Majithia in 2014 in connection with money-laundering allegations in the drugs trade. The STF report was based on a note prepared by Niranjan Singh, the police told the court.
