E-Paper
Castration of followers: HC quashes CBI court order to provide documents to Ram Rahim
It was in 2019 that CBI special court had allowed a plea from the Dera head seeking some documents including statements of 87 witnesses. The CBI had challenged the trial court order before high court in 2019.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday quashed a 2019 order of special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court Panchkula directing the CBI to provide certain documents to Dera Sacha Sauda head, Gurmeet Ram Rahim in alleged case of mass castration of followers at the dera.
It was in 2019 that CBI special court had allowed a plea from the Dera head seeking some documents including statements of 87 witnesses. The CBI had challenged the trial court order before high court in 2019.
It was on February 1, 2018, the CBI had charged the dera head and two doctors in the case. As per the charge-sheet, a large number of followers were castrated at the behest of Ram Rahim by Dr Pankaj Garg and Dr M P Singh. They were charged under section 326 (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 417 (cheating) of IPC. The CBI probe was ordered by the high court in 2014.
The court observed that the trial court passed the order without evincing any observations about the “desirability, relevancy and necessity” of the statements of 87 witnesses. The order was passed in a “perfunctory manner” in as much as it took into account merely the statements of a couple of witnesses while directing production of statements of all 87 witnesses.
The court further said that the accused can’t insist upon production of the case diary as it is not evidence. However, the trial court did not bear this in mind while ordering the production of the case diary.
“Moreover, the special judicial magistrate has also erred in directing production of the status report, as filed before this court (when case was in HC seeking CBI probe). The said status report is not a part of the investigation, rather it is informatory in nature and filed before this court to apprise about progress of the investigation. Moreover, since the said status report is a part of the case diary, thus cannot be supplied to the accused.” it said.
The court while quashing 2019 order remanded back the matter to trial court to decide the applications afresh in view of this judgment.
Ram Rahim has been convicted for 20 years of jail in two rape cases (2017) and a life term for conspiring to murder a journalist (2019). The high court on May 28 had acquitted him in the case of the murder of former dera manager Ranjit Singh in 2002. He is also accused in multiple FIRs related to 2015 sacrilege incidents pending a probe in Punjab.
