E-Paper
Drug case: Bikram Singh Majithia remanded in judicial custody
The SAD leader and former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia has been lodged in Patiala Central Jail; application for his regular bail to come up for the hearing today
Shiromani Akali Dal leader and former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia was on Thursday remanded in judicial custody after he surrendered before a Mohali court in the drug case registered against him in December last year.
The former minister has been sent to the Patiala Central Jail after a medical examination at the government civil hospital in Mohali. Earlier, the plan was to lodge Majithia in the Sangrur jail, but it was changed following security reasons, it is learnt.
Majithia surrendered before the trial court of additional sessions judge Sandeep Kumar Singla around 11am and after his arrest, the special investigation team (SIT) was allowed to interrogate him. The former minister was questioned for nearly an hour by the SIT team led by its chief assistant inspector general (AIG) Balraj Singh.
Following the questioning, Majithia was again produced before the court of judicial magistrate Mukesh Kumar Singla, who ordered to send him in judicial custody.
The former minister’s application for the regular bail will come up for the hearing in a Mohali court on February 25 (Friday).
The SIT, probing the case, did not seek Majithia’s police remand and applied for judicial custody for 14 days. Earlier, the SIT had been pressing for his police remand while representing the case in the Punjab and Haryana high court and Supreme Court.
Majithia was represented by RS Cheema, HS Dhanoa, Arshdeep Singh Cheema, Binder Pal, PS Pahwa and Arshdeep Kaler, and the state by public prosecutor Sanjeev Batra and additional public prosecutors SS Sahota and Varun Sharma.
Majithia was booked under 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) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on December 20.
After the high court rejected Majithia’s bail application on January 25, a bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli on January 31 stayed his arrest till February 23 given his candidature in the assembly elections. The SC asked him to surrender before the trial court and apply the regular bail.
Majithia, brother-in-law of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, contested the high-profile election against Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu from the Amritsar East constituency.
After Thursday’s court order, Punjab home minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said the development has upheld the validity of the FIR against Majithia who has been terming it a political vendetta.
Majithia, however, in a brief interaction with the media, said: “Truth will win.”
