E-Paper
HC seeks Punjab’s reply on Ram Rahim’s plea for quashing Jalandhar FIR
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday sought a response from the Punjab government on a plea from Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh seeking the quashing of an FIR registered by Jalandhar Police.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday sought a response from the Punjab government on a plea from Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh seeking the quashing of an FIR registered by Jalandhar Police.
The high court bench of justice Sudhir Mittal, acting on the plea from Ram Rahim, has sought a response from the state government by May 30 against the FIR registered by Patara police on March 7 on allegations under section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of IPC.
It was submitted that part of a sermon delivered in 2016 by the Dera head has been uploaded on a YouTube channel in February, which depicts a discourse given by him in a completely wrong context. The content uploaded on YouTube is malicious and thus, the FIR deserves to be quashed. As per the plea, Ram Rahim had recited a sakhi related to Sant Kabir and Sant Ravidas during a satsang on February 28, 2016. This sakhi was recorded in many reliable historical religious books. To date, no one has objected to these religious books, the pea stated, adding that the complainant had deliberately mentioned a small portion of the sakhi in the complaint to mislead the police and administration.
The plea further argued that the police failed to conduct any sort of preliminary inquiry on claims made by the complainant but registered an FIR even as the complaint was being made seven years after the sermon was delivered. Moreover, the statements given in the satsang were not his creation but were from the anecdote recorded in various historical texts, the plea maintained.
The dera chief, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for raping his two disciples in 2002is lodged in Rohtak’s Sunaria jail. Subsequently, he was also convicted in two murder cases. Off late, the dera head has been in news for frequent paroles granted to him by the Haryana government. Punjab police are also probing his role in the 2015 sacrilege cases.
