E-Paper
HC suspends jail term of Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi
The Patiala police had booked Daler and his brother Shamsher Mehndi, who died in 2017, and two others on a complaint filed by Bakshish Singh of Balbera village. Bakshish alleged that Mehndi took ₹12 lakh to send him to Canada
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday suspended the jail term of Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi, who was in 2018 sentenced to two years in jail in a 2003 human trafficking case. He had approached high court on July 20, after the Patiala district court upheld the two-year jail term awarded by a court of judicial magistrate in 2018.
“His sentence has been suspended, which means that he will be out on bail, pending proceedings before the high court,” his lawyer, Arshdeep Singh Cheema, said.
Mehndi was held guilty under Sections 420 (cheating) and 120-B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code in 2018. The trial court had sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹2,000. He was taken into custody on July 14, and sent to Patiala jail, when his conviction was upheld by a court of additional sessions judge, Patiala. He has been in custody for 2 months now.
While admitting his appeal for hearing, the court of justice Gurvinder Singh Gill took note of two major arguments from Mehndi’s side and stated that cross-examination would indicate that from the call-details/tower location record, the presence of Mehndi was not established in Patiala on the dates when ₹10 lakh was allegedly given.
It further also took note of argument that private security agency did not have record of visit of complainant to singer’s house, when complainant allegedly went to Delhi for making payment of ₹1 lakh to the singer. The agency had been maintaining record of all the visitors.
The court further observed that entire evidence needed to be examined thoroughly and that there were certain arguable points in the petition. Hence, admitted his appeal for hearing as per turn of pending cases and suspended his jail term.
The Patiala police had booked Daler and his brother Shamsher Mehndi, who died in 2017, and two others on a complaint filed by Bakshish Singh of Balbera village. Bakshish alleged that Mehndi took ₹12 lakh to send him to Canada. Thirty-five more complaints, levelling allegations of fraud against the brothers, came forward later. While Shamsher and Dhian Singh died during trial, Bulbul Mehta, an employee of Mehndi’s firm, was acquitted for lack of evidence. The complainants had alleged that the Mehndi brothers had taken “passage money” from them to help them migrate to the US illegally, but failed to do so.
