Shift case against me outside state: Langah

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 18

Former Akali minister Sucha Singh Langah on Wednesday moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, seeking the transfer of the rape case against him to a court outside Punjab on the ground that the presiding officer was hostile towards him.

Taking up the petition through senior advocate Jasjit Singh Bedi, Justice Lisa Gill put Punjab on notice.

Bedi said the presiding officer reportedly told the petitioner in the court that he would be convicted, come what may. He added that the officer refused to accept the petitioner’s medical report and stated that he was feigning illness to avoid an appearance before the court.

Langah was humiliated when he was asked to remove his pyjamas to show the angiography scar, Bedi said. The counsel pointed out that three district attorneys had been changed in the case. A special team of three additional district attorneys has been constituted for conducting the trial.

The counsel said even after the prosecutrix did not support the prosecution case, the petitioner was told that he would be convicted. “This apparently leads to the irresistible conclusion that a fair and impartial trial is not possible,” he added.

The petitioner also claimed that the FIR was apparently an outcome of political rivalry as it was registered just before the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha byelection.

A former MLA from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district, Langah was booked on September 29 last year, days ahead of the bypoll.

The complainant, however, told the court that she was not the woman seen in the video that went viral.