High Court issues notice to Punjab on Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s plea

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 15

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued a notice of motion to the state of Punjab on a petition filed by Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, seeking the quashing of an FIR registered against him just over a week back on the allegations of outraging religious feelings.

Appearing before Justice Sudhir Mittal’s Bench, his counsel submitted that a part of a sermon delivered in 2016 was uploaded on a YouTube channel in February, depicting the discourse given by the petitioner in a completely wrong context. “Obviously, the content uploaded on YouTube is malicious and thus the FIR deserves to be quashed,” it was argued.

The notice issued for May 30 by Justice Mittal’s Bench was accepted by Punjab Additional Advocate-General Gaurav Garg Dhuriwala on behalf of the respondent. The FIR in the matter under Section 295A of the IPC on deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs was registered against Ram Rahim on March 7 at the Patara police station in Jalandhar rural. His counsel contended that it was “filed with ulterior motives and was based on concealment and manipulation of facts”.

The petitioner sought the court’s indulgence to quash the FIR saying, among other things, that “the registration of the FIR, whereby motivated criminal investigation by using the state machinery for oblique motive has been initiated, was an abuse of the process of law”.

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