Punjab to submit status report in HC by May 30
CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government on Monday undertook to file a status report on “subsequent developments” into the FIR registered against Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a drugs case by May 30.
The state police made a request before the bench of justice AG Masih and justice Sandeep Moudgil on the plea moved by Majithia seeking bail.
He 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 NDPS Act on December 20, 2021.
Majithia surrendered after the February 20 polls and is lodged in Patiala jail. The apex court had recently junked his plea seeking to quash the FIR and told him to approach the HC.
There is no credible and legally admissible material against him despite deep investigation by the Enforcement Directorate and the Punjab Police, the plea said. The case is blatantly political in nature and has been registered after an inordinate delay with the purpose of using the same as an election plank in the assembly polls of February 2022, it added.
The Akali leader also mentioned that police officers at the top were changed multiple times by the then Congress government to get this FIR registered and has also appended statements of former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and former state Congress chief, Navjot Singh Sidhu to demonstrate that for long they had been demonstrating political hatred.
The report of the special task force (STF), which is the basis of the FIR, was either superseded or merged with the subsequent report of a state government committee. But this fact was ignored and the FIR was registered, the plea argues adding that no new evidence has been found against him after the registration of FIR. Hence, he be granted bail, the plea said.