PUNJAB & HARYANA HIGH COURT GRANTS INTERIM ANTICIPATORY BAIL TO SAD LEADER MAJITHIA

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday granted interim anticipatory bail to SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a drug case. Justice Lisa Gill, however, made it clear that the senior Akali leader would join further investigations in the case.

The case against Majithia was registered on December 20 under sections 25 (Allowing premises, etc., to be used for commission of an offence), 27 A (Financing illicit traffic and harboring offenders), and section 29 (abetment and criminal conspiracy) of The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.

He moved the High Court after a Mohali court had dismissed his anticipatory bail petition on December 24.

Majithia was represented by senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and RS Cheema with counsel DS Sobti and Arshdeep Singh Cheema.

The senior counsel also referred to orders passed by a Division Bench during the hearing of a writ petition on the drugs issue to submit that the matter was being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate, a Special Task Force and a committee constituted under orders of the court. But no action was taken against the petitioner for all these years.

The Bench was also told that the registration of the present FIR was vitiated by political and ulterior motives. and that three Punjab Police chiefs have been changed in three months to get this FIR registered.

The plea said that petitioner had no criminal record and he was a “mainstream politician” and undertook to join the investigation, fully cooperate with the investigating agency and abide by any conditions imposed by the court.

The notice of motion issued by the Bench was accepted by senior Deputy Advocate-General Gaurav Garg Dhuriwala on behalf of the respondent-State.