The Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket on Tuesday acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and 4 others within the 2002 Ranjit Singh homicide case.
A division bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Lalit Batra allowed the appeals filed by Ram Rahim Singh, Jasbir Singh, Sabdil Singh, Krishan Lal and Avtar Singh in opposition to the conviction order by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) courtroom in connection with the murder of the Dera manager Ranjit Singh. The excessive courtroom has but to launch the detailed order.
The CBI courtroom of Panchkula in October 2021 held the accused Jasbir Singh, Sabdil Singh, and Krishan Lal responsible of offence punishable underneath Part 302 (homicide) learn with 120 b (prison conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Dera chief Ram Rahim, Avtar Singh, Jasbir Singh, Sabdil Singh and Krishan Lal have been held responsible of offence underneath Part 120 b of the IPC learn with Part 302 of the IPC and Part 506 (prison intimidation) learn with Part 120 b. Additional, the CBI courtroom held Sabdil Singh responsible of offence underneath Part 27 of the Arms Act, 1959.
Ranjit Singh, one of many managers on the Dera in Haryana’s Sirsa, was murdered on July 10, 2002, within the jurisdiction of the police station Thanesar at Kurukshetra. An FIR on prices of homicide and prison conspiracy was registered on the Thanesar police station. On November 10, 2003, the excessive courtroom ordered a CBI investigation into the case.
Based on the CBI chargesheet, the Dera chief suspected Ranjit Singh of circulating an nameless letter among the many Dera followers. The contents of the letter accused the Dera chief of sexually exploiting ladies followers (sadhvis) contained in the Dera. This was the identical letter that Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati had highlighted in a information report.
Chhatrapati was subsequently killed. The Dera chief was just lately convicted on homicide prices in Chhatrapati homicide case. For the reason that Dera head suspected Ranjit Singh to be behind that letter, he additionally allegedly hatched a conspiracy to kill him.