Khushi Bajpai
Published on: 10 August, 2022 at 19:20 IST
In a drug case that the Punjab Police had filed against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia, the Punjab & Haryana High Court on Wednesday granted him bail.
A Division Bench of Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Sureshwar Thakur delivered the ruling.
Majithia is a defendant in a 2013 case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. A special task force report that was presented to the High Court in 2018 led to the registration of a first information report (FIR).
Majithia’s request for anticipatory bail had been denied by the High Court on January 24, but it had given him interim protection for three days so that he could appeal to the Supreme Court.
However, the Supreme Court in May turned down the request to throw out the FIR against him, noting,
“We don’t think the petition should be considered under Article 32. We permit the petitioner to seek the High Court and order that the division bench, rather than the single bench, exclusively hear the matter. We also give the petitioner free rein to go before the High Court’s division bench for any request he makes, including a bail application. We don’t offer any commentary on the case’s merits.”
The Supreme Court had however given him permission to go before a Division Bench of the High Court with his request to overturn the FIR or obtain bail in the case.