NEW DELHI: Hearing an appeal filed by the CBI challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court's order acquitting Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh in 2002 murder of sect's former manager Ranjit Singh, the Supreme Court issued notice to Raheem and four others and sought their replies in the case in four weeks.
While tagging the CBI appeal with pending pleas before it, the two-judge bench, led by CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar posted the matter for hearing before a bench headed by Justice Bela M Trivedi which had earlier also issued notice in the appeal filed by the complainant, father of the deceased, who had also challenged the acquittal of Raheem and others.
“Our attention has been drawn to the office report dated September 9, 2024 of the order passed by the bench of Justice Bela Trivedi, issue notice and tag with the SLP be listed before the bench presided by Justice Bela Trivedi,” the bench on Friday ordered.
The other convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment by trial court on October 18, 2021, along with Ram Rahim, were Avtar Singh, Krishan Lal, Jasbir Singh, and Sabdil Singh. One of the accused, Inder Sain, had died during the trial in 2020.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on May 28, 2024, acquitted Singh and others in the case, observing the probe was "tainted and sketchy."
"The CBI, which took over the probe in November 2023, failed to establish the motive of the crime and rather, the prosecution case was shrouded in doubts," the HC had said in its order.
According to the prosecution, Singh, a follower of the sect, was shot dead on July 10, 2002, at Khanpur Kolian village in Haryana's Kurukshetra. He was allegedly murdered for his suspected role in the circulation of an anonymous letter, which narrated how women were being sexually exploited by the sect head, Ram Rahim, at the Dera headquarters.
Initially, Ram Rahim and others had been convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula, Haryana, in October 2021. But later on, they appealed before the HC, which, had acquitted Ram Rahim and four others in the case due to lack of evidence
In other cases, Ram Rahim was convicted and sentenced to a 20-year jail sentence for raping two of his disciples, in which he was convicted by the Special CBI court in August 2017. He had also served already several years in jail out of these 20 years in Rohtak's Sunaria jail.
In 2019, Ram Rahim, 56, the head of the Indian social group DSS Sect, in 1990, was also sentenced to life for the murder of a journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, and in 2021, he received another life sentence for the 2002 murder of one of his employees.
It is to be noted that despite being convicted of such heinous offences, Ram Rahim has been out of prison for a total of 131 days in the past 13 months from January 2022 to Feb 2023. He was granted a 21-day furlough in February 2022; parole in June for 30 days and again in October for 40 days. And on 21 January, he was let out for another 40 days.