SC judge recuses from hearing Punjab govt plea against bail to Majithia
Darpan News Desk IANS, 30 Jan, 2023 12:21 PM
New Delhi, Jan 30 (IANS) Supreme Court judge Justice Surya Kant on Monday recused himself from hearing a Punjab government plea challenging the high court order, which granted bail to Shiromani Akali Dal leader and former minister Bikram Singh Majithia in a drug case.
The matter was listed for Monday before a bench of Justices Surya Kant and J.K. Maheshwari.
As soon as the matter came up for hearing, Justice Surya Kant said he was part of the high court bench which passed directions to set up a special task force to investigate the matter.
Majithia, the brother-in-law of SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal and brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, had been lodged in the Patiala jail on February 24 last year.
The Punjab government, represented by senior advocate Shyam Divan, moved the apex court challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court order dated August 10, 2022.
The bench ordered: "Let the matter be listed before a bench in which one of us (Justice Kant) is not a member."
Granting bail to Majithia, the high court had observed that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that he is not guilty. Majithia was released after spending more than five months in the Patiala jail in the drug case.
However, the high court had clarified that the trial court should proceed independently of the observations made by it. Majithia was booked on the basis of a 2018 report of the anti-drug special task force (STF) into a drug racket in the state.
A senior police official said that they received a complaint in this respect from a 62-year-old woman that an unknown person sent her friend request. Later, the person shared one international WhatsApp number for chatting. After few days, the same person offered her valuable gifts like an Iphone, gold plated wrist watch etc.
Four of the accused in the case -- Faizal Abdul, Vasif Chaudhary, Sagar Pal and Aniket Sindhe-- were arrested on Monday on the information provided by Mubarak Badia and Chandan, who were arrested for possessing drugs worth Rs 3.97 crore from Surat in November.
In a letter, he apprised the Governor that post of Senior Superintendent of Police in Chandigarh has traditionally been occupied by a Punjab-cadre IPS oficer, while an IAS officer of Haryana cadre had been appointed as the Deputy Commissioner.
The accused is Sunny Dilip Lal Sharma alias Manav Govind. While he had secured an identity in the name of Manav Govind to smuggle gold this time, it was revealed that he had been using six different identities. The DRI team recovered 862 grams of gold worth Rs 46 lakh from him. He was later handed over to the Gomti Nagar police.
As for these 2,100 posts, every year around 2.50 lakh candidates are expected to apply for these posts so all the aspirants will get involved in academics as well as in improving their physique for clearing the tests.
Raising the issues pertaining to farmers during Zero Hour in Lok Sabha, Congress MP from Patiala Preneet Kaur and Shiromani Akali Dal MP from Bhatinda, Harsimrat Kaur Badal demanded that all cases lodged against farmers, which were made against them during their year-long agitation, should be taken back.
