The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday granted interim bail to Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia on Monday in connection with a NDPS case against him.
The SAD leader's counsel, Damanbir Singh Sobti, said Majithia will join the investigation at 11 am on Wednesday. He also said the court has granted interim bail to Majithia in the matter.
''After seeing all the records, the high court gave directions that this is a case where he can join the investigation and when he joins the investigation, he will not be arrested,'' Sobti told reporters. The court has fixed January 18 as the next date of hearing in the matter, he said. Replying to a question, Sobti said certain ''additional facts'' were brought to the court's notice, claiming that former Punjab DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya had promoted Assistant Inspector General (AIG) Balraj Singh's son Princepreet Singh from the rank of sub-inspector to that of inspector by using special powers. Balraj Singh is the head of the special investigation team that is probing the case against Majithia.
The SAD has been alleging that the FIR against Majithia is a result of ''political vendetta''. Majithia (46), who was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act last month, moved the high court seeking anticipatory bail after a Mohali court dismissed his pre-arrest bail plea on December 24.
The former Punjab minister was booked under the NDPS Act on the basis of a 2018 report of a probe into a drugs racket operating in the state. Reacting to the relief granted to Majithia, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, in a tweet, said ''justice prevails'', while his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal said ''truth always triumphs, no matter how big the lie is''.Majithia is the brother-in-law of Sukhbir Badal and the brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.
Reacting to the development, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, in Moga, said interim bail does not mean the case is over and Majithia will have to join the probe on Wednesday.
The 49-page FIR in the matter was registered by the state Crime Branch at its Mohali police station.
Majithia was booked under sections 25 (punishment for allowing one's premises for its use for the commission of an offence), 27A (for financing sale, purchase, production, manufacture, possession, transportation, use or consumption, import and export or any act pertaining to narcotics) and 29 (abetting or plotting an offence) of the NDPS Act. In his bail plea, the SAD leader had submitted that the Congress government in Punjab had ''left no stone unturned to misuse its powers and position for wreaking vengeance upon its political opponents''.
''To target the applicant/petitioner is one of the major election planks of the current government. To fulfil its election stunt, the Congress government of the state of Punjab has been day and night browbeating officers to register false cases against the senior leadership of the Shiromani Akali Dal, including the applicant/petitioner,'' the petition had said.
The Channi government had come under attack from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and even from state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu for not being able to arrest Majithia, though the police had conducted raids to nab him.
