Govt denied sacrilege closure report copy

Tribune News Service

Mohali, July 23

Much to the embarrassment of the Punjab Government, the special CBI court at Mohali on Tuesday dismissed its application seeking the copy of the closure report in the Bargari sacrilege cases.

However, the court allowed the complainants and the accused in the case to get the copies of the same after going through a proper procedure.

During the proceedings on Tuesday, public prosecutor Sanjeev Batra strongly contended the case for the state government. He submitted before the court that the consent to handover the probe into the cases to the CBI by the Punjab Government was already withdrawn by the way of de-notification on September 6, 2018. “The validity of the de-notification was upheld by the Punjab and Haryana HC and as such the state is entitled to obtain a copy of the said report being party and privy to the proceedings,” Batra said. He impressed upon the court that the filing of a joint closure report of three separate and distinct FIRs in the case was not legally sustainable. However, these contentions did not find a favour of the court.

Meanwhile, the court ordered to issue the copies of the closure report to the three complainants — Gora Singh, granthi of Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village gurdwara; Ranjit Singh, Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee chief; and Kulwinder Singh, granthi of Bargari village gurdwara, and accused Sukhjinder Singh, alias Sunny, and Shakti Singh.

Gagan Pradeep Singh Bal, complainants’ counsel, said now they would file a protest petition in the court. Vivek Gulbadhur also appeared as the defence counsel. “We have applied for the copies in question and it will take two days to get those under the procedure,” the counsels said.

Complainants, accused get access

• The special CBI court ordered to issue the copies of the closure report to the three complainants — Gora Singh, Ranjit Singh and Kulwinder Singh 
• It also allowed access to accused Sukhjinder Singh and Shakti Singh after going through a proper procedure