Convicted of fraud, Daler Mehndi moves HC

Chandigarh, July 18

Sentenced to two years in prison after his conviction in a cheating case, singer Daler Mehndi today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Challenging his conviction and seeking the suspension of sentence, Mehndi argued the trial judge’s failure to comprehensively, critically and objectively examine the material on record resulted in manifest injustice.

The petition, filed through counsel Arshdeep Singh Cheema today, is to be argued by senior advocate RS Cheema. Among other things, Cheema contended it was an unfortunate case the courts below did not minutely examine the evidence where due to the voluminous record.

Submitting that the petitioner was maliciously targeted for extraneous reasons, including extortion, Cheema added the courts below failed to examine the allegations against him on the touchstone of probabilities even though it was the “only reliable test in a case of one sided orchestrated oral evidence of deeply interested witnesses”.

The counsel said the judgment also lacked consistency and coherence as the trial judge failed to take holistic and macro view of the totality of the circumstances on record. “A brief overview of the appellate judgment reveals a failure to closely examine the material and deal with the evidence in highly superficial manner, which is also partisan,” he said.