Punjab and Haryana High Court notice to state as Simarjeet Bains booked for rape

Chandigarh/Ludhiana, July 12

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The Punjab and Haryana High Court today put the state on notice on a plea filed by Lok Insaaf Party president and MLA Simarjeet Singh Bains challenging a lower court order directing the registration of a rape case against him.

A notice was also issued by Justice Manjari Nehru Kaul to the complainant in the case. It will now come up for further hearing on July 15.

This came on a day the Ludhiana police booked Bains, his personal assistant Gogi Sharma, brother Karamjit Singh, sister-in-law Jasbir Kaur and three others for alleged rape, assault, making sexual advances, criminal intimidation and conspiracy. In his petition filed through counsel Gautam Dutt, Bains sought directions to the state for quashing the order dated July 7 passed by the Ludhiana Additional Chief Justice Magistrate directing the SHO of Division No. 6 police station to register a criminal case against him. It was passed without application of judicial mind and was contrary to the settled principles of criminal jurisprudence, he stated in the plea.

Bains claimed he always opposed wrong policies of the ruling party. He was being targeted in the present case with an objective to ruin his political career. The Bench was told that the complainant-woman had filed a complaint against him to Ludhiana Commissioner of Police on November 16, 2020. It was entrusted to Kanwardeep Kaur, JCP, Ludhiana (rural), for probe. In her complaint, the exact date and time of alleged occurrence was not mentioned by the complainant, as she alleged the offence was committed 10-12 times over a period of time. — TNS