The court of chief judicial magistrate, Dehradun issued bailable warrants against three State Cabinet Ministers and 22 other persons on Saturday. While hearing a nine year old case wherein accused had protested and tussled with the police leading to a law and order situation near the Vidhan Sabha, the court directed the district police chief to serve the warrants. It should be mentioned here that the accused were absent during previous hearing. The court has fixed next hearing of this case on April 20. It will be recalled here that along with supporters and party workers current cabinet ministers Harak Singh Rawat, Yashpal Arya and Subodh Uniyal who were then in the Congress Party had carried out a protest rally to the Vidhan Sabha in December, 2009. The State was being governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party Government at the time. The police had stopped the protest rally at the barricading near Rispana bridge. They had then protested aggressively at the barricading and attempted to break through it. The protesting leaders had allegedly manhandled the police men and had verbal altercations with them which had reportedly led to deterioration of the law and order situation there at the time. A case under appropriate sections of IPC had been registered against the accused in Nehru Police Station. The hearing of this case in the court was reported to have started from 2013.
However, none of the accused leaders is reported to have appeared in the court during hearing. The names of other accused in this case are Khanpur MLA Pranav Singh ‘Champion’, former ministers and Congress leaders Dinesh Aggarwal, Hira Singh Bisht, Pritam Singh, Kishore Upadhyay, Pradeep Tamta, Suryakant Dhasmana, Braham Swaroop Brahamchari, Satpal Brahamchari, Lalchand Sharma, Sangram Singh Pundir, Vikas Chowdhary and others.
Sources said that State Govt had attempted to withdraw the case against the accused but the attempt was rejected by the court. Government had filed a petition to withdraw this case in the court of CJM in October 2013 but it was rejected in November 2014. Later, the Government had filed the petition regarding the same in the session court and here too it was rejected.