Shiromani Akali Dal’s Bikram Singh Majithia in Ludhiana, Thursday. (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh) High drama was witnessed in the Ludhiana courtroom of JMIC Vikrant Kumar Thursday after the AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia came face to face during the hearing of defamation case filed by Majithia against the AAP MP.
AAP leader-cum-advocate Harjot Singh Bains, one of the counsel for Sanjay Singh, said that their application to summon the record from the court of Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mohali related to the multi-crore Jagdish Bhola drug racket in which one of the accused Jagjit Singh Chahal had allegedly named Majithia, was ‘dismissed’ by the court ‘without giving it a proper hearing’.
Bains said that they could not proceed further with Majithia’s cross-examination in the defamation case without those ED court documents and hence they would be moving the High Court against the local court’s orders.
Bains said that they produced the copy of ‘uncertified documents’ of the ED investigation in the court on Thursday in which Chahal in his statement had said that he ‘gave election fund of Rs 35 lakh to Majithia’ but the court refused to acknowledge those documents saying they were not the ‘certified copies’.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh, in Ludhiana, Thursday. (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh)
“Jagjit Singh Chahal, one of the main accused in multi-crore Bhola drug racket, in his statement to the ED dated 23/04/2014 and 09/02/2015 recorded by Niranjan Singh, assistant director, ED, named Majithia and said that he gave Rs 35 lakh election fund to the SAD leader.
However, the local court today rejected our application to summon this case’s documents from ED court in Mohali where trial of this drug case is ongoing. Our application was dismissed without giving it a proper hearing by the court. Without these ED court documents, we cannot proceed further with Majithia’s cross-examination and now we will be challenging this order in the High Court,” Bains said.
“We will be approaching High Court to get ED court record summoned officially in which Chahal has named Majithia in his statement,” Bains said.
On Thursday, when the AAP leader’s counsel presented the documents related to the ED case in the court, Majithia’s counsel Damanbir Singh Sobti objected and said that those documents being presented by the AAP leader were just the ‘uncertified’ copies and not the official records from the ED and hence cannot be admitted as evidence in the defamation case.
This was followed by heated arguments from both the sides as Majithia and Sanjay Singh sat face to face in the court for more than 30 minutes.
Heated arguments again ensued after Majithia’s counsel Sobti reportedly addressed Sanjay Singh as ‘accused’ and this was countered by AAP leader’s counsel.
“SAD leader’s counsel addressed Sanjay Singh as an ‘accused’ several times even as the case is still sub judice. This was objected to by the AAP leader’s counsel saying that the case is still sub judice and hence they cannot call Sanjay Singh an accused. This again led to heated arguments,” said a source present in the courtroom.
The next hearing in the case is now scheduled for March 4.
Speaking to The Indian Express, SAD leader and former Cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia said, “AAP MP Sanjay Singh and his counsel are trying to evade court hearings and now they are resorting to cheap tactics such as presenting these old documents of 2014 which have already been declared null and void by several courts. They came with uncertified copies of some documents which even the court refused to admit and dismissed their application. Their similar petitions have already been dismissed by the High Court and even the Supreme Court. Whatever they may try, they cannot run away from the law anymore. It will be defamation of the court if they try to submit uncertified documents in the court. They hold no value.”
AAP counsel Bains, however, said, “It is now a matter of record in the court that we refused to proceed with Majithia’s cross-examination because our main argument is based on those ED documents which contain the statement given by Chahal against Majithia in the multi-crore drug case. We will move High Court to get those drug case records summoned officially from ED court in Mohali.”
Majithia had filed a defamation suit against Sanjay Singh in the Ludhiana court on January 12, 2016, under sections 499 and 500 of the IPC.
Majithia claimed that he was defamed without any evidence by the AAP leader who called him a drug dealer and further remarked that ‘when AAP will come to power, it will put corrupt Majithia in jail.’ As per Majithia, this statement was made in December 2015 by Sanjay Singh during Jor Mela political conference at Fatehgarh Sahib.