Punjab NDPS case: High Court grants bail to SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia

The division Bench of Justices MS Ramachandra Rao and Sureshwar Thakur had reserved the order on the bail plea on July 29. The senior SAD leader is currently lodged at Patiala Central Jail and had moved the High Court seeking regular bail.

Majithia had approached a Mohali court seeking to quash the FIR registered against him earlier in February. The district court had, however, rejected his plea prompting him to move the Supreme Court. The apex court, on May 11, had refused to entertain the plea and asked him to instead approach the High Court.

In his bail plea filed before the High Court, Majithia — through senior advocate RS Cheema and Advocate Arshdeep Singh Cheema — had submitted that the “present case is blatantly political in nature and has been registered with mala fide objective to target the petitioner, who is a mainstream leader of a major Opposition party, one month prior to the polls in the state… The then Congress-led government has left no stone unturned to misuse its power and position for wreaking vengeance against its political opponents and the petitioner is such target”.

However, the Punjab government, while opposing the bail plea, had stated that “more information is required to be collected from within and beyond India to ascertain the backward and forward linkages, including financial transactions of the fugitive accused persons closely associated with the petitioner (Majithia)”.