HC restrains Punjab govt from filing chargesheet in 2015 sacrilege case

Read Order: Sukhjinder Singh @ Sunny v. State of Punjab 

 LE Staff

Chandigarh, July 9, 2021: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday restrained the state from file the chargesheet in the lower court in the infamous sacrilege case of 2015.

The HC order came in response to a petition filed by Sukhjinder Singh, one of the accused in the sacrilege case who was arrested in October, 2015, months after the Guru Granth Sahib, a holy book of Sikhs, went missing in Faridkot’s Burj Jawahar Singh Wala Village.

Later some posters containing derogatory remarks against the Guru Granth Sahib appeared and pages of the holy book were found scattered around the Gurdwara in Faridkot’s Bargari village.

In the latest petition, the accused challenged the action of the Special Investigating Team that is probing the sacrilege issue, in sending his handwriting samples for comparison with those present on the alleged derogatory posters containing remarks against the Guru Granth Sahib.

The petitioner said the SIT has no right to move the application before the trial court to get the specimen handwriting investigation because during the course of probe in the case, the CBI had got his handwriting compared with the posters in question from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, New Delhi. The CFSL in its report submitted on August 27, 2018 opined that the specimen writing of the petitioner did not match with the incriminating posters in question.

The CBI has already submitted a joint closure report on July 4, 2019 before the Special Magistrate, CBI Court at Mohali stating that the petitioner and other accused are innocent, the petitioner said.

The High Court bench of Justice Harnaresh Singh Gill issued notice to the state government and deferred the matter for July 15. It also mentioned that till the next date of hearing, the State is restrained from filing the chargesheet in this case.