The Punjab and Haryana High Court has quashed the FIR registered against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for allegedly outraging religious sentiments during his discourse pertaining to an incident involving Sant Kabir Das and Guru Ravidas.
The bench of Justice Manjari Nehru Kaul observed, “Upon careful scrutiny, this Court finds no evidence of any distortion or misrepresentation in the incident relating to the life of Sant Kabir Das. The narrative does not seem to insult the religious sentiments or beliefs of any specific group, as it is deeply rooted in historical resources.”
Meanwhile, earlier, in January, Ram Rahim was granted 40 days of parole.
He has been incarcerated, since 2017, in Haryana’s Sunaria jail where he is serving a 20-year term for raping two women disciples at his ashram’s headquarters in Sirsa. Earlier in February, the Dera chief was granted three weeks’ furlough.
While parole means the release of a prisoner either temporarily for a special purpose or completely before the expiry of a sentence, on the promise of good behaviour, a furlough is a short-term temporary release of convicts from jail.
He was convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula in August 2017 for raping two women followers. CBI had registered the case on the orders passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in 2003 and taken over the investigation of the case earlier registered at Police Station Sadar in Kurukshetra.
It was alleged that Ranjit Singh, a resident of village Khanpur Kolian, Kurukshetra was murdered on July 10, 2002, when he was working in his fields at village Khanpur Kolian of District Kurukshetra in Haryana.
After a thorough investigation, CBI filed a charge sheet in 2007 against six accused and charges were framed in 2008 while, on October 8, 2021, the court convicted Rahim and four others in connection with former Dera manager Ranjit Singh’s murder case. (ANI)
