Dera Sacha Sauda chief acquitted by Punjab and Haryana High Court in journalist murder case
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Chandigarh: Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Singh was on Saturday acquitted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the murder case of Ram Chander Chhatrapati, journalist from Sirsa.
A two-judge divisional bench consisting of Chief Justic Sheel Nagu and Justice Vikram Aggarwal delivered the verdict on Saturday, after hearing the plea challenging a special court’s verdict in 2019 to convict Gurmeet Singh and sentence him to life imprisonment, news agencies have said.
While the HC cleared the charges against Gurmeet Singh, it rejected the petitions filed by two other accused, thereby maintaining the findings against them in the case.
Also, the detailed judgment on the case, which will explain the grounds on which the conviction was overturned, is awaited.
Journalist Chhatrapati, who owned a local newspaper in Sirsa, is said to have been shot outside his house in October 2002 and succumbed to his injuries later. The murder had drawn widespread attention since Chhatrapati had published reports relating to the allegations faced by Gurmeet Singh. The report also included a letter that accused Singh of indulging in sexual exploitation inside the Dera. This is learned to have led the legal authorities to probe the allegations against Gurmeet Singh.
The case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after initial rounds of investigation. The CBI, after further probing the matter, had filed charges against Gurmeet Singh and the other accused persons.
In January 2019, a special CBI court in Panchkula passed a verdict declaring Gurmeet Singh and the co-accused guilty of conspiring to murder Chhatrapati. The court had also sentenced them to life imprisonment.
While the Dera chief remains in prison in connection with his other convictions, the HC ruling on Saturday marks a prominent development in the case of the murder of the journalist, which has been on for seven years now.
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Palaniswami will meet same fate of Bihar CM, says Stalin
Madurai (PTI): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday claimed that AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami would meet the same fate as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, at the hands of the BJP.
Only till 2026 TN Assembly polls, Palaniswami will be AIADMK chief, and later the BJP would "ease him out of office," Stalin alleged and slammed Palaniswami as an epitome of "betrayal".
"The BJP will dislodge Palaniswami from the top AIADMK post of general secretary, and bring a leader of its choice to that position," he said after welcoming scores of O Panneerselvam's supporters into the DMK in a rally organised in Madurai.
The expelled AIADMK leader had joined the DMK along with his former MP son O Ravindranath, in the presence of Stalin on February 27 in Chennai.
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