From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the proceedings initiated by a trial court against Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and others for his party allegedly submitting a false undertaking to seek recognition from the Election.
A bench of Justice S A Nazeer and V Ramasubramanian issued notice to the complainant on the petitions challenging the dismissal of quashing petitions against the criminal case.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on August 27, 2021 had dismissed the plea filed by Badal and others against an order of the additional chief judicial magistrate, Hoshiarpur, who had summoned them in the case.
The Hoshiarpur court had registered a case of alleged forgery and cheating not only against Badal but also his Prakash Singh Badal and Dalji Singh Cheema in the controversy over the dual constitution of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
A Hoshiarpur resident, Balwant Singh Khera, had filed a criminal complaint before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate in 2009 accusing SAD of submitting two different constitutions i.e. one with the Gurdwara Election Commission (GEC) and the second with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to seek recognition as a political party.
Senior advocate R.S. Cheema appeared for Sukhbir Singh Badal and senior advocate K.V. Viswanathan appeared for Prakash Singh Badal assisted by advocates from Karanjawala & Co. Advocate Sandeep Kapur appeared for Daljit Singh Cheema. The petitions were filed by Karanjawala & Co.
It was argued before the court that being religious does not run contrary to the principles of secularism and merely because a political outfit is contesting elections to a Gurdwara committee does not mean it is not secular. The criminal case with allegations of forgery and cheating over the constitution of the party filed before ECI and GEC (Gurdwara Election Commission) therefore has no basis.
The criminal complaint was premised on the allegation that the party has claimed to be a secular party and given a declaration to abide by the principles of secularism in its constitution filed before ECI while it contests elections for a religious body, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, thereby being a religious party.
“The High Court failed to appreciate that the expression ‘allegiance to the principle of secularism’ in terms of Section 29- A (5) of the Act (The Representation of the People Act) has not been defined and a subjective view on what secularism means does not make being religious contradictory to the Act or amount to a penal offence,” said the plea filed by Sukhbir.
