The North News
Patiala, February 3
Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia on Tuesday walked out of the New Nabha jail here, a day after the Supreme Court granted him bail in a disproportionate assets case. He was released after spending seven months in jail.
His supporters gathered outside the jail to welcome him and raised slogans in favour of the SAD.
After he came out of the jail at around 2.15 pm, Majithia twirled his moustache in his signature style, which led to sloganeering by his supporters in his favour.
His supporters showered flower petals over him and honoured him with ‘Sirpoas’ (robe of honour).
Sitting atop a car, he thanked the Almighty. He also thanked his supporters with folded hands.
“I came out because of your prayers and blessings,” said Majithia while speaking to the media.
Earlier, the Akali leader’s wife, Ganieve Kaur Majithia, thanked God and the Supreme Court.
“This is the victory of truth. The government had forgotten that there is God above,” she told reporters.
Tight security arrangements were made outside the jail.
Majithia’s supporters could be seen bringing sweet boxes.
Outside his residence in Amritsar, Majithia’s supporters gathered, distributed sweets and danced to the beats of a ‘dhol’.
Majithia is the brother-in-law of Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia from his Amritsar residence on June 25 last year in the disproportionate assets case allegedly involving the laundering of Rs 540 crore of drug money.
A top court bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta on Monday passed the order granting bail to Majithia, while hearing his plea challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court order of December 4, which denied him bail in the case.
The bench noted that Majithia was earlier granted bail in a separate case registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
It also noted that Majithia was in custody in connection with the disproportionate assets case for the last seven months.
“Why do you want to keep him inside jail?” the bench had asked the counsel appearing for the state.
On August 22 last year, the Bureau filed a chargesheet in a Mohali court, which ran into more than 40,000 pages.
In its FIR registered against Majithia, the state vigilance body claimed that preliminary investigations revealed that more than Rs 540 crore of “drug money” had been laundered through several channels, allegedly facilitated by Majithia.
The FIR stemmed from an ongoing investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police into a 2021 drug case.
In 2021, Majithia was booked under the NDPS Act, based on a 2018 report of the anti-drug SIT. The Akali leader spent more than five months in a Patiala jail before walking out in August 2022 after the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted him bail.
