Akali Dal welcomes SC bail to Majithia Punjab minister says bail doesn't mean acquittal

     Chandigarh, Feb 2 (PTI) The Shiromani Akali Dal on Monday welcomed a Supreme Court order granting bail to senior party leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a disproportionate assets case, saying the "truth has won."
     It also claimed that the political vendetta unleashed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against the senior Akali leader and former Punjab minister had been exposed.
     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.
     Majithia's wife and Akali MLA Ganieve Kaur Majithia said "truth has finally prevailed" and added that her husband would come out of Nabha jail at around 10:30 am on Tuesday.
     Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, however, said that getting bail does not mean that one has gotten scot-free.
     "There are several conditions in bail. Now he (Majithia) will have to face the trial. We will see the order, and if possible, file a review petition," Harpal Cheema said.
     Majithia will certainly be convicted, he added.
     Welcoming the top court order, senior Akali leaders Daljit Singh Cheema and Arshdeep Singh Kler claimed the AAP government did its utmost to incarcerate Majithia by concocting a false disproportionate assets case, which it failed to defend in the apex court.
     In a statement, the Akali leaders said, “After the AAP government failed to present a chargesheet in the false narcotics case registered against the Akali leader, and after its special leave petition against the bail granted to Majithia in the case was dismissed by the Supreme Court, it decided to embroil the Akali leader in a false disproportionate assets case."
     "This case will eventually meet the same end as the false narcotics case registered against Majithia," they said.
     Daljit Cheema added that the AAP government proceeded against Majithia "in a desperate bid to silence him as he had consistently condemned the wrong policies of the government besides speaking up for the rights of the people."
     "Punjabis will give a befitting reply to the AAP government for misusing the police and investigating agencies to frame its opponents in politically-motivated cases," he alleged.
     Meanwhile, AAP leader Baltej Pannu, while reacting to the visit of Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) sect chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon to the New Nabha jail to meet Majithia, said he should not have gone there.
     Pannu also said that the Dera head should not have acted like a judge and should not have passed any judgment. He said, "This is a judicial process, and it should be left to the courts."
     Dhillon on Monday met Majithia in the New Nabha jail here and termed the charges against the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader "wrong".
     The Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia on June 25 last year in the disproportionate assets case allegedly involving the laundering of Rs 540 crore of “drug money”.
    On August 22, the Vigilance Bureau filed a chargesheet in a Mohali court, which ran into more than 40,000 pages.
    In its FIR registered against Majithia, the Vigilance Bureau 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 against Majithia stemmed from an ongoing investigation being conducted by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Punjab Police into a 2021 drug case.
    In 2021, Majithia was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (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.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)