CBI court holds Dera Sacha Sauda head Ram Rahim guilty in Ranjit Singh murder case

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Panchkula on Friday held Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, chief of Dera Sacha Sauda, guilty of murdering his follower, Ranjit Singh, in 2002. Special CBI judge Sushil Kumar Garg has pronounced the verdict. According to a report by LiveLaw, the quantum of sentence in the matter will be pronounced on 12 October. Gurmeet Ram Rahim is already serving sentence for rape, and now, he has been convicted of the murder of his disciple, Ranjeet Singh. “The special CBI court has convicted Gurmeet Ram Rahim under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for murder. Five other accused too have been convicted,” CBI special prosecutor HPS Verma said, reported Hindustan Times. Ranjit Singh, a follower of Ram Rahim, was shot dead by four assailants on 10 July 2002, at his native village, Khanpur Kolian in Kurukshetra. Ranjit Singh’s son’s plea The Punjab and Haryana High Court had dismissed Ranjit Singh’s son Jagseer’s plea of seeking transfer of trial to another court, levelling allegations against the CBI attorney. Notwithstanding, the high court named the allegations grounded upon as ‘surmises and conjectures’. The Special CBI judge Panchkula, Sushil Kumar Garg, was set to pronounce the verdict on 26 August, however, the bench of Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan had restrained the court from doing so, stating, as LiveLaw reported, “The petitioner in garb of transfer petition cannot be permitted to have bench of his choice or to get result of trial as per his wishes. With the advancement of technology and activism of social media, the allegation leveled by such litigants needs to be scrutinized very carefully. On asking of apprehensive litigant, transfer of trial at fag end would result in browbeating the Judge and interference in fair administration of justice.” Court’s response The Court said that High Court’s power under Section 407(1) CrPC. to transfer the trial from the subordinate criminal court can be exercised if the fair or impartial trial is not possible. However, it is clear that on mere apprehension trial cannot be transferred. There were three main cases registered against the Sirsa-based Dera chief. He has been convicted in two cases – one related to the sexual exploitation of women disciples and the other being the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati. On Friday, he was convicted in the third case – the murder of Ranjit Singh. The CBI believes that Ram Rahim killed his Singh, his follower, after he suspected the latter of being the one who sent him anonymous mails, accusing him of exploiting the women in the sect. Currently, the Dera head is in Rohtak’s Sunaria jail serving a term of 20 years for raping two disciples. Inputs from agencies