The Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Gurmeet Ram Rahim, chief of Dera Sacha Sauda, in a 22-year-old murder case, highlighting critical flaws in the investigation process. The court underscored the necessity for thorough and unbiased investigations, pinpointing multiple deficiencies in the handling of the case.
A bench of Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Lalit Batra criticized the investigating officers for their “tainted and sketchy” work, influenced by media pressure. They emphasised the importance of courts conducting incisive and objective analyses of the evidence on record to ensure justice.
Acquitting Ram Rahim and Dera Sacha Sauda functionaries Jasbir Singh, Avtar Singh, Krishan Lal and Subdil Singh, the bench also said that the “case is a stark portrayal of the necessity of courts of law making an incisive and objective analyses, of the evidence as exist on record, rather than the said objective analyses becoming attempted to become stultified, through a pro active media trial becoming made of the purported incriminatory role of the accused vis-a-vis the crime event (sic)”.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim, already serving a 20-year sentence for raping two disciples, and facing another murder conviction from a 16-year-old case, was convicted along with four others by a CBI court in Panchkula, Haryana, in October 2021, receiving life imprisonment. He remains incarcerated in Haryana’s Rohtak jail.
Rahim’s conviction in 2017 in a rape case triggered widespread violence in Punjab and Haryana, resulting in 30 deaths, over 250 injuries, and the deployment of the Army to restore order.