2015 sacrilege cases: Gurmeet Ram Rahim urges SC to keep stay order in abeyance

After the bench said it would hear the main matter, Rohatgi sought the order to be kept in abeyance until then.

"The prayer in the IA (interlocutory application) cannot be granted without hearing the matter on merits," the bench said and posted the Punjab government's plea on March 18.

Punjab's advocate general Gurminder Singh said the apex court had passed the interim order on October 18, 2024 in the presence of the other side.

"In the main SLP (special leave petition), they have already filed a counter. We will file a rejoinder within four weeks," said Singh and urged the bench to list the SLP filed by Punjab for hearing.

"We will hear it," the bench said.

Rohatgi said the state of Punjab sent these cases to the CBI, which was investigating these cases and suddenly, after two years, the Punjab assembly passed a resolution withdrawing consent to the probe agency.

The senior lawyer said the state after three years withdrew the consent.

Singh said Ram Rahim was presently on a 30-day parole.

The bench asked the Punjab government to file within three weeks its rejoinder to the counter filed by Ram Rahim on the state's plea.

During the hearing before the apex court in October last year, the Punjab government sought a stay on the high court order which had stayed the trial proceedings in the three cases registered at Bajakhana Police Station at Faridkot in Punjab.

In February, 2023, the top court transferred the trial against him and his followers in these cases from a court in Faridkot to Chandigarh.

Ram Rahim previously moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging the validity of a September 6, 2018 notification of the state government withdrawing the consent given to the CBI to probe these cases and sought a direction to the central probe agency to investigate.

On March 11, 2024, the high court referred the matter to a larger bench to determine if the consent by the state government for CBI probe could be withdrawn at a later stage after the agency registered the case for investigation.

It stayed the proceedings before the trial court until further orders.

Three alleged incidents of sacrilege of holy Guru Granth Sahib occurred between June and October, 2015, in district Faridkot, Punjab, and an FIR dated June 2, 2015 was registered under the provisions of the IPC at the local police station.

A priest at Gurudwara Singh Sahib in Burj Jawahar Singh Wala Village alleged the scripture of Shri Guru Granth Sahib was desecrated.

The second incident of sacrilege reportedly occurred on September 24 and 25, 2015, in which posters containing derogatory remarks about the sacred Guru Granth Sahib and other Sikh religious leaders were found pasted outside the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC)-managed Gurudwara in Bargari.

An FIR was thereafter registered at the Bajakhana police station in Faridkot.

Similarly, a third incident related to the recovery of 112 torn pages of holy Guru Granth Sahib around the Gurudwara situated at village Bargari on October 12, 2015 in the district and an FIR was registered at the Bajakhana police station.

The high court noted in its order that recurrence of these three incidents of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in quick succession led to an unrest in Punjab and protestors collected the torn pages and started protests at Kotkapura Crossing in Faridkot district.

In 2015, the Punjab government gave its consent to transfer the investigation of the three sacrilege cases to the CBI. However, the consent for transfer of probe of sacrilege cases along with police firing incidents was thereafter withdrawn on September 6, 2018.