3 days after his death, Parkash Singh Badal gets SC clean chit in forgery case

Parkash Singh Badal

The Supreme Court on April 28 quashed a criminal complaint against former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and Shiromani Akali Dal president (SAD) Sukhbir in a case of forgery and cheating.

Parkash Singh Badal, the Akali stalwart,  passed away on April 25. He was 95.

The court also set aside summons issued to them by a court in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur in the case which pertains to charges of forgery and cheating against the father-son duo over the dual constitution of the Shiromani Akali Dal.

The case was filed on the complaint of Hoshiarpur resident Balwant Singh Khera to the additional chief judicial magistrate in 2009. Khera accused SAD of submitting two different constitutions — one with the Gurdwara Election Commission (GEC) and the second with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to seek recognition as a political party.

The criminal complaint alleged that the party claimed to be secular and had declared to abide by the principles of secularism in its constitution filed before ECI, even as contests elections for a religious body, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), thereby being a religious party. SGPC is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of gurdwaras in Punjab, the capital city of Chandigarh and the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh.

Badal's lawyers argued that t being religious does not run contrary to the principles of secularism and merely because a political outfit is contesting elections to a gurdwara committee does not mean that it is not secular. It was argued that the criminal case with allegations of forgery and cheating had no basis.

Senior Counsels KV Vishwanathan and RS Cheema appeared for Prakash Singh Badal, while Prashant Bhushan, appeared for Khera, the complainant. The petitions were filed by Karanjawala & Co.