Gurmeet Ram Rahim, 4 others acquitted in 2002 Ranjit Singh murder case

The acquittal in the Ranjit Singh case was pronounced by a division bench of Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Lalit Batra in a 163-page order on appeals filed by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Jasbir Singh (who has since died), Sabdil Singh, Krishan Lal and Avtar Singh following their conviction and sentencing in 2021.

In October 2021, the CBI court had held the five men guilty of offences under IPC sections 302 (murder), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy). Sabdil Singh was also held guilty under Section 27 of the Arms Act.

Ranjit Singh, one of the managers at the dera in Sirsa, was shot dead on July 10, 2002, at Khanpur Kolian village in Kurukshetra. An FIR on the charges of murder and criminal conspiracy was registered at the Thanesar police station. On November 10, 2003, the High Court ordered a CBI investigation into the case.

According to the CBI chargesheet, the dera chief suspected Ranjit Singh of circulating an anonymous letter among the dera followers. The contents of the letter accused Gurmeet Ram Rahim of sexually exploiting women followers (sadhvis) at the dera. This was the same letter that Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati had highlighted in a news report.

Chhatrapati too was killed in 2002. The dera chief and three others were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 for the murder of the journalist.

In its order acquitting Gurmeet Ram Rahim and four others in the Ranjit Singh murder case, the bench, in its order, said that “the car, which was allegedly used in the commission of the crime event was never seized… PW-5, PW-6 and PW-9 (Prosecution Witnesses) in their respective statements stated that all the four assailants were armed with firearm weapons, but none of those weapons became seized by the CBI… There was no site plan prepared by the CBI of the place where the alleged conspiracy was hatched, on June 16, 2002”.

It said the “CBI did not collect any evidence about Kashish restaurant where PW-31 had allegedly seen the accused openly celebrating the murder of the deceased” and failed to examine the owners or the workers serving in the restaurant.

On the postmortem report of the victim, the bench said, “As per post mortem report dated July 11, 2002, four metallic pieces of different sizes, and shapes from the brain tissue and skull cavity were noted. Further, PW-58 in his cross-examination has admitted that three bullets had entered into the deceased’s body, but the same were never recovered… the medical evidence remains unsubstantiated from the ocular version vis-a-vis the crime event as… rendered by the purported eye witnesses”.