Murder case against Ram Rahim: CBI concludes final arguments, next hearing on Feb 1

Ranjeet Singh, a member of Dera’s influential 10-member committee, was shot dead on July 10, 2002, when he was returning from his fields in his native village in Kurukshetra district.

During the hearing, the CBI court of Justice Jagdeep Singh had observed in its interim order that the case is one of the oldest matters in this court and needs to be decided expeditiously. Hearings for the case in the CBI court had begun in 2012 with the presentation of the prosecution’s evidence. There have been more than 200 hearings since then. As many as 176 interim orders including this have also been passed.

On December 10, the trial court had dismissed an application filed by a co-accused in the case, seeking a transfer. The application had contended that the judge had already convicted the Dera chief and others in two other cases based on similar evidence and the court was likely to hold the same view in the Ranjit murder case. The CBI judge Jagdeep Singh, terming it a “frivolous application without any justified reason/cause”, had dismissed the application.

The accused had then applied for transfer of the case to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. On December 20, the court had again dismissed the petition saying there is no such concept in criminal jurisprudence that if an accused is found guilty in one case, he would be held guilty in another identical one.