Now Punjab cops try to get Daler off hook

Earlier, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate of Patiala, P.S. Dhanoa had rejected the plea of the police when it sought Mehndi’s discharge. The ACJM said there was sufficient proof to show that one of the complainants in the case had been given a fake visa.

The police had then moved the sessions court against the decision. However, Additional Session Judge S.P. Bangar, too, has now rejected the plea of the police on the same grounds.

The entire case had come into prominence after one Bakshish Singh, a resident of Balbehra village near Patiala, along with four others, had filed an FIR with the Sadar police station accusing Daler Mehndi of having fleeced him of lakhs of rupees on the pretext of sending him abroad.

Later, 31 complainants had come forth with charges that they had also been fleeced by Daler and his brother Shamsher Mehndi on the promise of sending them abroad as members of musical troupes. The Patiala police’s current stand, as argued by the public prosecutor, is that when the police move an application for discharge of an accused in a case, the magistrate had no right to order a fresh investigation and filing of a fresh chargesheet.

The public prosecutor had also contended that in this case the police had failed to come across any concrete evidence on the basis of which it could initiate a trial.

However, this argument has been dismissed both by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate and now the sessions judge.