india

Updated: Nov 03, 2019 06:22 IST

A court on Saturday dropped sedition charges against Honeypreet Insan and 39 others in a case pertaining to violence in Panchkula in 2017 following Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s conviction in two rape cases.

Top Dera functionaries, including Honeypreet Insan, the adopted daughter of Ram Rahim, Dera spokesperson Aditya Insan and other core committee members were booked in connection with the Panchkula case.

As per the police charge sheet, Honeypreet and the 45-member Dera management committee hatched a conspiracy at the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters to spread violence in Panchkula if Ram Rahim was convicted in the rape cases from 2002.

Police have arrested 41 accused in the case till date, while five, including Aditya Insan, were declared proclaimed offenders (PO) by a local court last year.

Defence counsel Raj Singh Chauhan said, “As the police has failed to submit incriminating evidence against the accused to back up sedition charges, the court has dropped sections 121 (waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war against government) and 121-A (conspiracy to commit offences) of the Indian Penal Code against Honeypreet and other accused. The case has been remanded back to chief judicial magistrate (CJM) court and will come up for hearing on November 6.”

Honeypreet’s counsel Dhruv Gupta said, “With the sedition charges being dropped against her, it is a good ground now to apply for bail. We are yet to go through the detailed order and after examining it, will take further course of action.” This is the sixth case where sedition charges have been dropped. The state government did not give its prosecution sanction (mandatory to add these charges) in four of these six cases.

The prosecution has argued that a meeting was held at the Dera headquarters on August 17, 2017 which was attended by the Dera chief, Aditya Insan, Honeypreet and others.

It was planned in the meeting that Dera followers carrying sticks, umbrellas, petrol and chili powder should throng Panchkula by August 25, 2017 and go on the rampage if the Dera head was held guilty and arrested, as per the prosecution.

Honeypreet has been in judicial custody at the Ambala central jail since October 2017.

District attorney Pankaj Garg said, “We have applied for the copy of detailed order and we will go through it thoroughly before appealing further and deciding further course of the matter. The trial of the case has been shifted to CJM court now and charges to be framed on other sections would be followed there.”