The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the appeal of the Punjab government against a high court order that granted bail to Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira in the 2015 NDPS Act case.
A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and KV Viswanathan stated that they are not inclined to interfere with the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s January 4 order. The bench informed senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing the Punjab government, that despite the serious allegations against Khaira, they would not intervene in the high court’s decision given the facts and circumstances of the case.
Khaira, the MLA from Bholath assembly constituency, had been granted bail by the high court but was subsequently arrested in another case related to criminal intimidation. His arrest in September, in connection with the 2015 case, led to accusations of political vendetta against the state’s ruling AAP by the Congress.
Khaira had sought bail after his alleged involvement in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act case surfaced during an investigation by a special investigation team. The drugs case was registered in March 2015 at Jalalabad in Fazilka, involving nine individuals, including Gurdev Singh, reportedly a close aide of Khaira, who were later convicted. The police had seized two kilograms of heroin, 24 gold biscuits, a country-made pistol, a .315-bore pistol, and two Pakistani SIM cards from the accused.
On January 15, a local court in Kapurthala district of Punjab granted bail to Khaira in the criminal intimidation case.
