Langah gets bail in rape case

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 19

A fortnight after the “victim” in the rape case against Sucha Singh Langah backtracked, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday granted regular bail to the former Akali minister.

Former MLA from Dera Baba Nanak segment in Gurdaspur district, Langah was booked on September 29, 2017, 11 days ahead of the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha bypoll that the ruling Congress party won against SAD’s ally BJP.

The complainant, however, told the court that she was not the woman in a video that went viral.

Appearing for Langah before Justice Lisa Gill’s Bench, senior advocate Jasjit Singh Bedi argued that the FIR was registered after a delay of nine years and further alleged that it was a result of “political vendetta”. Bedi also told the Bench that the woman had not supported the prosecution version and was tutored to level allegations against Langah.

Claiming that the rape case against him was a result of political vendetta triggered by a desperate attempt by his opponents to win the Gurdaspur byelection, Langah in his earlier plea had accused MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa of hatching a conspiracy to implicate him.

Giving reasons, Langah had told the court that he had contested the Assembly elections five times and twice remained Cabinet minister. He lost by a few 100 votes from ruling party MLA Randhawa.

The MLA was an aspirant for a Cabinet birth and a “defeat from his Assembly constituency would have been a big blow to his political ambition”. Earlier also, two false FIRs were registered at his behest, with SHO as complainant in one of the cases.

“When the petitioner was granted interim anticipatory bail in the FIRs, the present FIR was registered to keep him away from the election campaign for the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat,” his counsel had contended.

The petitioner added that the complainant in the present FIR was a police department employee. The entire conspiracy was hatched with oblique motive to earn a “winning margin from his assembly constituency in order to become a Cabinet minister”.