SC quashes forgery case against late SAD leader Parkash Singh Badal, three days after his demise

Three days after former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal's demise, the Supreme Court quashed a criminal complaint on April 28 filed against Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh in a case of forgery and cheating. 

Akali Dal stalwart Parkash Singh Badal died on Wednesday at a private hospital in Mohali. He was 95. 

The father-son duo was charged with forgery and cheating over the dual constitution of the Shiromani Akali Dal. A bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar, which had reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas filed by Badals and senior Akali leader Daljit Singh Cheema on April 11, quashed the summons issued by the Hoshiarpur trial court in Punjab and upheld by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. 

The case was filed on the complaint of Hoshiarpur resident Balwant Singh Khera to the additional chief judicial magistrate in 2009. Khera accused SAD of submitting two different constitutions — one with the Gurdwara Election Commission (GEC) and the second with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to seek recognition as a political party. 

“The summoning order passed by the trial court against the appellants (Badals and Cheema) is nothing but abuse of process of law,” Justice Shah, who pronounced the verdict on behalf of the bench said. 

The Badals and Cheema had moved the top court challenging the August 2021 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court refusing to quash the summons against them by an additional chief judicial magistrate, Hoshiarpur in a private complaint filed by Social activist Balwant Singh Khera on the charges of forgery, cheating and concealing facts. 

(With PTI inputs)