Rejecting the plea of the Haryana Police, Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday issued fresh non-bailable warrants against controversial sect leader Sant Rampal after the Police failed to execute a non-bailable warrant.
Criticising Haryana Police and Government, the court ordered that Rampal be produced in court on November 17. Observing that the State Government lacked willingness to arrest the self-styled godman and no sincere efforts were made to produce him before it, the HC directed the Haryana Director General of Police (DGP) and the Home Secretary to ensure that Rampal appears in person before it on or before November 17.
The counsel of the sect leader submitted a fresh medical certificate before the court on Monday saying that Rampal is not medically fit to appear before the court. This is the third time that Rampal has skipped appearing before the high court despite contempt proceedings against him. He failed to appear before court Nov 5 also, citing medical reasons. If Rampal again fails to appear before it, then the DGP and Home Secretary will have to appear before it in person, a division bench, headed by Justice M Jeyapaul, said.
The bench took strong exception to the constitution of a medical board by the Hissar district authorities to examine Rampal’s health, and held that the medical board was “invalid” and the Haryana DGP’s “status report” on the self-styled godman’s health “is not acceptable”. The court also said the Government’s plea that casualties might take place in the course of arrest of Sant Rampal is “unjustified”. The court observed Rampal should not think he is sitting in a bunker and law will not be able to catch him. “He will have to appear before the court,” the bench said.
The Government’s counsel had earlier submitted before the bench that Rampal could not be brought in court as women and children were sitting in front of his ashram at Barwala in Hisar district, resisting his arrest and that the authorities wanted to avoid any violence.
Tension continued to prevail on the outskirts of Barwala town in Haryana’s Hisar district Monday with hundreds of followers of the sect leader surrounding the entire Satlok Ashram complex for the past two days and fortifying it. The followers, some of them carrying weapons and others armed with sticks, have blockaded the way to the ashram complex to prevent police and administrative officials from arresting Rampal and taking him away.
Those blocking the police entry into the ashram include hundreds of women, men and children. Volunteers of the sect have even set up a ‘commando protection force’ to prevent police from entering the ashram and arresting their sect leader.
A division bench of the court headed by Justice Jeyapaul last week directed the Haryana home secretary and the state director general of police to ensure that Rampal and Rashtriya Samaj Seva Committee president Ram Kumar are present in the court Nov 10. The controversial sect leader’s followers had indulged in vandalism in a court in Hisar town, 240 km from here, in July this year when he was going there for an appearance in a 2006 murder conspiracy case. The high court took suo moto notice of the Hisar incident and summoned the sect leader to appear before it.