New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea against the Punjab and Haryana High Court order acquitting Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder case of a journalist.
"This matter requires consideration," a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said.
The apex court posted the plea filed by Aridaman, son of the slain journalist, for final hearing in the week commencing November 16.
The counsel appearing for Ram Rahim told the bench that the State has not preferred any appeal challenging the high court's order.
The bench observed that it was a case of reversal of conviction by the high court. "We are equally conscious of the fact that the State might not come in appeal," it observed.
The 58-year-old Dera chief is currently lodged in Rohtak's Sunaria jail where he is serving a 20-year jail term given in 2017 for the rape of two of his disciples.
Journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati was shot outside his house in October 2002 in Haryana's Sirsa after his newspaper 'Poora Sach' published an anonymous letter narrating the alleged sexual exploitation of women followers at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa.
Chhatrapati later succumbed to injuries, and a case was registered in which Ram Rahim was named as a conspirator.
The case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2006.
Ram Rahim and three others were convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula in January 2019. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court.
He later challenged his conviction before the high court, which on March 7 acquitted him in the case.
The plea challenging the High Court order came up for hearing before the top court on Monday.
In May 2024, the high court had acquitted Ram Rahim and four others in a separate case of murder of the sect's former manager, Ranjit Singh, citing "tainted and sketchy" investigation.
Earlier, the special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in the case and held Ram Rahim guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with the co-accused.
The Dera chief was in May granted a 30-day parole -- the 16th time he has been released since his 2017 conviction in the rape case.
In the past, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), apex religious body of the Sikhs, and some other Sikh organisations have objected to the grant of frequent parole and furlough to Ram Rahim, some of which have coincided with polls.
The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has a number of followers in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. In Haryana, the Dera has a sizeable number of followers in many districts, including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.
