Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia walked out of the New Nabha jail on Tuesday, a day after the Supreme Court granted him bail in a disproportionate assets case. He was released after spending seven months in jail.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau had arrested Majithia from his Amritsar residence on June 25 last year in the disproportionate assets case, which allegedly involved laundering Rs 540 crore of drug money.
Supporters gathered outside the jail to welcome him and raised slogans in favour of the SAD. Majithia emerged at around 2.15 pm, twirling his moustache in his signature style, prompting further slogans from his supporters.
Flower petals were showered on him, and he was honoured with 'Sirpoas' (robe of honour). Sitting atop a car, he thanked the Almighty and his supporters with folded hands.
"I came out because of your prayers and blessings," Majithia told the media. Earlier, his wife, Ganieve Kaur Majithia, thanked God and the Supreme Court. "This is the victory of truth. The government had forgotten that there is God above," she told reporters.
Tight security arrangements were made outside the jail. Supporters brought sweet boxes, distributed them, and danced to the beats of a 'dhol' outside his Amritsar residence.
Majithia is the brother-in-law of SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.
A Supreme Court bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta granted bail on Monday while hearing his plea challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court order of December 4, which had denied him bail.
The bench noted that Majithia was earlier granted bail in a separate case registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
It also highlighted that he had been in custody in the disproportionate assets case for the past seven months. "Why do you want to keep him inside jail?" the bench asked the state’s counsel.
On August 22 last year, the Bureau filed a chargesheet in a Mohali court running into more than 40,000 pages.
The FIR claimed that preliminary investigations revealed more than Rs 540 crore of "drug money" had been laundered through multiple channels, allegedly facilitated by Majithia.
The FIR emerged from an ongoing investigation by a Special Investigation Team of the Punjab Police into a 2021 drug case. Majithia had earlier been booked under the NDPS Act in 2021, based on a 2018 report from the anti-drug SIT.
He had spent over five months in a Patiala jail before being granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in August 2022.
