Badal faces defamation trial for calling Sikh outfit a ‘front of BKI’

CHANDIGARH: Punjab and Haryana HC has refused to quash a criminal defamation complaint against former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal by Akhand Kirtani Jatha (AKJ) spokesperson Rajinder Pal Singh, and directed the trial before a Chandigarh court may proceed “uninfluenced by its observations”. A bench of Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya held that, prima facie, imputations made by Badal linking the religious organisation to terror outfit Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) were capable of lowering the complainant’s reputation. In its detailed order, HC made it clear that Badal’s statement suggesting AKJ was “a political front of Babbar Khalsa International” was not mere political rhetoric but prima facie defamatory in nature. HC was also of the view that the complainant, as AKJ sp