Daler exempted from personal appearance in court case

Patiala, Nov 13 (UNI) Famous bhangra-pop singer Daler Mehndi was today exempted from personal appearance by a local court here in an immigration fraud case hearing against him.

The court had recently rejected a plea by the Punjab police to discharge him in the case.

The defence lawyer, B S Sodhi, had filed the exemption plea which was accepted by the court. The defence had also sought the Punjabi versions of copies of the charge sheet.

The court has fixed December 5 for the next hearing of the case.

The Patiala court, on August 30, had sent fresh summonses to Mr Daler Mehndi asking him to appear personally during the hearing of the case.

Mr Daler Mehndi had been arrested by the Patiala police in October 2003 along with his brother Shamsher Mehndi after one Bakshish Singh filed a complaint that he was duped of a huge sum of money by the Mehndi brothers, who had promised to take him abroad as part of their musical troupe and to help him to settle abroad.

The Punjab police officials, after investigations, had stated that singers and other performers had got into a well-organised racket to illegally take the youth out of the country to the west by making them part of their troupes. The youth were charged upto Rs two million in each case.

However, after the police started the proceedings and maintained that Mr Daler Mehndi had nothing to do with the immigration fraud case, the complainant moved the court again objecting to the singer being discharged. He said that both the Mehndi brothers had duped him.

The Punjab police had, earlier this year, moved two petitions before the court saying that singer was not required in the case as he had nothing to do with the immigration fraud, known as 'Kabootarbaazi' (flying pigeons) referred to numerous youth in Punjab trying to use illegal means to settle abroad.

Earlier, the Patiala police had registered a case under Sections 406, 420, 465, 466, 468, 471, 471-A and 120-B of the IPC and the Indian Passport Act under FIR number 498 on September 19, 2003 at the Sadar police station here on a complaint of Mr Bakhshish Singh of Balbehra.

In his complaint, Mr Bakhshish Singh along with other 24 complainants, had blamed Mr Daler Mehndi and his brother Shamsher Mehndi for taking money from them with a promise to take them in his troupe during foreign trips and to leave them there but failed to fulfil their promise in toto and their money had not been returned to them. Instead they were allegedly threatened by the defendants and asked to keep quite.

UNI XC PS MS KP1606