High Court's BIG relief to Tajinder Pal Bagga in midnight hearing

The Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed Tajinder Pal Bagga's arrest till next hearing in special midnight hearing on Saturday, hours after a Mohali court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against him. Justice Anoop Chitkara took up Bagga's petition in an urgent hearing at his residence.

"Punjab and Haryana HC directs no coercive step against Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga," his counsel was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. Earlier in the day, the court of Judicial Magistrate Ravtesh Inderjit Singh issued the arrest warrant against Bagga in connection with a case registered last month.

The Punjab Police had booked Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga on the charges of making provocative statements, promoting enmity and criminal intimidation. The case was registered on a complaint of AAP leader Sunny Ahluwalia, a resident of Mohali.

The FIR registered on April 1 referred to Bagga's remarks on March 30, when he was part of a BJP youth wing protest outside the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Bagga was booked under relevant sections, including 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place etc), 505 (whoever makes, publishes or circulates any statement, rumour or report) and 506 (criminal intimidation), of the Indian Penal Code.

Bagga was arrested by the Punjab Police from his Delhi home on Friday, stopped in Haryana while being taken to Punjab and brought back to the national capital by Delhi Police hours later.