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Chandigarh, May 30 (PTI): The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted regular bail to AAP MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra in a rape case registered against him last year.

The court, in the order delivered on Friday, asked him to surrender his passport to the trial court and to report to the police station concerned twice a month.

Pathanmajra, a first-time MLA from Sanour in Patiala, was arrested from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, on March 25. He had been on the run in the rape case since September 2 last year after escaping from custody when Punjab Police went to Haryana's Karnal to arrest him.

The case was registered against him on September 1, 2025, at the Civil Lines police station here on the charges of rape, cheating and criminal intimidation.

The case was registered based on a complaint by a Zirakpur-based woman, who alleged that the MLA misrepresented himself as a divorcee, entered into a relationship with her and later married her in 2021 while already being married.

The complainant had alleged that she came in contact with Pathanmajra in 2013-14 through Facebook and they got married in August 2021.

It was only after she saw an affidavit in March 2022 filed by him for contesting the assembly elections that she came to know of his subsisting marriage, she had alleged.

The counsel for Pathanmajra contended that the allegations in the FIR were motivated and the MLA had been implicated on account of political rivalry.

In its order, the court said, "In these facts, all this while when the complainant concededly had physical relationship with the petitioner for about a decade from 2013-14 onwards, it becomes debatable whether she could remain oblivious of his existing marital ties and could it be said this protracted relationship was without her consent, or that the consent had been given because she believed herself to be lawfully married wife." The court observed that the fact that Pathanmajra had earlier absconded could not be a ground to deny him bail.

"There is no denying the fact that the petitioner previously absconded from the process of law and slipped out of the country. Nevertheless, he returned and was arrested on March 24, 2026. Prior thereto, he had been declared a proclaimed person also and further proceedings in that regard are pending.

"His being (an) absconder can itself not be a ground to decline bail in the facts of this case, as discussed hereinbefore. Similarly, pendency of other FIRs would also not be a sufficient ground to detain him in custody. One of the FIRs is related to the instant case only when he allegedly escaped from custody in Karnal," the court said.

Even otherwise, the petitioner's entitlement to bail is to be decided on the facts of the case at hand. Additionally, the allegations that the petitioner and his agents are threatening and pressurising the complainant or her brother have not been substantiated even prima facie. No complaint in that regard has been registered, it said.

Accordingly, considering the totality of the facts and circumstances, the petitioner is ordered to be released on regular bail subject to his submitting bail and surety bonds to the satisfaction of the trial court or the duty magistrate, provided his custody is not needed in any other case, the order said.

The release shall also be subject to surrendering his passport to the trial court. Also, while on bail, he shall report to the concerned police station twice a month, it said. PTI CHS DIV DIV

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