Chandigarh, March 10 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court in its order acquitting Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder of a journalist pointed to serious gaps in the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while observing that the prosecution was not able to prove its case against the head of Sirsa-based sect. On March 7, the HC acquitted Ram Rahim of the charge of criminal conspiracy in the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, who was shot dead from point-blank range outside his house in Sirsa on October 24, 2002. The court, however, upheld the life sentence awarded to three other convicts - Krishan Lal, Nirmal Singh and Kuldeep Singh alias Kala. In a 113-page judgment, which came out on Monday, a division bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Vikram Aggarwal expressed grave concern about the manner adopted by CBI to "succeed in the matter". It also questioned the manner in which the federal agency handled the testimony of the prosecution's key witness, Khatta Singh. "In the considered opinion of this court, absolutely no reliance can be placed on a witness like Khatta Singh. He chose to remain silent for a number of years and then kept on tossing from one side to the other like a ping pong ball," the court noted in its order. "Even on 26.12.2006, when he opened up for the first time, he did not implicate A1 (Ram Rahim) in the present case and talked only about Ranjit Singh murder case. If he was under threat, it is not understood as to why he was under threat only in this case and not in Ranjit Singh case in which he stated that a conspiracy had been hatched by A1," the court said, dismissing Khatta Singh's deposition. The court was referring to the 2002 murder of sect's former manager, Ranjit Singh. The high court had acquitted Ram Rahim in that case in May 2024 citing "tainted and sketchy" probe into the matter. The court, in its order, further said it appeared that Khatta Singh was coerced by CBI into making a statement, as the probe agency was under pressure to conclude the investigation. "It was so stated by Khatta Singh in many of his applications. It is a matter of grave concern that a premier Investigating Agency adopted this kind of methodology with a view to succeed in the matter. The endeavour should have been to go to the bottom of the matter and bring out the truth," the court said. In January 2019, Ram Rahim and three others were convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula for the murder of scribe Ram Chander Chhatrapati. The journalist was murdered months after his newspaper published an anonymous letter narrating sexual exploitation of women followers at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa. Ram Rahim is currently lodged in Rohtak's Sunaria jail, serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples....