The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Bikram Singh Majithia, a senior leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal, in connection with a ₹700-crore disproportionate assets case. The relief came after the court considered multiple factors, including the length of his custody, the stage of the investigation, and his previous bail history in a related matter.
During the earlier hearing, Majithia had sought interim bail, expressing apprehension over a possible threat to his life while in custody. He has been lodged in jail since June 25 last year following his arrest by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau from his residence in Amritsar. Since then, he has largely remained in judicial custody at the New Nabha jail.
In August 2025, the investigating agency filed an extensive charge sheet running into nearly 40,000 pages, along with supplementary filings, outlining the allegations against Majithia. After examining the record, the Supreme Court noted several circumstances that weighed in favour of granting bail. These included the fact that Majithia had earlier been granted bail in an NDPS-related case in 2022, and that the state’s special leave petition challenging that bail was dismissed by the apex court in 2025.
The bench also took into account that he had already spent around seven months in custody, that the police report under Section 173(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code had been filed, and that the alleged disproportionate assets pertained to a check period stretching from 2007 to 2017, while the FIR itself was registered only in 2025 under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court further observed that, given these factors and the stage of the proceedings, continued incarceration was not warranted at this point. Accordingly, it ordered that Majithia be released on bail.
Majithia had approached the Supreme Court after the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected his bail plea in the FIR registered by the Vigilance Bureau under Sections 13(1)(b) read with 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The FIR was based on a June 7, 2025 report submitted by a Special Investigation Team that had been probing an earlier NDPS case against him.
According to the SIT, Majithia and his wife allegedly amassed assets worth more than ₹540 crore, which were disproportionate to their known sources of income. The agency claimed that these assets were accumulated through a complex network of domestic and foreign entities during the period when Majithia served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and later as a Cabinet Minister in Punjab between 2007 and 2017. Majithia has consistently denied the allegations, maintaining that the case against him is politically motivated.
