New Delhi: Senior advocate at Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) SK Garg Narwana appears to be the go-to counsel for controversial godmen in India. He is defence counsel for not only Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh but also Rampal Maharaj who is languishing in Hisar Central Jail since November 2014.
Rampal is a religious leader of Kabir panth, often described as a self-styled godman. He is the founder of Satlok Ashram, a socio-spiritual movement popular in Haryana.
After Ram Rahim’s conviction in a rape case on Monday, Narwana was seen preparing to move an appeal in HC. He is the defence counsel for the Dera chief in four other criminal cases including the infamous disciple castration case, the murder of a journalist, and the murder of one of the dera sadhvi’s (female disciple) brother.
Likewise, self-styled godman Sant Asaram’s son Narayan Sai also recently approached Narwana to file for bail application in a sexual assault case against him.
When Narwana shifted to HC at Chandigarh in 1995 after handling civil suits and criminal trials before the subordinate courts, there was no way anyone could have guessed that the 1982-batch law graduate from Kurukshetra University would go on to become Haryana’s Additional Advocate-General, senior standing counsel for Income Tax Department and eventually senior advocate. His area of expertise is criminal law.
On Monday, he clarified to the media that though he represented a number of godmen in India, he followed no one. Before each verdict, he visits a Hindu temple and a Sikh gurdwara to seek blessings for his cases.
Narwana specialises in election petitions and constitutional matters and is handling the sensitive matter of disqualification of Haryana’s seven independent Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
