States » NorthPosted at: Oct 19 2026 9:27PM


Congress leader Simarjit Bains gets one-year jail term in defamation case filed by former Congress minister Brahm Mohindra

Chandigarh, Oct 19 (UNI) In an unusual legal battle involving two politicians now associated with the Congress, a Patiala court has sentenced former Ludhiana MLA Simarjit Singh Bains to one year of rigorous imprisonment in a criminal defamation case filed by former Punjab health minister and senior Congress leader Brahm Mohindra over allegations made against him eight years ago.
The verdict has brought into focus an unusual political situation. Mohindra was a minister in the Congress government when Bains levelled corruption allegations against him in 2018, but Bains himself has since joined the Congress, placing both politicians in the same party.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Ekta Sahota convicted Bains, a former legislator from Ludhiana's Atam Nagar constituency, under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced him to one year of rigorous imprisonment. The court did not impose any fine.
The case dates back to 2018, when Bains, then a legislator of the Lok Insaaf Party, accused Mohindra, who was serving as Punjab's health minister, of alleged irregularities in the procurement of medicines and their supply to drug de-addiction centres.
Bains had alleged that Mohindra maintained links with pharmaceutical company Arbour Biotech and questioned the transparency of medicine procurement by the state health department.
Mohindra rejected the accusations as "baseless, misleading and defamatory" and filed a criminal defamation complaint, alleging that the statements had damaged his personal and political reputation.
During the trial, the court found that Bains had failed to produce sufficient evidence to substantiate his allegations against the former minister.
The court held that the unsubstantiated accusations had harmed Mohindra's social and political standing, warranting conviction under the criminal defamation provisions of the IPC.
The judgment has drawn attention because the complainant and the convicted politician, who were on opposite sides of Punjab's political divide when the dispute began, now belong to the Congress.
Bains, once a vocal critic of the Congress government and its ministers, subsequently joined the party, while Mohindra remains a senior Congress leader who previously held the health portfolio in the state government.
The case underscores how an eight-year-old political confrontation has culminated in a criminal conviction even after the two former rivals came to be associated with the same political party.
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Tags: #Congress leader Simarjit Bains gets one-year jail term in defamation case filed by former Congress minister Brahm Mohindra
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