Suspected fake bail orders on Rajasthan high court website trigger inquiry

The Rajasthan High Court administration has sought a report from its judicial branch after two purported judicial orders granting regular bail to an accused in an NDPS case surfaced on the court’s official website.The orders, dated October 15 and October 26, 2026, concern Kalvindra Singh Panesar, a 53-year-old Punjab resident arrested in connection with the alleged seizure of 8.061 kg of opium in Sri Ganganagar district. (Representative)Discrepancies in the registration numbers and other order details have raised suspicions about their authenticity, a senior court official confirmed.The orders, dated October 15 and October 26, 2026, concern Kalvindra Singh Panesar, a 53-year-old Punjab resident arrested in connection with the alleged seizure of 8.061 kg of opium in Sri Ganganagar district. The case was registered at Rajiyasar police station under Sections 8/18, 25 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Order detailsThe purported October 26 order, bearing the name of Justice Chandra Shekhar Sharma, states that Panesar’s regular bail application was allowed and his interim bail converted into regular bail. It cites his serious medical condition, including prostatic hyperplasia and significantly elevated liver fat, along with alleged procedural lapses in seizure and sampling, delays in forensic examination and discrepancies in the seizure timeline based on call detail records.Advocate Kailash Khilery, who represented Panesar in the May 6 interim bail proceedings, said he had subsequently filed a regular bail application on his behalf so that it could be argued after the 30-day interim bail period ended. However, when Panesar failed to surrender after the expiry of the interim bail, Khilery said he decided not to press the regular bail application. “This upset his son Manpreet Singh, who had come from Canada. He subsequently took the case file from me after obtaining a no-objection certificate (NOC),” Khilery said.According to the lawyer, Kalvindra has remained absconding since the expiry of his interim bail.Khilery said he was unaware of subsequent developments until a lawyer from Suratgarh informed him a day before that Panesar had allegedly been granted regular bail by the high court. The details of the purported order raised suspicions, prompting him to contact the court staff of Justice Sharma’s single bench on Tuesday to verify its authenticity.The probe leads to another order Khilery said that Justice Chandra Shekhar Sharma was sitting in a division bench that day, and no single-bench cause list showing the matter was available. However, the purported bail order was surprisingly available to view and download on the high court’s official website until Tuesday evening.A court staff member familiar with the matter said that criminal bail application registration numbers had reached only 15,047 in 2026 by Tuesday evening, whereas the purported October 26 order carried number 15,786. The discrepancy deepened suspicions about the order. Another purported order dated October 15, 2026, also surfaced in the same case. It bears registration number 18,756 and states that Panesar’s regular bail application was disposed of as 'not pressed' after his counsel declined to pursue it at that stage.The registration number in the October 15 order further raised questions, as it was substantially higher than the number reportedly reached by the high court in criminal bail applications during the year.Additional advocate general Deepak Chaudhary also questioned the authenticity of the October 26 order, pointing out that A Sharma, named as the public prosecutor in it, was not currently serving as a public prosecutor at the high court.The high court administration has sought a report from its judicial branch on how the purported orders were uploaded to the official website, a senior official confirmed.Registrar (Judicial) Narendra Kumar said an inquiry was underway and that detailed comments could be made only after appropriate action had been taken.