Man, son held for uploading fake bail orders on Rajasthan HC website

Police on Tuesday arrested a 53-year-old man and his son from Ludhiana in Punjab for allegedly conspiring to upload fabricated bail orders on the Rajasthan High Court’s official website to prevent the father’s arrest in a narcotics case.

The accused, identified as Kulwinder Singh Panesar and his son Manpreet Singh, were brought to Jodhpur for questioning, officials familiar with the development said. It was not clear how they managed to upload the orders on the website.

DCP (West) Kamal Shekhawat said the arrests were made by Kudi Bhagatsuni police on the directions of Jodhpur police commissioner Anshuman Bhomia.

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“Manpreet returned from Canada to protect his father from arrest and allegedly participated in the conspiracy to prepare fake court orders. Both accused are yet to be questioned in detail, and the full extent of the conspiracy will emerge during the investigation,” Shekhawat said.

Panesar was earlier arrested in connection with the alleged seizure of 8.061 kg of opium in Sri Ganganagar district. A case was registered against him at Rajiasar police station under sections 8/18, 25 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

According to police, Panesar was granted interim bail but failed to surrender on June 9 after the stipulated period expired. The high court subsequently cancelled his bail bond, forfeited the sureties and issued an arrest warrant, directing the police to take him into custody.

However, three purported judicial orders dated October 12, 15 and 26, 2026, were subsequently presented to the police to prevent his arrest. The alleged October 26 order, bearing the name of justice Chandrashekhar Sharma, stated that Panesar’s interim bail had been converted into regular bail.

The suspected manipulation came to light on November 3, prompting the high court administration to initiate an inquiry. Preliminary verification revealed that the cases had not been listed for hearing on the dates mentioned in the purported orders and that no such judicial directions had been issued, police said.

The high court administration also sought a report from its judicial branch to ascertain how the fabricated orders had appeared on the official website.

Advocate Kailash Khileria, who represented Panesar during his interim bail hearing on May 6, said, “I had filed a regular bail application but decided not to pursue it after Panesar failed to surrender.” He said Manpreet subsequently obtained a no-objection certificate and collected the case file from him.

Khileria said he became suspicious after learning that Panesar had purportedly secured regular bail. He then contacted the staff of justice Sharma’s bench to verify the order.

Discrepancies in the case registration numbers further raised doubts about the documents.

While the number of criminal bail applications registered in 2026 had reportedly reached 15,047 by the time the irregularities were examined, the purported October 15 and October 26 orders carried registration numbers 18,756 and 15,786, respectively.

Additional advocate general Deepak Chaudhary also questioned the authenticity of the October 26 order, pointing out that it named an advocate, A Sharma, as the government’s representative, although no government advocate by that name was serving in the high court.

Police said further investigation would focus on identifying others involved in preparing and uploading the fabricated orders and establishing how the high court’s website was allegedly compromised.