National Times Bureau :- Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking to quash defamation proceedings initiated against him by former MLA Nazar Singh Manshahia in a Mansa court.
The petition came up before the Bench of Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya, which issued notices to both the Punjab government and Manshahia, directing them to file their replies by August 18, 2025. Granting interim relief, the court instructed that the CM’s application for personal exemption be kept pending before the Mansa magistrate until further orders.
The matter stems from an August 2 order of the Mansa magistrate’s court, which ruled that no further exemption applications from the CM would be entertained and warned that his bail would be cancelled if he failed to appear on August 18.
Manshahia, a former AAP legislator who joined the Congress on April 25, 2019, had filed the defamation complaint after Mann, then Sangrur MP, allegedly accused him of switching parties for monetary gain and with the lure of becoming the Punjab Pollution Control Board chairman.
