The court, however, added offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the alleged main conspirator Namdhari and his Personal Security Officer Sachin Tyagi.
It entails maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
The sessions court gave elaborate reasons for dropping murder charge and invoking culpable homicide not amounting to murder against Namdhari and Sachin. It said the November 17, 2012 shootout that resulted in the killing of Ponty and Hardeep “seems to be an event which happened suddenly and unexpectedly”.
“Appearance of Hardeep Singh at the scene was sudden and unexpected, it was he who had fired at the injured Narender Ahlawat (Ponty's manager, who is also an accused in the case) and also pumped in several bullets into elder brother Gurdeep Singh Chadha (Ponty).