The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued a notice seeking a reply from the city police on a petition filed by the Punjab Police to quash the first information report filed against the department in connection to the alleged abduction of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, Bar and Bench reported.

On May 6, the Punjab Police had arrested the BJP leader from his Delhi home on a complaint alleging that Bagga had threatened Arvind Kejriwal during a protest outside the Delhi chief minister’s residence.

However, Bagga could not be taken to Punjab as the police team was stopped in Haryana. This was after the BJP leader’s father Preetpal Singh Bagga filed a kidnapping case with the Delhi Police alleging that his son had been manhandled by the Punjab Police.

Manpreet Singh, the police superintendent of SAS Nagar (Rural) in Mohali district of Punjab had filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking to quash the FIR.

On Tuesday, Justice Anu Malhotra asked the Delhi Police, the Aam Aadmi Party government in the city and Bagga to respond to the plea within four weeks. The matter will next be heard on July 26, PTI reported.

Bagga was appointed as a BJP spokesperson in 2017 after he shot to prominence for staging violent demonstrations and posting provocative social media content. In 2018, Bagga had put up a poster in Delhi’s ITO, calling former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the “father of mob lynching”.

In the case filed against him for allegedly threatening Kejriwal, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted him protection from arrest till July 6.