Chandigarh, Feb. 11 -- After Haryana's former sports minister Sandeep Singh was booked in a sexual assault case in 2022, the victim filed a petition before the sessions judge to have the case transferred from the court of the additional chief judicial magistrate. The application was allowed by district and sessions judge HS Grewal on Monday. As per the counsel for the female victim, Sameer Sethi, the presiding officer of the trial court, Rahul Garg is named as witness number 19 as per the police challan filed in court. "This creates a fundamental legal hindrance for the current court to continue with the trial. The same objection has already been raised before the learned court orally as well as through application but the presiding officer didn't recluse himself from the case," he added. In the application, the victim has also highlighted how she was not provided a copy of the challan filed by the police and she was not provided a copy of her statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. She alleged that the conduct of the presiding officer has been biased against her. While a detailed copy of the order was not available, the court has allowed this application and directed that the case be transferred. As per the counsel, they were told orally that the case will be transferred to the court of the chief judicial magistrate but they are waiting for the order to confirm this. The court had framed charges against Singh in July 2024. The charges were framed under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 354 (assault or use of criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354-A (sexual harassment), 354-B (assault or criminal force with intent to disrobe), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of woman). The case stems from allegations of sexual assault made by a junior athletic coach from Haryana against the BJP leader. Sandeep Singh, a former Indian hockey captain had dismissed the allegations and said that he has been falsely implicated in the case. He was booked after the woman's complaint was registered on December 31, 2022, at the Sector-26 police station in Chandigarh. In her complaint, the woman alleged that before her recruitment she had come in contact with Sandeep Singh on social media. She said he had asked her to meet him at his official residence in Chandigarh on March 2, 2022, and July 1, 2022, to verify her job-related documents, where he had sexually harassed and assaulted her. Singh was the MLA of Pehowa in Haryana, and was a minister of state (independent charge) in the Manohar Lal Khattar government when the case was registered on December 29, 2022....