I, Rajdev Singh, Advocate, Judicial Courts, Barnala, District Sangrur (Punjab), do hereby declare and affirm as under: —

  1. That I graduated in Law from Kurukshetra University in 1974 and got enrolled as an Advocate of Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Council under enrolment number p-33 of 1975. Since then I have been practicing law at Barnala and Sangrur. I am a member of the five member presidium of the Punjab Sikh Lawyers Counsel (P.S.L.C.), My father Hardey Singh, Advocate is also a leading lawyer of the area. I myself am holding a large number of civil, criminal and revenue cases.
  2. That I have been conducting more than 1000 cases under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1985 & 1987. I am conducting such cases since 1984. At that time these cases were being tried by Special Courts under the Special Courts Act. I am conducting these cases without charging any fee.
  3. That important cases conducted by me include: –

(i) Sant Harchand Singh Longowal (President Shromani Akali Dal) murder case.

(ii) Bhai Jasvir Singh, Jathedar (Head Priest of the Akal Takhat) now confined in Tihar Jail, Delhi. (detention case).

(iii) Bhai Gurdev Singh, Kaonke (formerly Acting Jathedar Akal Takhat) detention case.

(iv) D.D.Khullar, murder case. (v) Professor Sehgal, murder case.

(vi) Sangrur Jail ‘Attempt to murder case! in which 4 jail detainees were killed and more than 30 injured in firing by the, Jail Staff).

  1. That in order to conduct cases I regularly visit District Jail Sangrur, where special courts are being held for the trial of detunus belonging to all Districts of Punjab who are being dubbed as terrorists.
  2. That on 14.10.1967, the Jail staff of the Sangrur Jail opened indiscriminate tiring on the under trials and killed three detnus on the spot, one more died later on. More than 30 persons were injured.
  3. That the relatives of the killed undertrials were not permitted to take the dead bodies to their respective places but were cremated at Sangrur under strict Police supervision
  4. That many of my undertrial clients have been killed in the so called Police encounters after showing them to have escaped from Police custody. These include Mr. Manbir Singh Chaheru, Mr. Tarsem Singh Kohar Mr. Balwinder Singh Loham, District Ferozepore.
  5. That I am the Standing Counsel of Baba Joginder Singh Rode (84), the father of late Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale, formerly Acting President of the United Akali Dal.
  6. That after the imposition of President’s rule in Punjab on May 12, 1987, Baba Joginder Singh was illegally detained in his residence at village Rode, Police Station Bagha Purana, District Faridkot. His residence was encircled by more than 600 security personnel armed with automatic and modern Weapons. No detention order under any law was served on Baba Joginder Singh and no arrest shown to have been made in any case. No one was allowed to visit him. For more than a month we kept on pressing the police and civil authorities to release Baba Joginder Singh from illegal detention and no action was taken. In the meantime I tiled writ petition number 724 of 1987 of Habeas Corpus in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Justice Agnihotri issued a notice to the State or Punjab to which the Station House Officer (S.H.O.), Police

Station Bagha Purana, Mr. Mit Singh filed the reply on behalf of the State on 29.6.1987.

  1. That on 30.6.1987 I went to village Rode to meet Baba Joginder Singh. There I was illegally detained for about three hours. After that I was brought by about 15 B.S.F. personnel to their Camp at Bagha Purana about five Km. from Rode and detained there for one hour. After that I was forcibly brought to Police Station Bagha Purana where S.H.O. Mr. Singh who had filed the reply one day earlier was present. I was released at 7 p.m. During the period of my detention the police misbehaved with me and threatened me with dire consequences if I continued to defend the cases under the Terrorist Act
  2. That the District Bar Association Sangrur headed by Mr. Ram Sarup, Advocate passed a resolution condemning my detention by the Police and gave a call for general strike by the Bar Associations of Punjab and Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh on 9.7.1967. In compliance to this, a strike was observed throughout the region

Barnala : January 11, 1988.