NEW DELHI: The writ petitioners filed by Rashpal Bains alleging malafide came up for hearing in the Supreme Court on July 28, after many days of adjournments, A three member bench, consisting of Justice Venkatachalliah, Justice K.P. Singh and Justice Sawant, is hearing the petitions. The Advocate General of Punjab, Chatrath, started by saying that he had information that a bail application had been filed by Justice Bains in a lower court in Ropar. He said that since the date of the hearing of the bail application was coming up, on August 18, there was no need for the Supreme Court to also deal with the issue. The Judges did not agree with this. The Advocate General argued that if Justice Bains was released on bail then this would become a precedent for others. To this Justice Venkatachalliah countered that how could he talk of precedents in the face of the case of a Judge,a71 year old man, the Chair of a Human Rights Organization, arrested for expressing his ideological views in which he only advocated peaceful means to achieve these ends, that is if at all the speech was made by him in the first place. At this point the Advocate General pointed out that Ajit Singh Bains had not denied making the speech. The Judges replied that there was no need for Justice Bains to accept or deny the speech. The burden of proof lay with the Punjab Government to prove that 1. the speech was made by Ajit Singh Bains 2, that it was seditious. The Advocate General of Punjab then said that under TADA it was up lo the accused to prove his innocence. All the three Judges opposed this. They asked the Advocate General to show them the relevant rules. The Advocate General started reading out Article 21 of TADA which dealt with arms possession etc. He was interrupted by Justice K.P. Singh who kept repeating that this was not applicable. Finally the Advocate General had to sit down. Justice Sawant then observed that the Punjab Government may not agree to granting bail as this would be a confession on their part that their case was flimsy. Justice Venkatachalliah warmed the Advocate General of Punjab that they could well come to the conclusion that the whole case should be quashed and Ajit Singh Bains released.

Having said this, Hardev Singh once again began his presentation of the case for malafide. He went through the whole case, including the statements of Beant Singh in the Assembly on April 6 that Ajit Singh Bains had been arrested. because he shed tears one sidedly, and that he was responsible for releasing 3,000 militants and the warning of Beant Singh to the lawyers delegation not to defend Bains because he had “personal scores” to settle with him. The Judges were particularly interested in knowing whether Justice Bain had said that he had been physically attacked in the GIA stations. The relevant portion of his statement to be investigating officer appointed by the High Court was read out. At this point the Court adjourned for the day. The hearing was slated to resume the next day i. e  July 29. As of today, July 30, the case has not been resumed.

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 21, 1992