TheTrialofBhagatSingh

B HAGAT Singh's trial is one of those episodes in the history of India's freedom of which little is known. Historians and his contemporaries' writings have thrown much light on certain facets of his personality and his outlook which his amazing courage and commitment tended to overshadow. A man of intense feeling, he was also a man of remarkable intellectUal qualities who was ever ready to learn and unlearn. But far less is known of the darker aspects of the trial. This ·boo� seeks to explore them. It is not a defmitive work on the subject. It, however, raises certain issues which have not received the attention they deserved. The farcical character of the trial was not studied in depth; perhaps because Bhagat Singh's culpability in the Saunders' murder was not in question. But the Lahore Conspiracy Case merits study for its own sake as a classic case of abuse of the judicial process for political ends. On May 1, 1930 the Governor-General promulgated an Ordinance establishing· a Special Tribunal to try the case while taking good care to deprive the accused of the right of appeal to the High Court and to its confirmation of death sentences. A little over six months later the Punjab Government got enacted a special statute to set up. a Commission to try certain persons on charges as grave and the same Governor-General secured enactment of a Central law conferring on the accused those very rights of appeal to and confirmation by the High Court. The animus against Bhagat Singh and his comrades could not