By Hb Singh | India |
Renowned human rights activist and former judge Justice Ajit Singh Bains passed away in Chandigarh, Punjab, yesterday (11 February 2022). He was 99.
He was no ordinary judge while on the bench, and lived an even more remarkable life upon his retirement.
He is survived by his wife Rashpal Kaur and four children, including senior advocate Rajwinder Singh Bains. His grandson Utsav Bains is also an advocate.
Justice Bains served as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court from October 1974 to May 1984. Upon retirement, he was thrown into the deep end of the fight for human rights.
Born in Bada Pind near Guraya in Jaladhar in 1922, he studied at a local school and then studied subsequently law and MA (Economics) in Lucknow. After a brief stint at the Punjab education department as a teacher, he left to join the law profession in 1953. He started his practice at high court in 1961.
“He changed the dominant view about High Court judges who normally defend establishment. He delivered many judgements during his ten year tenure (from 1974 to1984 at Punjab and Haryana High Court) to defend the interests of working people, disadvantaged and women. He ruled against many employers and establishment figures,” writes Pritam Singh, the Emeritus Professor at Oxford Brookes University and an avid Punjab politics watcher.
Upon retirement in 1985, he formed Punjab Human Rights Organisation. The NGO played an instrumental role in exposing human rights violations in Punjab.
Justice Bains devoted his life to the protection of human rights movement especially when massive human rights violations were taking place in Punjab during the tyrannical rule of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and the hawkish police chief KPS Gill.
Things took a turn when Justice Bains was hauled up for making seditious pronouncements for a run-of-the-mill speech from the ramparts of Keshgarh Sahib Gurdwara on Holla Mohalla in 1992.
“I was picked up after a morning golf game. The police came in two jeeps,” he told Rozana Spokeman in an interview in 2014.
He was handcuffed, manhandled, finger-printed and illegally detained by the police. It was only after more than 52 hours of detention and rigorous interrogation that he was produced before a district magistrate on April 5, only to be remanded to police custody for two more days. His detention stirred up a hornet’s nest that the Government hadn’t bargained for, reported India Today. It added that Sikh organisations and human rights groups abroad attacked the manner in which such an eminent man was being treated.
“Gill had the temerity to have him arrested once and even getting him handcuffed and taken to a police station. Gill did this to terrorise that no one was safe, not even a former High Court judge, if they criticised his misdeeds. Gill did not know that Bains was made of a different stuff. Bains became even more determined after this realising even more deeply that if a retired High Court judge could be mishandled, what chance an ordinary farmer or worker had in Gill’s police raj,” commented Pritam.
But Justice Bains does not display any rancour with the police force. In the same Rozana Spokeman interviews, he says: “The police force is independent. But the politicians don’t allow them to stay independent. They sideline the honest officers, and [promote] tainted officers.”
Justice Bains authored ‘Siege of the Sikhs: Violation of Human Rights in Punjab’, a book published in 1988. The book touched on human rights in the Punjab as well as the problem of Center-State relations.
Amritsar-based human rights activist Sarabjit Singh Verka, who was associated with justice Bains since 1998, was quoted in The Hindustan Times, as saying: “It is a loss to humanity and an end of an era in Punjab. It is very rare to see such people who through their life worked selflessly for oppressed against all odds.”
In closing, Pritam says: “Men like Justice Bains are born once in many decades. His voice was heard at the highest level in the UN and other world forums with great respect and attention. He will remain alive through his magnificent work for justice and human rights. He leaves a powerful family legacy-one of his sons (R S Bains) and grandson (Utsav Bains) are very fine human rights lawyers.”
RELATED STORY:
(Asia Samachar, xx 2021)
ASIA SAMACHAR is an online newspaper for Sikhs / Punjabis in Southeast Asia and beyond.Facebook | WhatsApp +6017-335-1399 | Email: editor@asiasamachar.com | Twitter | Instagram | Obituary announcements, click here
RIP Sir! You were a true Sikh of Waheguru! ???May your life be an inspiration to others to fight for justice and the downtrodden just like how our Guru Sahebs taught us!
And may the so called Sikh leaders and those squabbling over pettty issues in Gurudwara committees awaken from their Maya induced slumber and get rid of their immense egos to work collectively for the good of the Sikh Panth .
Demise of Justice Ajit Singh Bains is a great loss to the Sikh community. I met him on two or three occasions through the UK branch of Punjab Human Rights Organisations led by late Barrister Harjit Singh. Sat on a panel with him at a function organised by Panjabis In Britain APPG chaired by John McDonnell MP. Indeed, as Pritam Singh says, Bains “… changed the dominant view about High Court judges who normally defend establishment.”.
Perhaps he should not have gone into politics later on. D S Gill with some others, broke away to form the International Human Rights Organisation. Nevertheless, much work was done in the post 1984 years by these lawyers to collate authentic evidence of human rights violations in Panjab.
Great people are born once in decades
Comments are closed.