The World Sikh News nar­rates how a mis­car­riage of jus­tice is now be­ing fur­thered with ad­min­is­tra­tive lack of con­cern in the case of Prof Devin­der Pal Singh Bhullar whose case for pre­ma­ture re­lease sits tightly in the files of Delhi Chief Min­is­ter Arvind Ke­jri­wal.

EXTRA­DITED FROM GER­MANY UN­DER THE PRES­SURE of the In­dian gov­ern­ment against the Ger­man law at the time which pro­hib­ited ex­tra­di­tion to a coun­try that has the death penalty on its statute, tried and con­victed in a split judg­ment only on the ba­sis of a con­fes­sion ob­tained by the Delhi po­lice un­der duress, Prof. Devin­der Pal Singh Bhullar has spent 26 years in prison and is presently ar­raigned in the Am­rit­sar jail af­ter spend­ing two decades in the Ti­har prison.

Prof. Devin­der Singh Bhullar’s fam­ily had to move heaven and earth to ob­tain pa­role and shift to Am­rit­sar on men­tal health grounds, dur­ing the course of which his fighter mother passed away. On the ba­sis of his men­tal health con­di­tions, presently, he has been in and out on pa­role.

To win the sym­pa­thy of the Sikh com­mu­nity, his prison term was re­mit­ted by the Union gov­ern­ment of In­dia as a part of the 550-year cel­e­bra­tions of the founder of the Sikh faith -Guru Nanak in 2019. 

On le­gal grounds, as the case per­tains to the city-state of Delhi, it is the pre­rog­a­tive and duty of the chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Delhi gov­ern­ment -the chief min­is­ter to sign his pre­ma­ture re­lease or­der. The ball is in the court of Shri Arvind Ke­jri­wal -the chief min­is­ter with a “pro­gres­sive face” and a “pretty smooth tongue.”

While he was sit­ting on the files, the self-styled All In­dia Anti-Ter­ror­ist Front cham­pion Manin­der­jeet Singh Bitta filed a writ in the Supreme Court of In­dia, chal­leng­ing the re­mis­sion of the gov­ern­ment. This was turned down by the apex court last month.

Jas­pal Singh Man­jh­pur -the coun­sel of Prof. Bhullar has writ­ten to the Delhi Chief Min­is­ter to at least grant him per­ma­nent pa­role as Ke­jri­wal has been dither­ing on sign­ing his pre­ma­ture re­lease or­der. 

Arvind Ke­jri­wal is eye­ing the chief min­is­ter­ship of Pun­jab hav­ing “suc­cess­fully gov­erned” Delhi with­out touch­ing the ma­trix of cen­tre-state re­la­tions, un­der­stand­ing what con­sti­tutes the vexed Pun­jab prob­lem or even touch­ing the con­tours of Sikh as­pi­ra­tions. 

Arvind Ke­jri­wal is a cun­ning trader who mis­reads Sikh psy­che as he con­tin­ues to play sec­ond-fid­dle to BJP and get away with it.  The plank of “good gov­er­nance” and ‘doles to poor Pun­jabis” with­out touch­ing the sub­stan­tive is­sues will back­fire, sooner or later.

We do not want to sound cliched by say­ing that you have to be born a Sikh to un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics of Sikh con­cerns, suf­fice it is to say, es­pe­cially with ref­er­ence to the cur­rent topic at hand that Arvind Ke­jri­wal is a cun­ning trader who mis­reads Sikh psy­che as he con­tin­ues to play sec­ond-fid­dle to BJP and get away with it.  The plank of “good gov­er­nance” and ‘doles to poor Pun­jabis” with­out touch­ing the sub­stan­tive is­sues will back­fire, sooner or later.

Lest you think that it is only Arvind Ke­jri­wal who is the stum­bling block, the whole AAP party, in­clud­ing their new and old emerg­ing Pun­jab lead­ers, the Sikh faces in Delhi who med­dle in Pun­jab are not likely to touch the case of Prof. Devin­der Pal Singh Bhullar.  Sadly, WSN fears that even elec­toral pol­i­tics may not con­vince them to change their stand.