Indira Gandhi assassination trial: Bogged down in procedural wranglings

The setting was striking enough but the beginning of the trial into the assassination of Mrs Gandhi was bogged down in procedural wranglings. Four hearings were held last fortnight but the prosecution did not even get the chance to show its hand.


They were a study in contrasts as they sat on a bench inside the bullet-proof booth. At one end was constable Satwant Singh, alleged assassin of Mrs Gandhi, looking younger than his 22 years, with tufts of hair around his chin in an otherwise clean face.

His blue pugree and flowing cream Pathan-style salwar-kameez were striking enough but what held the eye was an open saffron pugree draped around his neck. His intense eyes kept darting around the courtroom and were not afraid to look people in the eye, but he still seemed restless and bored.

His knowledge of English is known to be fragmentary but he was following enough of what was being said to occasionally call his lawyer, P.N. Lekhi, and whisper something in his ears. When he got up he moved so effortlessly it seemed his body had adjusted to the one bullet still lodged in his spine.

In the middle was Delhi Police sub-inspector Balbir Singh. Dressed in a check bush shirt, he had allowed his beard to grow into an unruly mop which made his stout face look even bigger and gave his eyes a fierce look.

Language was no problem with him - on the third day he addressed the judge in faultless English, but he was clearly living in a world of his own. He carried with him a file containing a sheaf of papers on which he was constantly scribbling away furiously. (Tihar jail sources say he has been writing tomes on the 'maltreatment' of Sikhs.)

Sitting a little away from the two, dressed in a nondescript old shirt and trousers, was Kehar Singh, uncle of Beant Singh, the other assassin of Mrs Gandhi who was killed. Sitting more upright than most at his age can manage, he was keenly watching the proceedings and appeared to be the only one of the three who was following the trend of arguments in court.

For a court that is to try those accused of killing a prime minister, even the conditions were anything but regal. Security reasons dictated that the trial had to be held inside maximum security prison No. 3 in the Tihar jail, where the undertrials are lodged.

A box-like room, barely 400 sq ft, with three windows which too remain shut for security reasons, was converted into a makeshift courtroom. When the Additional Sessions Judge, Mahesh Chandra, the battery of lawyers, relatives of the accused and media representatives - 40 people on an average each day, took their place in the small room it seemed to further shrink in size.

Clearly, the authorities were taking no chances. A truck-load of policemen were stationed at the inner gate of the jail premises. A plain clothes man took down the addresses and names and collected copies of photographs of reporters allowed to attend the trial. Every vehicle entering the jail premises was stopped and thoroughly checked.

Everybody was frisked at the door of the courtroom and then checked by a metal detector. In the courtroom, the three accused were herded into a bullet-proof booth, approximately 24 sq ft, with a narrow entrance from the end facing the wall to the left of the judge.


Still, drama was not lacking. When security men objected to the presence of Satwant's father, Tirlochan Singh, and were preventing him from entering the courtroom on the first day of the hearings, Lekhi too refused to enter the court in protest till Singh was allowed in. "Let them hold the trial without me," he railed.

That day the court sat for barely 20 minutes, Chandra having to adjourn the proceedings because no lawyer seemed ready to defend Balbir Singh. But the little time was enough for Lekhi to show that he was going to try every trick in the trade.

First he brought to the attention of the court that he had not been served with a formal notice indicating the start of the proceedings. When Chandra offered to issue a fresh notice, Lekhi shot back: "The court is ignorant about the rules."

Then he moved an application on Satwant's behalf arguing that Satwant and the others should be discharged because Desraj Kakkar, member of the CBI team headed by Anand Ram investigating the case, had not been appointed to the team through a gazette notification nor under the relevant section of the Delhi Police Act of 1978.

The prosecution lawyers successfully countered the charge but it was clear that Lekhi would be looking for every possible legal loophole.

When the court met a week later, Balbir was still to get a lawyer. Asked by Chandra whether he had decided on a lawyer, Balbir replied: "I do not trust strangers." The court wrote to the registrar to appoint a lawyer but Balbir had still not got one and it seemed the issue could become intractable.

On the third day of the proceedings, Kehar Singh's wife moved an application that her son, Rajinder Singh, had been wrongfully detained under the National Security Act. Kehar Singh's lawyer, P.P. Grover, pleaded that the court should initiate contempt of court proceedings against three officials of the Anand Ram team on the grounds that Rajinder Singh had been detained on the basis of a "forged" order.

Lekhi has clearly decided that offence is the best defence. Early last month Satwant Singh filed an application denying having made a confession on December 1,1984, and claiming that his signature had been forged on the statement. Charging the prosecution with fabricating evidence, he said: "The bullets came from many directions. But the prosecution does not look into other directions. I am surprised."

Lekhi also told pressmen that he was going to raise the issue of a "missing" assassin and that he would be contesting the authenticity of the post-mortem on Mrs Gandhi. Even the media was not spared: Lekhi also castigated the press for referring to Satwant as the "lone surviving assassin of Mrs Gandhi".

Indicating his perception of the case, Lekhi later said: "We are now entered in a regular trial of a classic murder like that of Kennedy, Gandhi, Liaquat Ali," and then quaintly added, "and also Lord Krishna who died of a political murder 3,000 years ago about which nobody knows."

It is unlikely, however, that Lekhi is going to reopen such an old case: his hands are going to be full in trying to demolish the official version of the assassination. When the hot and cramped courtroom comes alive in the coming weeks it is certain that Satwant will take an even greater interest in the court proceedings.

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