Beant Singh assassination case: Chandigarh court grants interim bail to convict Gurmeet Singh

The Chandigarh district court has granted interim bail to Gurmeet Singh, one of the convicts in the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.

Singh, 52, has been lodged in the Model Jail of Chandigarh since 1995. On Friday, the court of chief judicial magistrate Aman Inder Singh granted him interim bail on two sureties of ₹2 lakh each.

Gurmeet’s is premature release case is pending before the UT administration, said advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur while adding that the time given by the high court to clear the case has lapsed, hence they moved the court.

He added that the bail application was filed in view of the order passed by the Punjab and Haryana high court, in January, which directed for the release of all prisoners on regular bail in case they have completed their life sentence but decision regarding their permanent release from jails is pending before competent authorities.

Singh’s counsel pleaded that he has already completed 27 years in jail and must not be discriminated against, especially when other convicts had been released on bail after completion of their sentence.

Gurmeet’s mother was present in the court.

Earlier in May, the local court had awarded bail to Lakhwinder Singh Lakha, another convict in the Beant Singh murder case.

Beant Singh was killed in an explosion outside the civil secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995. A Punjab police employee Dilawar Singh had acted as a human bomb. The CBI had filed chargesheet against nine accused. The special CBI court, Chandigarh, had awarded death penalty to Balwant Rajoana in July 2007. It also awarded death penalty to Jagtar Singh Hawara, life imprisonment to Gurmeet Singh, Lakhwinder Singh Lakha and Shamsher Singh.

Hawara’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the high court in 2010.