The Jaswant Singh Khalra Case: Police Accountability, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law in India
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23553415Mots-clés :
Jaswant Singh Khalra; rule of law; police accountability; custodial violence; human rights defenders; constitutional rights.Résumé
This paper examines the abduction and killing of the human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra in 1995 as a case study in police accountability and the rule of law in India. Khalra used municipal cremation records to show that the Punjab Police had secretly cremated large numbers of persons as “unidentified” or “unclaimed” during the insurgency years. After his abduction from his home in Amritsar on 6 September 1995, the Supreme Court of India transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and in Prithipal Singh v. State of Punjab, decided on 4 November 2011, it upheld the convictions of the police officers held responsible.
Following the approved doctrinal-and-case-study design, the paper analyses the constitutional framework (Articles 14, 19, 21, 22, 32 and 226), the judicial reasoning on custodial crime, and the barriers that obstructed justice, namely control of records and custody by the accused, institutional solidarity, witness intimidation and delay. It draws on two book-length treatments of Khalra’s life and work, Ajmer Singh’s Darkness Defied and Dr. Paramjeet Singh Mansa’s Human Rights Protector, alongside judgments, official findings and human rights reports. The paper argues that the convictions were achieved not through the ordinary operation of the system but through exceptional, sustained Supreme Court supervision, which shows that constitutional guarantees are insufficient where investigations lack practical independence and witnesses lack effective protection. It concludes with reforms on independent investigation, custody and cremation records, witness protection and the protection of human rights defenders.
Keywords: Jaswant Singh Khalra; rule of law; police accountability; custodial violence; human rights defenders; constitutional rights.
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Références
Cases
• Prithipal Singh v. State of Punjab, (2012) 1 S.C.C. 10. This is the main source, pin-cited throughout.
• Prakash Singh v. Union of India, (2006) 8 S.C.C. 1
• Paramjit Kaur v. State of Punjab, (1999) 2 S.C.C. 131 and 141
• Munshi Singh Gautam v. State of M.P., A.I.R. 2005 S.C. 402
• Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 S.C.C. 225
• L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, (1997) 3 S.C.C. 261
• Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service, [1985] A.C. 374 (H.L.)
• Om Kumar v. Union of India, (2001) 2 S.C.C. 386
• Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 S.C.C. 226
• Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 2 S.C.C. 1
• State of West Bengal v. Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, (2010) 3 S.C.C. 571
• Six cases are cited by reporter only, with no case name: (1981) Supp. S.C.C. 87; A.I.R. 1964 S.C. 703; (1978) 1 S.C.C. 248; (1997) 1 S.C.C. 416; (1993) 2 S.C.C. 746; A.I.R. 1990 S.C. 709.
• Two more are also cited by reporter only: (2021) 1 S.C.C. 184 and (2019) 14 S.C.C. 615.
Statutes
• Indian Penal Code, 1860; Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Indian Evidence Act, 1872
• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023; Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023; Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023
• Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, § 6
Books and reports
• Ajmer Singh, Darkness Defied: The Life and Legacy of Jaswant Singh Khalra
• Paramjeet Singh Mansa, Human Rights Protector
• Human Rights Watch & Ensaaf, Protecting the Killers: A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India (2007)
• Ram Narayan Kumar et al., Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab (South Asia Forum for Human Rights, 2003)
• Law Commission of India, Report No. 273 (2017)
International instruments
• UN General Assembly Resolution 53/144, Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (1998)
• International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006)
• Convention Against Torture (1984)
News and web sources
• Tribune (Amritsar), "English Version of Jaswant Singh Khalra's Biography Released"
• Tribune, Feb. 4, 1999
• Scroll.in, "He Fought Against the Disappearing of Young Men from Punjab…"
• ThePrint (Past Forward, 2026), "Jaswant Singh Khalra's Hunt for the Truth About Punjab Disappearances"
• Ensaaf, "Honoring Jaswant Singh Khalra and the Movement for Justice"
• The Wire, "Why Punjab's Secret Cremations Case Stands as a Landmark…"
• The Quint (2026), title missing
• NPR, cited as "supra note 18", but no earlier footnote cites NPR
• NHRC (nhrc.nic.in), cited twice, with the title and date left blank
• 142 Cong. Rec. E1394 (July 29, 1996
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Merci de créditer les auteurs lors de toute citation : Oxford Law Review (2026)
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