 Well, today being the martyr's day in the memory of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, I have attempted to throw some light on their legal cases which led to their imprisonment initially and eventually death sentencing. This is important, I guess, for the knowledge of our young generation, especially the law students and public policy students. In December 1928, Bhagat Singh and his associate Shivram Rajguru had shot 21-year-old British police officer John Saunders in Lahore, British India. Perhaps mistaking Saunders for the British police superintendent James Scott, whom they had intended to assassinate because Scott was responsible for the death of popular Indian nationalist leader Lala Lajpatrayi by having ordered a Lathi charge in which Lala Lajpatrayi was injured and two weeks after which he died of a heart attack. Saunders fell by a single shot from Rajguru. He was then, as alleged, shot several times by Bhagat Singh, the post-mortem report showing eight bullet wounds. Another associate of Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, shot dead and Indian policeman Changan Singh, who attempted to pursue Bhagat Singh and Rajguru as they had fled that scene. After that, Bhagat Singh and his associates, using aliases, publicly owned to avenging Lala Lajpatrayi's death, putting up prepared posters which however they had altered to show Saunders as their intended target. That's what is alleged. Bhagat Singh was there after on the run for many months and no convictions resulted thereof at that time. Surfacing again in April 1929, he exploded two improvised bombs inside the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. They showered leaflets from the gallery on the legislatures by shouting slogans and then allowing the authorities to arrest them. The arrest and the resulting publicity had the effect of bringing to light Bhagat Singh's involvement in the John Saunders case. The trial eventually began and both Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dat were sentenced to life prison for causing explosions of a nature likely to endanger life unlawfully and maliciously. That's what the order said. Doubts have been raised about the accuracy of testimony offered at the trial. One key discrepancy concerned the automatic pistol that Bhagat Singh had been carrying when he was arrested. Some witnesses said that he had fired two or three shots while the police sergeant who arrested him testified that the gun was pointed downward when he took it from him. And that Bhagat Singh was playing with it. According to an article in one of the journals, the prosecution witnesses were coached, tutored. Their accounts were incorrect and Bhagat Singh had turned over the pistol himself. That was the factual thing. Bhagat Singh was given a life sentence. Later Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Rajguru and 21 others were charged with the Saunders murder. The magistrate had ordered that all the accused should be handcuffed. Bhagat Singh and others refused to be handcuffed and were subjected to brutal beating. The revolutionaries refused to attend the court and Bhagat Singh had to write a letter to the magistrate citing various reasons for their refusal to attend the hearing or the trial. The magistrate ordered the trial to be conducted, proceeded with, without the accused being present. This was a massive blow set back for Bhagat Singh as he could no longer use the trial as a forum to publicise his views. To speed up the slow trial, the Viceroy Lord Irwin declared an emergency on 1st May 1930 and introduced an ordinance to set up a special tribunal composed or comprised of three high court judges for that particular case. The decision cut short the normal process of justice as the only appeal after the tribunal was to the Privy Council located in England. On 2nd July 1930, a habeas corpus petition was filed in the High Court challenging the ordinance on the grounds that it was ultra-viries and therefore illegal. The Viceroy had no powers to shorten the customary process of determining justice. The petition argued that the Defence of India Act 1915 allowed the Viceroy to introduce an ordinance and set up such a tribunal only under the conditions of breakdown of law and order. Which it was claimed in this case had not occurred at all. However, the petition was dismissed as being premature. The ordinance and the tribunal then would in natural course lapse on 31st October 1930 as it had not been passed by the Central Assembly or the British Parliament. On 7th October 1930, the tribunal delivered its 300 page detailed judgment based on the evidence which was induced before it and concluded that the participation of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru in Saunders murder was proven. They were sentenced to death by hanging. An appeal was preferred, was filed with the Privic Council. Bhagat Singh was initially not in favour of filing an appeal. He was against filing of the appeal but he later agreed as he hoped that the appeal would popularise his views or their cause in England. The appeal claims that the ordinance which created the tribunal was invalid while the government countered that the Viceroy had complete mandate or he was fully empowered to create such a tribunal. The appeal was obviously dismissed by Judge Visconde Dundin and Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Three of them were ordered to be hanged on 24th March 1931. On 24th March 1931, the schedule was moved forward or advanced by 11 hours and the three were hanged on 23rd March 1931 at 7.30pm in the Lahore jail. Bhagat Singh was merely 23 years old then. It is reported that no magistrate at that time was willing to supervise Bhagat Singh's hanging as was required by law. The execution was supervised instead by an honorary judge who also signed the three death warrants as their original warrants had expired. The jail authorities then broke a hole in the rear wall of the jail, removed the bodies and secretly cremated the three men under the cover of darkness. Outside the Bhagat Singh's village and then threw the ashes into Satluj river about 10 km or 6 plus miles from Ferozpur. Bhagat Singh's trial has been described by the Indian Supreme Court as contrary to the fundamental doctrine of criminal jurisprudence because there was no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves. The special tribunal was a departure from the normal procedure adopted for a trial and its decision could only be appealed to the previous council as I mentioned earlier located in Britain. England, the accused were absent from the court and the judgement was passed ex parte. The ordinance which was introduced by the voice Roy to form this special tribunal was never approved as required by the Central Assembly or even the British Parliament. And it eventually lapsed without any legal or constitutional sanctity.