The Balwant Singh Rajoana case appears to be back to square one after 12 years.

The Supreme Court earlier this week declined to give any interim relief to Rajoana who is on death row in the 1995 assassination of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Rajoana has sought a commutation of his death sentence on the grounds of the President’s “extraordinary” and “inordinate delay” in deciding his mercy petition. The court said it would have to hear the matter in detail and gave the Punjab government two more weeks to respond to Rajoana’s plea. It fixed the matter for hearing next on November 18.

On August 31, 1995, Beant Singh and 16 others were killed after former Punjab Police constable Dilawar Singh blew himself up at the entrance of the civil secretariat in Chandigarh. Rajoana was the backup bomber and the one who tied the bombs to Dilawar’s body. He was caught in December 1995 and so was his co-accused Lakhwinder Singh, both former police constables like Dilawar. The three were sympathetic to the views of Babbar Khalsa International, with Rajoana justifying the assassination by blaming Beant Singh for “extra-judicial” killings of the Sikh youth.

While Singh is currently serving a life sentence, a special CBI court sentenced Rajoana to death in 2007. On August 10, 2009, he asked the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s Chief Justice for his death penalty case to be considered separate from that of his co-accused, who challenged the conviction by the trial court. Rajoana, who had refused to engage a lawyer during trial, said the death sentence “for this act is justice” and a “blessing”, and refused to bow before such a “worthless system”.

His execution was scheduled for March 31, 2012, but following protests across Punjab, the state government at the time, led by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the BJP, convinced the Congress-led Union government to postpone the execution. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) filed a mercy petition before the President on March 28 and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) stopped the execution.

Rajoana twice went on a hunger strike in Patiala Central Jail, first in 2016 and then in 2018, demanding a decision on the SGPC’s mercy petition.

Just before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the MHA on September 27 wrote to the chief secretaries of Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, NCT of Delhi, and the adviser to Chandigarh Administrator saying, “I am directed to say that on the occasion of commemoration of 550th Birth Anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the Government of India has decided that 8 Sikh prisoners may be granted special remission and death sentence of one Sikh prisoner may be commuted to life imprisonment. The details of these nine Sikh prisoners are given at Annexure.”

The letter and annexe, marked “SECRET”, were purportedly signed by then Deputy Secretary (PR & ATC) Arun Sobti. In the three-page annexe, the case of Rajoana was categorised on the last page as “Case of Commutation of Death Sentence to Life Imprisonment”.

However, there was no official announcement from the MHA. A month later, when Beant Singh’s grandson and current Union Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu, who is now in the BJP but was then a Congress MP, asked Amit Shah why Rajoana’s sentence was being commuted, the Union home minister told the House, “Please don’t go by media reports. Koi maafi ki nahi gayi (no pardon has been given).”

At the time, the SAD, then a BJP ally, and the SGPC expressed disappointment at Shah’s statement. Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal said the remark had caused “pain and anguish to the Sikh community, which was under the impression that the death sentence had been commuted to life on the eve of 550th Parkash Purb celebrations of Sri Guru Nanak Dev”.

SGPC’s president at the time, Gobind Singh Longowal said, “Changing the decision was very unfortunate; (it) has hurt Sikh sentiments.”

In November 2022, the Supreme Court’s order to release the six convicts serving life sentence for more than three decades in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case rekindled hope for Rajoana’s supporters. However, the top court in April 2023 refused to intervene in the matter and said the competent authority could deal with his mercy plea.

In December 2023, the mercy plea issue was raised again In Parliament, though not directly, during a terse exchange between Shah and former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the Akali Dal. The Akali Dal had broken ties with the BJP during the yearlong farmers’ agitation from 2020 to 2021.

During a debate on the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Badal objected to the new criminal law code not allowing anybody, except family, to file mercy pleas for a convict. In response, Shah said, “If any offender does not realise his or her mistake, express remorse, then he or she does not deserve forgiveness. Only they deserve mercy who repent their crime. If someone commits a terror act, goes to jail and is not ready to admit to the crime, then I will not agree with any mercy in such a case.” When Badal attempted to intervene, Shah said he knew what she had to say.

Rajoana is perhaps the most high-profile “Bandi Singh”, a term used for Sikh prisoners convicted for involvement in militancy in Punjab and are still in jails in various parts of India. Their release is an emotive issue in Punjab, with the activists pushing for it pointing out that these prisoners had already spent a few decades in jails and several of them are old or “physically or mentally infirm”.

The demand for their release has flared up time and again, becoming a political issue that mainstream parties in the state cannot ignore because they need Panthic votes. Last year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led government faced demonstrations and activists protesting at the Chandigarh-Mohali border also clashed with the police.

“The demand for the release of Sikh prisoners is within the scope of the Constitution,” said SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami. “The central government has also approved it through its notification in 2019 on the occasion of the 550th Prakash Gurpurab (birth anniversary) of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji. The government should implement its notification.”

The BJP, looking to expand its Punjab footprint, has also appeared to support the demand even though it poses a challenge to the party outside the state because it cannot appear to be going soft on Sikh militancy. That too at a time when India’s diplomatic ties with Canada have hit rock bottom over the issue of Sikh separatism and the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

But domestic political considerations in Punjab have forced it to send signals that not all of its leaders are opposed to releasing the “Bandi Singhs”. In February 2022, then Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat promised he would take up the issue of their release with the top government officials.

Bittu, who wrote a two-page letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2022 saying the release of Rajoana and other “dreaded terrorists” would have devastating implications for the internal security situation in Punjab, has also moderated his position since joining the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and becoming a Union Minister. After the polls, he said he had no objection to the Bandi Singhs being released and if the Centre planned to release Rajoana would not oppose it. It was time to move on for peace in Punjab, Bittu added.