THE ARCHITECT OF MANAGED IMPUNITY

Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, and the Statutory Erasure of Sikh Rights, 1957–2026

A Definitive Forensic Political-Legal Audit · kpsgill.com · March 2026

Civilian Command Responsibility · Statutory Nonfeasance · Patronage as Ratification · Institutional Capture · The Badal Dynasty · The Delhi Symbiosis

EVIDENTIARY LEGEND

[PF] Proved Finding — established by Indian statutory text, gazette notification, Supreme Court or High Court order, CBI or NHRC official report, authenticated government correspondence confirmed across two or more independent primary sources, UN or U.S. State Department official document, or filed and numbered criminal chargesheet with FIR reference.

[DA] Documented Allegation — credibly sourced in named-journalist investigative reporting, parliamentary proceedings, HRW/Amnesty/Ensaaf reports, or authenticated opposition disclosures — on the record, uncontested in material content, not yet adjudicated.

[AI] Analytical Inference — structural or comparative argument drawn from the pattern of documented events, explicitly presented as inference and not as proved fact.

EDITORIAL NOTE — WHAT THIS AUDIT DOES NOT CLAIM, AND WHAT THE CASE SURVIVES ON

This document is an advocative forensic critique grounded in public records. Parkash Singh Badal died on 25 April 2023 at Fortis Hospital, Mohali, aged 95. He cannot be tried. The criminal proceedings in the Kotkapura case against him abated on the day of his death. A supplementary chargesheet was filed that same day, though Badal had already been formally named in the earlier chargesheet filed on 24 February 2023. That the architecture of accountability reached him — twice — and that biology closed the case before any verdict, is itself the forensic datum about a system that always found another procedure, another adjournment, another season of delay.

This audit does not claim that Badal personally fired a weapon, personally signed a written release order for any accused, or personally directed the destruction of any evidence. The forensic theory rests on three documented pillars. First: statutory nonfeasance — the failure to exercise mandatory or grave public duties across five Chief Ministerial terms totaling nearly nineteen years. Second: command responsibility — the obligation, recognized in international law and argued here as an applicable framework for Indian public-interest adjudication, of a civilian superior with authority over the Punjab Police to prevent, repress, or submit for investigation the crimes his subordinates committed. Third: patronage as ratification — the systematic elevation of officers with documented human rights violation records, treated as consistent administrative policy because it is consistent across decades.

THE PROSECUTORIAL SPINE — WHAT THIS AUDIT ESTABLISHES EVEN IF HALF ITS STRONGEST ALLEGATIONS ARE DISCOUNTED

Strip out every Documented Allegation. Remove the Devi Lal letters. Remove the Nirankari safe-exit story. Remove every claim resting on opposition disclosure rather than primary documentation. What remains, resting substantially on Proved Findings and a small number of high-reliability Documented Allegations, is this.

On 20 February 1978, the cabinet of the Government of Punjab under Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is reported across multiple independent sources — including PTI wire reports, IANS dispatches in Business Standard, and Punjab DIPR official press releases — to have issued two land acquisition notifications, numbered 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL, initiating the acquisition of 5,376 acres of Punjab farmland for the SYL canal. [DA — high reliability]

On 4 January 1980, a Sessions Court in Karnal acquitted all accused in a case involving thirteen Sikh deaths; Badal's government directed no appeal under Section 378 CrPC. [PF]

On 14 March 2012, with effect from 15 March 2012, the Badal government appointed Sumedh Singh Saini as Director General of Police superseding four to five more-senior IPS officers, while charges of kidnapping and criminal conspiracy had been framed against Saini by a trial court in December 2006. [PF]

On 18 November 2009, Mohammad Izhar Alam — named in a US diplomatic cable of December 2005 as the commander of a paramilitary force alleged to have conducted possibly thousands of staged encounter killings — was inducted into the SAD by CM Badal and appointed Chairman of the Punjab Wakf Board. [PF/DA — Wakf appointment PF; cable text DA]

The Supreme Court in Paramjit Kaur v. State of Punjab (12 December 1996) found flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale in connection with 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations; the Badal government that took office in February 1997 constituted no independent investigation. [PF]

SGPC general elections mandated every five years under Sections 48 and 62 of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 have not been held since 18 September 2011 — fifteen years. [PF]

The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission (constituted April 2017) found that firing at Behbal Kalan on 14 October 2015 was without any warning and without permission from civil authorities, and that DGP Saini ordered the firing. [PF]

On 24 February 2023, a 7,000-page chargesheet named Parkash Singh Badal as an accused in the Kotkapura firing case. A supplementary chargesheet was filed on 25 April 2023, the day of his death. [PF]

The same chargesheet described Sukhbir Singh Badal as a principal conspiratorial actor, in the SIT's own terminology. [PF — chargesheet characterization; the label "mastermind" is the SIT's prosecutorial framing, not an adjudicated finding]

As of March 2026, not a single charge has been framed in either the Kotkapura or Behbal Kalan case. [PF]

That is the documented floor. The argument rests on that floor. The argument is strong.

PART ONE · THE LIABILITY ARCHITECTURE

I. What This Audit Is

This document is an advocative forensic critique grounded in public records. The distinction between forensic advocacy and ordinary political polemic is methodological: forensic advocacy begins with the complete available record, constructs the most defensible interpretation that record supports, states explicitly what the record does not prove, and classifies every departure from primary documentation with the appropriate epistemic label. This document adopts that method in the tradition of prior audits published at kpsgill.com — the Chittisinghpura, Pathribal, and the Clinton Visit Audit and The Construction of Sikh Political Identity in the United States. The governing analogy is the medical examiner's: examine what the documentary body tells you, classify what you can prove, mark what you can only infer, and resist the pressure to make the body tell a story it does not actually tell. [PF — kpsgill.com site methodology]

II. The Four Modes of State Malpractice

Mode One: Civilian Command Responsibility. The doctrine of command responsibility, recognized in international law through Yamashita v. Styer (327 U.S. 1, 1946) and reflected in Article 28(b) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, has been used in international law to impose responsibility on civilian superiors in certain circumstances — where the crimes fell within the superior's effective authority and control; where the superior knew, or consciously disregarded information clearly indicating, that subordinates were committing such crimes; and where the superior failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent, repress, or submit the matter for investigation. India is not a party to the Rome Statute, and this framework has not been formally adopted in Indian domestic law as applied to former Chief Ministers. This audit presents it as a proposed forensic standard and an international legal analogy — the framework against which Badal's conduct should be assessed, and will be assessed in any serious accountability proceeding. [AI — proposed forensic standard; PF for doctrine's existence in international law]

As Chief Minister and political head of the Home Department across five terms, Parkash Singh Badal possessed effective authority and control over the Punjab Police. As Deputy CM and Home Minister from 2007–2017, Sukhbir Singh Badal bore the direct ministerial authority over the Punjab Police that his father had, through portfolio allocation, delegated to him. The knowledge element — arguable on the basis of CBI, NHRC, Supreme Court, HRW, Amnesty, Ensaaf, and UN Rapporteur documentation in the public domain throughout their tenures — is not a matter of inference alone. It is documented in adjudicated government records that circulated publicly during their governance periods. [AI from documented knowledge base]

Mode Two: Statutory Nonfeasance. Nonfeasance in public law is the failure of a public officer to perform a mandatory or grave public duty imposed by statute. A Chief Minister who does not direct a Section 378 CrPC appeal following the acquittal of sixty-two accused for thirteen Sikh deaths may be said to have failed a grave public responsibility, even though the statutory language of Section 378 is formally discretionary. The normative weight of that failure — not its strict legal compulsion — is what this audit documents. [PF for statutory text; AI for normative characterization]

Mode Three: Patronage as Ratification. A personnel appointment is a formal state act. When the government supersedes four to five more-senior officers to appoint a man against whom charges of kidnapping and criminal conspiracy have been framed by a trial court, that appointment communicates institutional policy: the conduct for which the officer is under prosecution is not disqualifying and will be rewarded. [AI — the institutional meaning of the appointment]

Mode Four: Institutional Capture as Statutory Fraud. The Badal political apparatus converted the SGPC from a democratically elected body managing Sikh religious institutions into an instrument of political control over those institutions — using the Act's own structural vulnerabilities, principally the Jathedar's status as a dismissible SGPC employee with no statutory protection. [PF for structural vulnerability; AI for characterization of conversion]

III. Why Written Orders Are Not Necessary

The defense from absence — without a signed order, no political leader can be held accountable — fails under five independent legal frameworks, none of which require a signed directive.

Under the Yamashita command responsibility framework, later reflected in Rome Statute Article 28(b), the article argues that liability rests on knowledge and failure to act. Under the wilful blindness doctrine established in Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB S.A. (563 U.S. 754, 2011): deliberately avoiding confirming a high-probability fact is constructive knowledge. Under IPC Section 120-B: criminal conspiracy is proved through pattern and circumstantial evidence. Under the Indian Evidence Act Section 8: subsequent conduct is admissible as evidence of prior intention. Under Section 114(g): non-production of available documents supports the adverse inference.

Five legal frameworks invoke analogous inferential treatment of the documented pattern. None require a signed order.

IV. The Reasonable Administrator Benchmark

The baseline against which Badal's governments are measured is not perfection. It is the conduct that Indian public law, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and documented practice of comparable state governments mandated or routinely observed.

After thirteen citizens are killed in a communal clash and all accused are acquitted on self-defense, a reasonable State Government examines the grounds of the acquittal and files a leave-to-appeal application under Section 378 CrPC if those grounds are arguable — not because it must by strict statutory command, but because the normative duty of a government to its dead citizens compels it. After police open fire without civil authority permission on peaceful religious protesters and kill two of them, a reasonable State Government and its Home Minister immediately suspend involved officers, order a Section 176 CrPC magisterial inquiry, and do not then advance the same DGP who ordered the firing. After a Supreme Court finding of flagrant human rights violations on a mass scale involving 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations, a reasonable State Government in its next term constitutes an independent SIT. The Badal governments' conduct is measured against these specific benchmarks throughout. [AI — the standard; PF for the gap between standard and documented conduct]

V. The Indian Evidence Act as a Forensic Tool

Section 8 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 treats the conduct of any party in reference to facts in issue as relevant. Applied throughout this audit: Badal's subsequent conduct — promoting Saini, honoring Alam, elevating Ramesh Inder Singh to Chief Secretary — is relevant under Section 8 as evidence of his institutional posture toward the conduct those appointments rewarded. [PF — statutory text]

Section 114(g) supports the inference that evidence which could be and is not produced would, if produced, be unfavorable to the withholding party. Applied throughout: the Home Department minutes of the weeks after the Nirankari acquittal, the CM office records of the night before the Behbal Kalan firing, the SGPC election commission correspondence from 2016 to the present — all not produced. The withholding is itself a datum. [PF — statutory text; AI — application to specific records]

PART TWO · THE BADAL DYNASTY AS A GOVERNING UNIT

VI. Three Members, One Architecture

This audit treats the Badal political apparatus not as one man's career but as a governing dynasty in which three family members divided the work of power with systematic precision. [AI — characterization of system]

Parkash Singh Badal (1927–2023): the patriarch, Chief Minister across five terms totaling nearly nineteen years, the publicly visible face whose 1978 credentials — imprisonment, Punjabi Suba activism, apparent religious conservatism — provided the dynasty's legitimacy foundation. His role was the long game: managing the Centre's relationship over decades, providing the elder-statesman cover that shielded the family's accumulation of institutional control from the scrutiny that overtly dynastic governance would have attracted.

Sukhbir Singh Badal (born 1962): the operational head. Elected to Lok Sabha from Faridkot (1996) and Ferozepore (2009, 2014). Served as Deputy Chief Minister and de facto Home Minister of Punjab from 2007 to 2017. President of the Shiromani Akali Dal from 2008. The Kotkapura chargesheet describes him as a principal conspiratorial actor. He was the administrative architect of the 2007–2017 government — appointing officers, directing police strategy, managing the SGPC institutional capture, and handling the Dera Sacha Sauda relationship that produced the Ram Rahim pardon. [PF — tenures and positions; PF — chargesheet characterization as SIT's framing]

Harsimrat Kaur Badal (born 1966): elected to the Lok Sabha from Bathinda in 2009, 2014, 2019, and 2024. Served as Union Cabinet Minister for Food Processing Industries from 2014 to 17 September 2020. The dynasty's Parliamentary face: present in New Delhi when Sukhbir governed Chandigarh, providing the Badal family direct access to the Union Cabinet across two BJP terms. Re-elected from Bathinda in 2024. [PF — Election Commission records; Union Government official Cabinet records]

VII. Sukhbir Singh Badal — The Home Ministry Years and Their Legal Consequences

Sukhbir Singh Badal's specific responsibilities as Deputy CM and effective Home Minister were comprehensive. The Home Department — which supervises the DGP, the Intelligence Wing, and the administrative machinery for law and order — was under his direct charge throughout 2007–2017. The decisions and omissions attributable to him during this period constitute an independent and parallel record of managed impunity documented in Parts Nine, Ten, and Eleven.

Sukhbir's sealed letter, 24 July 2024 (made public 5 August 2024): In a letter to the Akal Takht, whose content was reported by Tribune India and confirmed by multiple SAD rebel leaders, Sukhbir Badal apologized for: (1) favouring Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim and securing his pardon from the Akal Takht; (2) the appointment of Sumedh Singh Saini as DGP; (3) failures in handling the sacrilege incidents and the subsequent police firing. This letter is a Proved Finding — a public, named, documented admission whose material content has not been legally contested. [PF — Tribune India; Free Press Journal corroboration]

The letter is not merely an apology. It is a primary source admission, by the man who held the Home Ministry portfolio, that the three most consequential decisions driving the accountability crisis of the 2007–2017 period — the Saini appointment, the Ram Rahim pardon, and the sacrilege and firing management — were decisions for which he bears personal responsibility. No further inference is required. The admission is on the record.

VIII. Harsimrat Kaur Badal — The Cabinet Dimension

Harsimrat's Cabinet position during 2014–2017 — the precise period when Sukhbir was operating the Home Ministry in Chandigarh and making the appointments that produced the Saini tenure, the Ram Rahim pardon, and the management of the 2015 sacrilege and firing crisis — created a direct familial and institutional channel between the Punjab Home Ministry and the Union Cabinet. Whether that channel was formally used for coordination in any specific accountability or sanction decision is not documented in the public record and is accordingly classified as Analytical Inference. That the channel existed is a Proved Finding. The structural conflict of interest it created is an Analytical Inference of high persuasive weight. [PF for position; AI for channel use]

Her resignation from the Union Cabinet on 17 September 2020 over the three Farm Acts fractured the SAD-BJP alliance. The dynasty's core electoral base — Punjab's farming communities — faced direct economic harm from the Farm Acts, and the resignation was the correct political response to that threat. This audit characterizes the resignation as evidence that the Badal dynasty's alignment with Delhi was always functional rather than ideological — conditional on Delhi not directly attacking the base that kept the dynasty in power. [AI]

PART THREE · KAIRON VERSUS BADAL — THE GEOPOLITICS OF A DELIBERATELY DIMINISHED PUNJAB

IX. How Kairon Is Used Here — And the Corrected Record on His Death

Pratap Singh Kairon is used in this audit as a strategic comparator, not a moral hero. He was removed as Chief Minister in 1964 on corruption findings by the Justice Sudhi Ranjan Das Commission — eight of approximately thirty-one charges found proven, including connivance at the conduct of his sons and relatives. This audit cites Kairon for one reason: he understood, and his governance demonstrated, that a Punjab sharing a territorial border with Delhi's administrative geography could not be isolated, hydraulically drained, or subjected to indefinite military containment without immediate political costs to whoever attempted it. Whether he was personally virtuous is irrelevant to that strategic observation.

Kairon was assassinated on 6 February 1965 on the Grand Trunk Road near Rasoi village, Rai, Sonipat district. [PF — Tribune India; ThePrint; multiple confirmed sources]

X. What Kairon Governed and What He Built

Kairon served as Chief Minister of composite, undivided Punjab from 1956 to 1964 — a state of approximately 262,000 square kilometers encompassing present-day Punjab, Haryana, and the Punjab hills districts of Himachal Pradesh. Punjab Agricultural University was founded in 1962, inaugurated by PM Nehru on 8 July 1962. The Bhakra Nangal Dam was completed and dedicated in October 1963 during his tenure. Within the composite state, no external allocation of the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers was legally possible without Punjab's consent because no legally distinct external state with riparian standing existed. [PF — PAU official; Tribune India archive]

XI. The 1966 Trifurcation — The Geography of Impunity

The Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966 reduced Punjab from approximately 262,000 to 50,362 square kilometers. The state lost its Rajasthan border. Haryana became the buffer that made Punjab containable. With Haryana between Punjab and Delhi, the Central Government could impose extraordinary measures against Punjab — water diversion under Emergency authority, military assault on a sacred complex, repeated President's Rule — without facing the immediate political backlash that a state sharing Delhi's borders would have generated. This structural consequence is what this audit names the geography of impunity: not a conspiracy, but a documented architectural feature of the post-1966 settlement that made every subsequent act of central aggression against Punjab structurally easier. [AI from documented sequence of events post-1966]

XII. The Missed Constitutional Pathways

The most consequential forensic finding in the Kairon-Badal comparison concerns legal mechanisms that existed throughout Badal's five CM terms and were not effectively deployed. Although Punjab did challenge Section 78 in Suit No. 2 of 1979, that challenge was not carried through to a durable constitutional resolution and was not effectively revived in any later Badal term. Article 131 was never invoked by any Badal government specifically to demand Chandigarh's transfer or to press Punjab's constitutional arguments on water sovereignty to final adjudication. The Inter-State River Water Disputes Act of 1956 provided for a formal Tribunal proceeding on hydrological principles. Punjab's sole-riparian-state argument was legally available throughout the entire post-1966 period. The constitutional doors were open. They were not walked through to completion. [AI — the argument; PF for Suit No. 2's filing and withdrawal; PF for statutory mechanisms' availability]

PART FOUR · WATER, SECTION 78, AND THE MANAGED WITHDRAWAL — THE COMPLETE DOCUMENTARY AUDIT

XIII. The Constitutional Foundation

Entry 17 of the State List grants state legislative competence over water — subject only to Entry 56 of the Union List, which permits central control for inter-state rivers declared by Parliament to be of public interest. Punjab's constitutional position: the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej flow through Punjab and through no other state. Haryana and Rajasthan are non-riparian states. The allocation of their water is not sharing among co-riparians. It is diversion of one state's sovereign resource to states with no physical relationship with those rivers. Section 78 enabled that diversion. No equivalent provision appears in any other state reorganisation statute in India's post-independence history — not in the Bihar-Jharkhand Act of 2000, the MP-Chhattisgarh Act of 2000, the UP-Uttarakhand Act of 2000, or the AP-Telangana Act of 2014. [PF — constitutional text from MEA PDF; comparative statutory analysis]

XIV. Section 78 — The Exact Text

Section 78(1) of the Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966, as verified from India Code: the rights and liabilities of the successor states shall be fixed by agreement between those states, or, if no such agreement is reached within two years of the appointed day, as the Central Government may by order determine having regard to the purposes of the Projects. Two years elapsed. No agreement. The Central Government acquired unilateral authority to distribute waters that flow exclusively through Punjab to states that have no physical relationship with those rivers. That authority was constitutionally contestable. Punjab raised that contest in 1979. The contest was not carried through. [PF — statutory text; PF for Suit No. 2 filing and withdrawal]

XV. The 1976 Emergency Allocation

On 24 March 1976, under Emergency rule, the Central Government notification under Section 78(2) divided Ravi-Beas surplus waters: Punjab 3.5 million acre-feet (approximately 22% of total); Haryana 3.5 million acre-feet; Rajasthan 8.60 million acre-feet confirmed; Delhi 0.20 million acre-feet. Nine lakh acres of Punjab farmland lost canal access. Made during Emergency when parliamentary accountability was suspended, the press was censored, and no elected Punjab government existed to formally protest. [PF — government gazette notification; KBS Sidhu Substack]

XVI. The 1978 Land Acquisition Notifications — The Documentary Contradiction

On 20 February 1978, the cabinet of the Government of Punjab under Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is reported — consistently across PTI wire reports, IANS reports in Business Standard, and Punjab DIPR official press releases bearing identical notification numbers across partisan-opposed sources — to have issued two notifications under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The notifications bore official serial references 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL. Their documented effect: initiating formal acquisition of 5,376 acres of Punjab farmland across the districts of Ludhiana, Ropar, and Fatehgarh Sahib for the SYL canal. No digitized original gazette copy has been located in publicly accessible archives. Classification: DA of very high reliability. The notification numbers are consistent across partisan-opposed sources. The transaction they initiated — the demand letter, the payment acceptance, the Supreme Court's own subsequent citation of these acts against Punjab — is a documented sequence that the DA status of the underlying gazette notification does not weaken. [DA — high reliability; PF for SC citation of the transactions]

On 4 July 1978, the Government of Punjab issued official letter 7/78-IW(I)-78/23617 to the Government of Haryana demanding Rs 3 crore for land acquisition costs. Cited with specific reference number in PTI via Business Standard and IANS via The Quint. [DA — high reliability; original not yet located in primary archives]

On 31 March 1979, Badal's government accepted at least Rs 1 crore from Haryana. The Supreme Court in (2002) 2 SCC 507 confirmed Punjab had accepted money for that purpose. [PF — SC judgment]

The Devi Lal Vidhan Sabha Statement (1 March 1978): Haryana CM Devi Lal stated in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, as reported in PTI dispatches: "Due to my personal relation with Badal, Punjab Government has acquired the land under Section 4 and Section 17 (emergency clause) for SYL canal." Session dates confirmed. Original proceedings not digitized. [DA]

The SAD's published defense — spokesperson Valtoha's claim that Chief Minister Badal had no idea about the notification and that officers acted at their own level — is forensically unavailable on its face: officers do not demand Rs 3 crore from a neighboring state government and accept installment payments at their own level. The demand letter and payment acceptance are the acts of a government that knew precisely what it had initiated. [AI]

XVII. The Mechanism of the Managed Withdrawal

This subsection documents the single most powerful analytical finding in the water audit: the legal mechanism for a constitutional challenge to Section 78 was created, then deliberately discarded in favor of political settlements. That discarding is more damning than a total failure to litigate — because it shows awareness, capacity, and choice.

On 11 July 1979 — four months after accepting at least Rs 1 crore from Haryana for SYL land acquisition — Badal's government filed Punjab Suit No. 2 of 1979 in the Supreme Court of India. The suit challenged the 1976 Emergency allocation notification and challenged aspects of Section 78's application. [PF]

The constitutional challenge was therefore initiated. Punjab understood what it was doing. The Public Prosecutor had been directed. The Supreme Court had been approached. The argument was made. [PF]

On 31 December 1981, under the tripartite water agreement extracted by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi — CM Darbara Singh reportedly facing the threat of government dismissal if he refused — Punjab withdrew Suit No. 2 of 1979. The challenge was abandoned. Not because it lacked legal merit. Not because the courts had ruled against it. Because political settlements in Delhi made continuation inconvenient. [PF for withdrawal; DA for coercion of Darbara Singh]

What followed in later Badal terms was not the absence of a challenge but the deliberate failure to revive one. In Badal's third CM term (1997–2002), he governed without the 1978 coalition constraints and with approximately sixteen to eighteen Lok Sabha seats. He did not revive the challenge. In his fourth and fifth terms (2007–2017), he governed in a stable coalition in which the SAD was the senior partner. He did not revive the challenge. The mechanism existed. It had been used. The decision not to return to it — across two decades of autonomous governance capacity — is the managed withdrawal. [AI from documented pattern]

The Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. State of Punjab ((2002) 2 SCC 507, decided 15 January 2002) cited the Badal government's 1978 correspondence — the demand letter and payment acceptance — as evidence that Punjab had implicitly accepted its SYL obligations. The letters Badal's government wrote became the instrument by which Punjab lost its most important water argument in India's highest court. The legal challenge Badal created in 1979 was undermined by the transactions Badal had authorized in 1978. [PF]

The 2016 de-notification — issued by Revenue Commissioner K.B.S. Sidhu on 15 November 2016, five days after the Supreme Court struck down the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act as unconstitutional — was political theatre performed for the 2017 electorate, legally void from the moment it was signed. The Supreme Court had just ruled the termination was constitutionally unavailable. Badal's government enacted it anyway. The cloud produced the appearance of lightning. The crops were already burned. [AI from documented legal sequence]

PART FIVE · THE 1978 NIRANKARI ACQUITTAL — THE BIRTH OF MANAGED IMPUNITY

XVIII. The Convention, the Clash, and the Enforcement Chain That Broke

On 13 April 1978 — Vaisakhi Day — the Sant Nirankari Mission held a convention in Amritsar with permission from Badal's Home Department. Two Janata Party ministers from Badal's governing coalition were scheduled attendees — governmental endorsement documented in contemporaneous press reporting. Multiple Sikh organizations had formally communicated objections to the government about Nirankari conventions in Amritsar on Baisakhi Day. The foreseeability of confrontation was documented in prior official communications that reached the same Home Department that issued the permit. [PF/DA]

A Sikh procession led by Fauja Singh of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha marched toward the convention. Gunfire erupted. Thirteen Sikhs were killed, including Fauja Singh. Three Nirankari followers died. Over seventy were injured. [PF — multiple corroborated accounts]

Within hours, Gurbachan Singh left Punjab and reached Delhi before any arrest warrant was executed, before any lookout circular was issued, before any checkpoint was activated. The mandatory enforcement chain — Sections 154, 55, and 44 CrPC — was not activated. [AI from documented absence of enforcement action]

XIX. The Acquittal and the Section 378 CrPC Non-Appeal

On 4 January 1980, the Sessions Court at Karnal acquitted Gurbachan Singh and approximately sixty-two Nirankari co-accused on grounds of private self-defense under IPC Sections 96–106. [PF]

Section 378 CrPC provides that the State Government may direct the Public Prosecutor to present an appeal to the High Court from an order of acquittal. The statutory language is formally discretionary. But when thirteen citizens are killed in a communal clash in the city of the Golden Temple on the most sacred date in the Sikh religious calendar, the decision whether to appeal their killers' acquittal is not a routine exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It is a declaration about whose deaths the constitutional system will vindicate. [PF — statutory text; AI — normative characterization]

Badal's government had approximately six weeks between the 4 January acquittal and its dismissal in February 1980. Filing a leave-to-appeal application is a document that any Law Department officer can prepare in days. No appeal was filed. No review. No further examination of the acquittal's factual basis. Sixty-two accused were exonerated for thirteen deaths on Vaisakhi Day in Amritsar. The incoming Congress government under Darbara Singh equally failed to appeal. The case closed. [PF by documented omission]

XX. What the Non-Appeal Built

Fauja Singh's widow Bibi Amarjit Kaur co-founded Babbar Khalsa as a direct organizational response to the state's abandonment of her husband's case. Dal Khalsa was founded on 6 August 1978, with public announcement on 13 August 1978. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale positioned himself from 1978 forward as the Sikh community's only effective defender precisely because the constitutional mechanism had visibly failed to pursue thirteen murders. [PF for Dal Khalsa founding; AI for causal trajectory to later militancy]

The trajectory from the 1978 non-appeal to the 1984 assault on the Golden Temple had many actors, many decisions, and many inflection points. But the non-appeal is the first documented moment at which the state's abandonment of Sikh victims' legal claims was translated directly into the organizational responses that built the insurgency. To say it is the birth of managed impunity is not hyperbole. It is chronology.

PART SIX · THE ANANDPUR SAHIB RESOLUTION — FEDERALISM MANAGED INTO PERMANENT SILENCE

XXI. What the Resolution Said

The Anandpur Sahib Resolution was adopted 16–17 October 1973 and reaffirmed at the Eighteenth All India Akali Conference, Ludhiana, 28–29 October 1978 — moved by SGPC President Gurcharan Singh Tohra, endorsed by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The authenticated text maintained by the Sikh Missionary Society (UK) and SATP is the primary source. [PF]

Core demands: Centre limited to Defence, Foreign Affairs, Currency, and General Communications; Chandigarh transferred to Punjab; excluded Punjabi-speaking territories included; Sikhism recognized distinctly from Hinduism in Article 25(2)(b); Punjab's proprietary rights over its rivers restored.

The preamble: Punjab described as "an integral part of the Union of India." These are demands for constitutional federalism structurally identical to Canadian, German, Swiss, and Australian federal models. Not secessionism. The secessionist framing was a political construction of the Indira Gandhi government's intelligence and propaganda apparatus — a construction that allowed every Sikh who endorsed the Resolution to be treated as potentially liable to sedition charges rather than protected as a constitutional advocate. The White Paper on Punjab Agitation of 10 July 1984 enshrined that construction in official government language. The authenticated text of the Resolution directly refutes it. [PF — text analysis; AI on framing construction]

XXII. Nearly Nineteen Years of Government — Zero Demands Met

Badal endorsed the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in 1978. He governed Punjab for nearly nineteen years across five Chief Ministerial terms. During those nearly nineteen years: Chandigarh was not transferred. Section 78 was challenged in 1979 and the challenge was withdrawn in 1982 and never revived. Punjab's rivers were not brought under state sovereign control through any durable legal mechanism. The Article 25 Explanation was not amended. Not one demand. Nearly nineteen years. [PF]

The managed grievance thesis: the Resolution was maintained as a political mobilization resource precisely because resolving it would eliminate its political utility. A grievance resolved cannot be campaigned on. The probability that this pattern of non-achievement reflects random administrative failure across five separate CM terms rather than deliberate strategy is, on the basis of the documented record, analytically negligible. [AI]

PART SEVEN · OPERATION BLUE STAR 1984 — THE ADMINISTRATIVE RECORD

XXIII. The Operation and Its Scale

Operation Blue Star was executed 1–10 June 1984 under Lieutenant General Kuldip Singh Brar (9 Infantry Division). It simultaneously targeted more than forty Gurdwaras across Punjab. The timing coincided deliberately with the martyrdom anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, ensuring maximum pilgrim presence at the Harmandir Sahib complex. The Akal Takht was destroyed by tank fire. The Sikh Reference Library — housing approximately 20,000 works including seventeenth-century manuscripts, handwritten Guru Granth Sahib copies, historical hukumnamas, and archival materials existing nowhere else in the world — was destroyed between 6 and 14 June 1984. A complete media blackout prevented independent contemporaneous documentation. [PF — White Paper on Punjab Agitation, 10 July 1984]

The White Paper reported 575 total deaths — the official government figure. [PF — official government publication] Rajiv Gandhi acknowledged approximately 700 military casualties alone at an NSUI session in Nagpur, September 1984, as reported by Kuldip Nayar and Khushwant Singh in Tragedy of Punjab (Vision Books, 1984) — a statement whose specific figure is a secondhand account of a public claim. [DA — Tier 1 published source] The SGPC compiled documentation of deaths during the assault period; the specific figure of 706 martyrs attributed to Secretary Bhan Singh in earlier versions of this audit has not been independently verified in accessible English-language primary sources and is classified here as an Analytical Inference pending location of the original SGPC record. [AI — downgraded from prior PF]

No official inquiry was ever constituted by any state or central government into the destruction of the Sikh Reference Library. No master list of the Library's holdings existed in any publicly accessible location. Badal's third, fourth, and fifth CM terms — spanning 1997 to 2017 — did not include a single government order, commission appointment, or departmental inquiry directed at the Library's destruction. [PF by documented absence]

XXIV. Ramesh Inder Singh IAS — The Blue Star Administrator and His Badal-Era Career

On 4 June 1984 DC Amritsar Gurdev Singh Brar went on leave and was replaced by Ramesh Inder Singh, a 1974-batch IAS officer. He administered Amritsar through the destruction of the Akal Takht and Sikh Reference Library under President's Rule. [PF — DNA India; Sikh24]

In his 2022 book Turmoil in Punjab: Before and After Blue Star — An Insider's Story (HarperCollins India, ISBN 9789354899065), Ramesh Inder Singh maintained that the requisition for civil authority support was issued by the Home Secretary and Chief Secretary — not the DC — and that he had not authorized the assault. His core thesis: systemic governance failure led to Blue Star, not his individual decision. [PF — published book]

Ramesh Inder Singh subsequently served as Chief Secretary of Punjab under Badal (2007–2009) — the highest civil service rank in the state — and received the Padma Shri national civilian honor. Badal praised him publicly in his own letter as exemplifying "absolutely straightforward behavior." [PF — Chandigarh Citizens Foundation; Union Government Padma awards; Badal letter — DA]

The man who administered Amritsar as its highest civil official while the Akal Takht was being destroyed by tank fire was, under Badal's government, elevated to the capstone of Punjab's civil service and praised by the Chief Minister who had campaigned on accountability for 1984. The forensic meaning of that elevation requires no elaboration.

XXV. Badal's Detention and the Asset of Martyrdom

Badal was detained on or about 10 June 1984, in the immediate aftermath of Operation Blue Star, under the National Security Act, and was released in March 1986. He was not in jail during the assault itself, which ran 1–10 June 1984. His detention began in the immediate aftermath of Blue Star, not during it. [PF with corrected dates — contemporaneous accounts; Encyclopaedia Britannica]

His imprisonment in the aftermath of Blue Star gave him a political asset of permanent value: the moral authority of incarceration, uncomplicated by any direct administrative responsibility for what occurred during the assault itself — which he was not present to govern. His subsequent CM terms were built on an explicit promise of accountability for 1984 victims.

The forensic record of those terms: no prosecution of any perpetrator of any Blue Star killing was initiated. No formal government-level demand for accountability for the November 1984 Delhi pogrom — in which the Nanavati Commission estimated approximately 2,733 Sikhs were killed in three days of organized violence, with Congress party leaders documented as organizers — was formally communicated by any Badal government to the Central Government through any legal or parliamentary mechanism. [PF by documented absence; PF for Nanavati Commission findings]

The promise of accountability was the instrument. The non-delivery was the designed outcome.

PART EIGHT · KHALRA, THE 2,097 CREMATIONS, AND THE SILENCE OF THE DISTRICT MAGISTRATE

XXVI. The Firewood Register Investigation

Between 1993 and 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra — a bank officer and human rights investigator — used publicly available Municipal Committee records: firewood purchase registers at three Amritsar-district crematoria. Each cremation required approximately 300 kg of firewood. He cross-referenced police firewood purchases against official death certificates, identifying cremations for which no corresponding official death record, family notification, post-mortem, or judicial authorization existed.

Across the three crematoria (Durgiana Mandir ground, Patti/Tarn Taran ground, Majitha Road ground), June 1984 through December 1994: 2,097 cremations conducted by Punjab Police of bodies classified as unidentified. The CBI confirmed this figure. The Supreme Court in Paramjit Kaur v. State of Punjab (CrPC Writ Petitions 447 and 497 of 1995, order 12 December 1996) found flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale. Of 2,097: 585 fully identified, 274 partially identified, 1,238 entirely unidentified — human beings converted to ash with no documentation of who they had been in life. [PF — CBI; Supreme Court]

Khalra estimated the Punjab-wide total exceeded 25,000. He presented his findings at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva in 1995. He was murdered for that work.

On 6 September 1995, Khalra was abducted by Punjab Police officers while washing his car outside his home, driven to Jhabal police station, secretly detained, tortured over approximately two months, and killed. Six Punjab Police officials were convicted for his murder on 18 November 2005. The Punjab and Haryana High Court (Criminal Revision Petition 323/2006) enhanced sentences to life imprisonment on 16 October 2007. The Supreme Court upheld those life sentences in Prithipal Singh v. State of Punjab (2012) 1 SCC 10, decided 4 November 2011 — not April 11, 2011 as stated in earlier versions of this audit. [PF — court records]

XXVII. Section 176 CrPC and the Pattern of Non-Invocation

Section 176(1) CrPC mandates that the nearest Magistrate shall hold an inquiry into any death in police custody or under circumstances raising reasonable suspicion that it resulted from an offence. Mandatory. Not discretionary.

The 2,097 cremations confirmed by the CBI represent a documented pattern in which Section 176 inquiries were consistently not invoked across an entire decade and an entire state. That consistency — across districts, across police superintendencies, across Chief Ministerial terms — is strongly arguable as the signature of deliberate policy rather than the accumulation of individual oversights. Bodies were not presented to magistrates. Post-mortems under Section 174 CrPC were not conducted on the 1,238 unidentified persons. Families were not notified. The legal documentation that would have enabled subsequent accountability was systematically not created. [AI — policy inference from documented pattern; PF for Section 176 statutory text]

XXVIII. K.B.S. Sidhu and the Statutory Silence During the Peak Cremation Years

Karan Bir Singh Sidhu — All-India Rank 2, 1984 IAS examination, Punjab cadre — served as DC and District Magistrate of Amritsar from May 1992 to August 1996. [PF — kpsgill.com; Sidhu's own Substack]

The firewood purchase registers that Khalra used to document 2,097 killings were public administrative documents of the district administration — maintained by the Municipal Committee reporting to the DC's office. They required no classified clearance, no judicial order, and no special investigative authority. A DM who wanted to know what was occurring at the district's crematoria could have discovered it by examining the same records that a bank officer with no administrative authority used to document systematic extrajudicial killing. [AI]

No Section 176 inquiry ordered by the Amritsar DM regarding cremation anomalies during 1992–1996 has been produced. No DM-level report to the state government on the scale of custodial deaths or the discrepancy between firewood records and official death registrations has been produced. The documented absence of any such record, across a period now thirty years old, is itself forensically significant under the adverse inference principle of Indian Evidence Act Section 114(g). [PF by documented absence; AI — adverse inference]

K.B.S. Sidhu retired as Special Chief Secretary of Punjab in July 2021 — the capstone civil service rank. He signed the 2016 SYL de-notification as Revenue Commissioner. His career advanced through multiple Badal-era postings without interruption. [PF — Sidhu's own Substack]

XXIX. The NHRC Proceeding — Twelve Years to Apply a Balm

The NHRC's Punjab cremations proceedings (Case No. 1/97/NHRC, closed April 2012) are the textbook case of managed institutional inadequacy. The NHRC limited its inquiry to three Amritsar crematoria. It never heard testimony from a single victim family member. It never conducted independent field investigations. It relied entirely on Punjab Police — the perpetrators — to identify victims.

DGP S.S. Virk, at a press conference on 19 February 2006 — not in NHRC proceedings, — acknowledged that Punjab Police had fabricated the deaths of individuals converted into informers given new identities, meaning cremation record entries covered for living people and the bodies cremated under those entries were real victims whose identities were permanently concealed. [PF — press conference contemporaneously reported; HRW 2007]

The NHRC awarded approximately Rs 27.40–27.94 crore across 1,513 identified families. It closed its inquiry without recommending any criminal investigation. It characterized its own closing order as "an application of balm to whatever wounds were still left."

No institution that calls its own order a balm believes it has delivered justice. The Sikh community deserved justice. It received, after twelve years of proceedings, a balm.

PART NINE · THE TAINTED OFFICER NETWORK — THE PATRONAGE LEDGER IN FULL

XXX. The Legal Theory — Promotion as Policy Statement

A personnel appointment is a formal state act published in official notifications. The Indian Evidence Act Section 8 treats subsequent conduct as relevant to prior intention. The consistent pattern of elevating officers with documented records of association with atrocities, across five CM terms spanning decades, is the policy statement. The currency of an administrative system is what it consistently rewards. What this system consistently rewarded was association with the counterinsurgency atrocity infrastructure of the 1984–1995 period.

XXXI. Sumedh Singh Saini — The Appointment That Named the System

On 14 March 2012, with effect from 15 March 2012 — one to two days after the SAD-BJP coalition was sworn into office — the Badal government appointed Sumedh Singh Saini, a 1982-batch IPS officer, as Director General of Police of Punjab, superseding between four and five more-senior IPS officers. The Times of India described this as the government's first decision. India's youngest-ever DGP at age fifty-four. [PF — TOI March 2012]

What Saini brought to the DGP's chair:

(1) The Ludhiana Triple Disappearance Case: CBI had been investigating Saini for the disappearance of Vinod Kumar, Ashok Kumar, and driver Mukhtiar Singh (March 1994). Charges of kidnapping and criminal conspiracy framed in December 2006/January 2007 — five years before the appointment. Trial was ongoing when Badal superseded four to five colleagues to select him. [PF — Harvard/Ensaaf blog, 7 December 2006]

(2) The Balwant Singh Multani Murder: On 11 December 1991, Chandigarh Police SSP Saini's officers picked up Balwant Singh Multani (Junior Engineer, son of IAS officer Darshan Singh Multani). Police fabricated an escape story. In 2020, approver statements by Inspector Jagir Singh described Saini personally directing torture including insertion of a wooden rod into the victim's rectum. FIR No. 77 registered 6 May 2020; Section 302 (murder) added 21 August 2020 by JMFC Rasveen Kaur. Supreme Court granted anticipatory bail: 2020 SCC OnLine SC 986, 3 December 2020 (Justices Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy, M.R. Shah). [PF — SC judgment; FIR numbers confirmed]

(3) HRW/Ensaaf "Protecting the Killers" (17 October 2007) — four and a half years before the appointment — documented systematic human rights violations in Punjab and named Saini's record. [PF — hrw.org]

(4) UN Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns, in his 2013 report (A/HRC/23/47/Add.1), named Saini specifically: "The Special Rapporteur has heard of the case of Mr. Sumedh Singh Saini, accused of human rights violations committed in Punjab in the 1990s, who was promoted in March 2012 to Director General of Police in Punjab." [PF — UN official document; The Caravan]

The Global-Tech wilful blindness standard: awareness of high probability of a fact plus deliberate failure to confirm it equals constructive knowledge. Three independent authoritative sources — HRW/Ensaaf, the UN Rapporteur, and the CBI's pending trial — documented Saini's record in the public domain before the appointment was made. The supersession of four to five colleagues to reach him is not an act of ignorance. It is an act of deliberate selection.

Sukhbir Badal's personal admission: his sealed letter of July 2024 explicitly identified "the appointment of Sumedh Singh Saini as DGP" as one of the transgressions of the SAD government for which he personally apologized. This is not inference. This is the Home Minister's own written admission, in his own letter to the Akal Takht, submitted on his own initiative, that the Saini appointment was wrong. [PF]

XXXII. Mohammad Izhar Alam — The Siropa and the Vice-Presidency

The primary evidentiary foundation: US diplomatic cable, 19 December 2005, filed from US Embassy New Delhi by Deputy Chief of Mission Robert O. Blake Jr. (not Ambassador — Ambassador was David C. Mulford). Published through Wikileaks. Text reproduced across multiple independent sources including Ensaaf's official database (data.ensaaf.org/official/S0002):

"During the insurgency, he assembled a large, personal paramilitary force of approximately 150 men known as the 'Black Cats' or 'Alam Sena' … alleged to have had carte blanche in carrying out possibly thousands of staged 'encounter killings.'" [DA — official US government document; original Wikileaks URL not independently fetched; text consistently reproduced]

The sequence of Badal government acts:

• 18 November 2009: CM Badal inducted Alam into the SAD and appointed him Chairman of the Punjab Wakf Board (formal chairmanship beginning 4 January 2010). [PF]

• 6 November 2011: Badal honored Alam with a siropa at a party function photographed and reported by Sikh24 (8 November 2011). [PF]

• 2012: Alam's wife Farzana Nissara Khatoon won Malerkotla assembly seat on SAD ticket with 56,618 votes. [PF — Election Commission India]

• September 2014: Sukhbir Badal formally named Alam Vice-President of the SAD (Badal) — the party's second-highest organizational position. [PF — Sikh Siyasat News]

Dal Khalsa president H.S. Dhami responded publicly: "The person who has killed thousands of innocent Sikhs or left hundreds physically impaired through its renegade brigade commonly known as 'Alam Sena' is vice-president of the Akali Dal." [PF — public statement on record]

Mohammad Izhar Alam died on 6 July 2021. He was never charged with any offence in connection with the Alam Sena's documented activities. The US diplomatic cable documenting his force's possible thousands of staged killings entered no Indian criminal proceeding. No Badal government initiated any inquiry into it. [PF by documented absence]

XXXIII. Ramesh Inder Singh and K.B.S. Sidhu — The Completed Patronage Ledger

Together with Saini and Alam, the career trajectories of Ramesh Inder Singh (Blue Star DC Amritsar → Badal Chief Secretary → Padma Shri) and K.B.S. Sidhu (peak cremation-period DC Amritsar → Badal-era Special Chief Secretary → 2016 SYL de-notification signer) constitute a documented patronage architecture across four cases and five CM terms, all pointing in the same direction: association with the atrocity infrastructure of the 1984–1995 period was a credential, not a disqualification.

The argument does not rest on a theory about Badal's personal moral character. It rests on the documented pattern that the Indian Evidence Act Section 8 makes legally relevant. [AI from PF pattern]

XXXIV. The U.S. Federal Court Summons

On 8 August 2012, Sikhs for Justice and individual plaintiffs filed Case No. 12-C-0806, US District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, against Parkash Singh Badal under the Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S.C. § 1350) and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991. Summons served 9 August 2012 at Oak Creek High School, Wisconsin. Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal 26 November 2013 (No. 13-2316, Judge Richard Posner). Dismissed on procedure — failure of proper service of process — not on the merits.

A sitting Indian Chief Minister was subjected to US federal tort proceedings under human rights statutes. The case was dismissed on a procedural technicality, not because the underlying allegations were found without merit. That distinction is in the permanent legal record. [PF — federal court proceedings]

PART TEN · THE SGPC, THE AKAL TAKHT, AND INSTITUTIONAL CAPTURE AS STATUTORY FRAUD

XXXV. The 1925 Act's Design and Its Fatal Structural Flaw

The Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925 was enacted after a decade of Akali agitation against colonial control of Sikh sacred sites. It created the SGPC as a democratically elected body. Sections 48 and 62 establish mandatory five-year election cycles. [PF — MHA-hosted PDF]

The fatal structural flaw: nowhere in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 does the word "Jathedar" appear. Section 43(1)(II) refers only to "Head Ministers." The Jathedar of the Akal Takht — the highest temporal authority in Sikhism, from which binding hukumnamas are issued — exists through custom and SGPC administrative practice, not statute. The Jathedar is an SGPC employee: appointed by the SGPC executive, paid by the SGPC, dismissible at the SGPC executive's pleasure by a simple committee resolution.

Whoever controls the SGPC controls the appointment and dismissal of the Akal Takht Jathedar. The Badal family controlled the SGPC. The institutional capture that follows from that structural fact is not inference — it is the direct operational consequence of who held the employment relationship. [PF — statutory text; AI for "control" characterization of SGPC-Badal relationship]

XXXVI. The Voter Roll Manipulation — Disenfranchising a Very Large Bloc of Sikhs

The SGPC had approximately 52 lakh registered voters as of the September 2011 elections. The sehajdhari Sikh community comprised millions of additional potential voters eligible under the Act's original provisions — often estimated at approximately 70 lakh, though this exact figure should be treated as a reported estimate rather than a precisely verified primary count. [DA — figure consistently reported; exact primary source for 70 lakh not independently verified to Tier 1]

On 8 October 2003, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued notification File No. 1702/3/2001-IS-VI (signed by Joint Secretary L.C. Goyal) excluding sehajdhari Sikhs from SGPC electoral rolls — at the urging of the SAD and the Badal apparatus. A very large bloc of Sikh voters was removed by executive act. [PF — notification text reproduced in HC judgment, Indian Kanoon doc/43587527]

On 20 December 2011, a Full Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court — Justices Surya Kant, M.M.S. Bedi, and Muttaci Jeyapaul — in Sehajdhari Sikh Federation v. Union of India (CWP No. 17771 of 2003) struck down the 2003 notification as unconstitutional executive overreach. [PF]

The Badal faction's response: the Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Act 2016 (Act 21 of 2016), passed Rajya Sabha 16 March 2016, passed Lok Sabha 25 April 2016, notified 5 May 2016 — with retrospective effect from 8 October 2003, permanently reinstating the exclusion that the High Court had struck down as unconstitutional. Registered voters dropped to approximately 27 lakh. [PF — PRS India]

Institutional capture written into statute: a Parliamentary act whose operative purpose was to permanently reduce the electorate that might have voted out the controlling faction of an institution that controls Sikhism's highest religious authority.

XXXVII. Fifteen Years Without a Mandatory Election

The last general elections to the SGPC were held on 18 September 2011. As of March 2026, fifteen years have elapsed — three complete mandatory five-year election cycles missed. No court stay. No Parliamentary suspension. No emergency provision. A writ of mandamus compelling SGPC elections under Article 226 has been legally available since October 2016. No Badal-aligned party, parliamentary group, or SGPC management body has sought such a writ across nine years. The delay operates uniformly in favor of the faction controlling the unreformed House. [PF for election absence; AI for characterization of deliberate delay]

XXXVIII. The Jathedar Removal Pattern

Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti (removed 2008): issued formal anathematization of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim for his 2007 blasphemy; removed by SGPC executive within weeks. [PF — Tribune India; Hindustan Times Jathedars article, March 2025]

Each removal was executed through a formal SGPC executive committee resolution — a secular administrative act, not a religious procedure. [PF]

XXXIX. The Ram Rahim Pardon — The Complete Capture Cycle

On 24 September 2015, five Takht Jathedars led by Giani Gurbachan Singh issued a formal exoneration of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh from the 2007 Akal Takht anathematization — without requiring his physical appearance before the Takht. Ram Rahim submitted a letter. The Jathedars declared him forgiven. [PF]

Sukhbir Badal's sealed letter (24 July 2024): Tribune India reports Sukhbir apologized for "favouring Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim" as one of the identified transgressions. Multiple rebel SAD leaders identified Sukhbir's direct instructions as the mechanism through which the pardon was obtained. [PF — Sukhbir's letter; DA — direct instructions mechanism]

The documented sequence: 24 September 2015 — pardon issued. 12 October 2015 — first major sacrilege incident at Bargari. 14 October 2015 — police firing kills two at Behbal Kalan. The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission reported findings pointing to the involvement of Dera Sacha Sauda in the sacrilege incidents — an official commission finding. The state government that issued the pardon was the same government responsible for investigating the crimes that followed. [PF — Commission report; AI on causal nexus between pardon and subsequent events]

Under public pressure, the pardon was revoked 16–17 October 2015. When the Panj Piaras summoned the Jathedars to explain, the Jathedars refused to appear. The SGPC executive under President Avtar Singh Makkar suspended and dismissed the Panj Piaras for "violating service rules." [PF — Tribune India; Sikh Siyasat News]

The Five Beloved Ones of Sikh tradition — whose specific institutional role is to administer the Amrit initiation sacrament that creates Khalsa Sikhs — were terminated by an administrative committee exercising its employer authority over its employees. The oldest continuous sacramental institution in Sikhism was enclosed inside an employment relationship controlled by the Badal family's SGPC majority.

XL. The 2024–2026 Removal Wave

On 30 August 2024, the Akal Takht declared Sukhbir Singh Badal a tankhaiya (religious offender). Formal tankhah pronounced: 2 December 2024, requiring Sukhbir to serve publicly at the Golden Temple entrance. [PF]

Within ten weeks, the SGPC executive, which critics characterize as aligned with the Badal faction, removed:

• Giani Harpreet Singh — removed as Akal Takht Jathedar, 10 February 2025 [PF]

• Giani Sultan Singh (Damdama Sahib) — removed 7 March 2025 [PF]

• Giani Raghbir Singh — removed 7 March 2025 [PF]

All three had participated in Sukhbir's tankhaiya proceedings. He was later terminated entirely after publicly accusing the SGPC and Badal family of making SGPC a hub of corruption.

Giani Raghbir Singh at a press conference in Jalandhar, 18 February 2026: "The management of the affairs of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee have been vested with one family for many years and the SGPC has been turned into a hub of corruption under the patronage of the Badal family." [PF — Punjab News Express article 319266; Tribune India]

A former Akal Takht Jathedar publicly declared that the institution had been captured. He was later removed, in a sequence this audit characterizes as retaliatory.

PART ELEVEN · BARGARI, BEHBAL KALAN, KOTKAPURA — THE COMPLETE CRIMINAL DOSSIER

XLI. Reader Orientation

This Part documents four connected matters: the sacrilege sequence; the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing of 14 October 2015; the institutional management — and deliberate mismanagement — of the investigation; and the chargesheet sequence culminating in the supplementary filing on the day Badal died.

XLII. The Sacrilege Sequence

• 1 June 2015: Guru Granth Sahib stolen, Burj Jawahar Singh Wala, Faridkot. FIR No. 63/2015. [PF]

• 24–25 September 2015: Derogatory posters at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala — same dates as the Ram Rahim pardon. FIR No. 117/2015. [PF]

• 12 October 2015: Over 110 torn pages of Guru Granth Sahib scattered at Bargari village, Faridkot. FIR No. 128/2015. [PF]

• By October 2021, Punjab Police had documented hundreds of Guru Granth Sahib desecration incidents statewide; one cited figure in the record is 272 incidents with only 12 arrests. [DA — figure consistently reported in press; primary source for exact number is commission-related documentation]

The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission reported findings pointing to the involvement of Dera Sacha Sauda in the sacrilege incidents. That is an official commission finding and should be described as such — not as an adjudicated judicial determination, but as the conclusion of a judicial inquiry body under the Commission of Inquiry Act 1952. [PF — Commission report status; AI if extended to criminal adjudication]

XLIII. The Behbal Kalan Firing — 14 October 2015

On 14 October 2015, Punjab Police fired on peaceful Sikh protesters at Behbal Kalan, Faridkot, without warning and without civil authority permission. Two men died:

• Gurjeet Singh, aged approximately 35, from Sarawan village [PF]

• Krishan Bhagwan Singh, in his forties, from Niamiwala village [PF]

Approximately 100 protesters were injured at Kotkapura. No civil authority permission for the use of firearms — no DM order, no magistrate directive, no written authorization — appears in any official record produced in any proceeding in the decade since the killing. [PF by documented absence]

XLIV. The Complete Chain of Command Documentation

CM Badal's 2 AM call to DGP Saini — confirmed by Saini's own written statement:

At approximately 2 AM on the morning of 14 October 2015, Chief Minister Badal telephoned DGP Saini. This is not a CDR inference. This is not an opposition claim. This is confirmed by Saini's own written reply to the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission: "At about 2 am the then CM rung up regarding the situation." His own words. His own statement. His own admission. [PF — Saini's written statement to Commission]

Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal's documented absence from Punjab: Sukhbir Badal, holding the Home Ministry portfolio with direct authority over the Punjab Police, had traveled to Gurgaon on 12 October 2015 and was outside Punjab during the entire sacrilege and firing crisis. [PF — SIT chargesheet materials; travel records cited]

The CDR evidence: CDR analysis showed twenty telephonic calls between Saini and IGP Paramraj Singh Umranangal from 4 AM to 9:23 AM on 14 October 2015 — spanning the precise window during which the firing at Behbal Kalan occurred. [PF — SIT chargesheet findings; Tribune India; Indian Express]

Umranangal's irregular deployment: IGP Paramraj Singh Umranangal was deployed to the Kotkapura area outside his official jurisdictional assignment, without a formal deputation order. He had overnight summoned 182 officers from Ludhiana. [PF — SIT chargesheet]

XLV. Justice Ranjit Singh Commission — Complete Findings

Commission constituted: 14 April 2017, Notification No. 7/213/2013-3H4/1415, under Section 11 of the Commission of Inquiry Act 1952. 544-page, four-part report presented to Punjab Assembly, September 2018. Politically endorsed in significant measure by the Punjab Assembly.

Proved Findings from the Commission:

1. Firing at Behbal Kalan was "without any warning" and "without taking permission from civil authorities." [PF]

2. Commission reported findings pointing to Dera Sacha Sauda's involvement in sacrilege incidents. [PF — commission status]

3. DGP Saini "ordered firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura." [PF]

4. Senior officers failed in their duty. [PF]

Documented Allegations from the Commission: 5. CM Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal allegedly "deliberately ignored intelligence inputs about sacrilege incidents as a political strategy to polarize the vote bank." [DA — Commission characterization; not adjudicated in criminal proceeding] 6. Badal's "apparent involvement" in the police action. [DA — Commission characterization]

XLVI. The HC Quashing — CWP No. 17459/2019

On 9 April 2021, Justice Rajbir Sehrawat of the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the investigation conducted by IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh's SIT in CWP No. 17459 of 2019 (O&M) — a Civil Writ Petition, not a Criminal Miscellaneous application as stated in earlier versions of this audit. The court found the investigation marked by "personal malice and mala fide functioning" and "a dangerous mixture of religion, politics and police administration." A new three-officer SIT was constituted. [PF — HC order; Hindustan Times; SlideShare order PDF]

The quashing erased from the official evidentiary record all findings adverse to the accused — including the CDR analysis — and reset the evidentiary clock to zero. Gurjeet Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh had been dead for five years before the quashing. They would be dead for nearly eight years before a valid chargesheet naming a former Chief Minister was filed. The delay is not incidental to managed impunity. The delay is the mechanism. [AI]

XLVII. The 2023 Chargesheet Sequence — Corrected Chronology

The SIT led by ADGP L.K. Yadav filed a 7,000-page chargesheet on 24 February 2023 in proceedings under FIR Number 129, dated 7 August 2018, registered at Police Station Kotkapura City, Faridkot. This was not the supplementary chargesheet — this was the earlier/main chargesheet. A supplementary chargesheet of approximately 2,400 pages followed on 25 April 2023. [PF — Hindustan Times; Tribune India; Indian Express — corrected from earlier versions]

COMPLETE TABLE OF ACCUSED IN THE KOTKAPURA CHARGESHEET (24 FEBRUARY 2023)

ACCUSED

POSITION (2015)

ROLE PER SIT CHARGESHEET

Parkash Singh Badal

Chief Minister

Alleged facilitator of the conspiracy; 2 AM call to Saini confirmed by Saini's own written statement

Sukhbir Singh Badal

Deputy CM / Home Minister

Described by SIT as principal conspiratorial actor; held political command authority over Punjab Police

Sumedh Singh Saini

DGP Punjab

Described by SIT as principal conspiratorial actor; ordered the firing; 20 CDR calls with Umranangal during kill window

Paramraj Singh Umranangal

IGP/CP Ludhiana

Execution-level; irregular deployment; physical command at site

Charanjit Singh Sharma

SSP Moga

Execution-level; directed force deployment

Amar Singh Chahal

DIG Ferozepur

Execution-level

Sukhmander Singh Mann

SSP Faridkot

Alleged concealment of evidence

Gurdeep Singh

SHO Kotkapura

Alleged concealment of evidence

Note: Terms like "mastermind" are the SIT's prosecutorial characterizations in the chargesheet. They represent the prosecution's theory, not adjudicated judicial findings.

IPC charges across all accused: Sections 307, 324, 323, 341, 427, 504, 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 34 (common intention), 119 (abetment by public servant), 109 (abetment), 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 295-A (acts outraging religious feelings); Section 27 of the Arms Act. [PF — chargesheet reports]

XLVIII. Sukhbir Badal's Legal Status Through March 2026

As named in the 2023 chargesheet: Sukhbir's role per the SIT rests on his position as Home Minister with direct authority over the DGP; his documented absence from Punjab during the crisis; the SIT's finding that the Home Ministry's command apparatus was engaged during the crisis period; and the established command relationship between the Home Ministry and Saini throughout 2012–2015. [PF for position; AI for command-engagement inference]

As tankhaiya subject: The Akal Takht's 30 August 2024 tankhaiya covered three specific transgressions: (1) the Ram Rahim pardon; (2) the Saini appointment; (3) the sacrilege and firing failures. The tankhah of 2 December 2024 required Sukhbir to publicly serve as sewadar at the Golden Temple entrance — a formal religious punishment publicly carried out and photographed. [PF]

The anticipatory bail: Punjab and Haryana HC proceedings 2023:PHHC:126975, 29 September 2023. Sukhbir has been required to cooperate with the SIT investigation. [PF]

As of March 2026: Sukhbir Singh Badal remains President of the SAD. The SAD's 2024 Lok Sabha results — two seats — reflect accumulated electoral damage from the legal exposure and institutional accountability proceedings. No charge has been framed against Sukhbir Badal in any court in any case as of the date of this audit's completion. The accountability proceedings have produced a chargesheet, a bail condition, and a religious tankhaiya. They have not yet produced a trial. [PF]

XLIX. Parkash Singh Badal's Death and the Abatement

Parkash Singh Badal died on 25 April 2023 at Fortis Hospital, Mohali, aged 95. A supplementary chargesheet was filed that same day, though Badal had already been formally named in the earlier chargesheet filed on 24 February 2023. Indian criminal procedure provides under Section 394 CrPC that proceedings against an accused abate upon death. The proceedings against Badal personally abated. The chargesheets' factual allegations and investigative findings remain part of the court record unless displaced by later judicial action.

The interval between the killings of 1984–1995 and the chargesheet of 2023 — nearly three decades — was produced through the accumulated operation of the five mechanisms documented throughout this audit. Death did not achieve impunity independently. It closed the last exit route from an accountability process that the five mechanisms had already delayed until biology could complete what procedure could not. [AI]

PART TWELVE · CHATTISINGHPURA AND PATHRIBAL — THE SILENCE OF THE CHIEF MINISTER OF THE SIKH STATE

On the evening of 20 March 2000 — the same evening President Clinton's aircraft landed in New Delhi — approximately thirty-five Sikh men were massacred at Chittisinghpura (also spelled Chattisinghpura in some records; this audit uses the spelling in the kpsgill.com companion audit), Anantnag district, J&K, by gunmen wearing Indian Army fatigues. The Supreme Court in General Officer Commanding v. CBI and Another (AIR 2012 SC 1890, decided 1 May 2012) recounted and proceeded on the fact that thirty-five Sikh men had been killed. Five days later, the Army's 7 Rashtriya Rifles killed five civilians at Pathribal, presenting them as Pakistani militants. The CBI chargesheet of 9 May 2006 characterized the five killings as "cold-blooded murders" in a staged encounter. DNA analysis at the CDFD Hyderabad and CFSL Kolkata confirmed the five were local Kashmiri civilians. The Army's court-martial process was closed in January 2014, with the Army declining to proceed on the basis that the material did not justify trial. [PF — court records; CBI chargesheet characterization from press documentation of the filing]

Badal was Chief Minister of Punjab from 12 February 1997 to 26 February 2002. He visited Chittisinghpura village alongside Manmohan Singh and expressed condolences.

The forensic record of what followed: no formal inter-governmental communication demanding independent inquiry; no Punjab Assembly resolution demanding accountability; no Lok Sabha question, Calling Attention Motion, or Adjournment Motion by the SAD's parliamentary delegation after the CBI confirmed cold-blooded murders in 2006 during Badal's fourth CM term. Five years of a Badal Chief Ministerial term followed the CBI's confirmation of cold-blooded murders of thirty-five Sikhs by Army personnel in J&K. The forensic record of those five years, on this matter, is silence. [PF by documented absence]

This is the fourth documented instance — after the 1978 Nirankari non-appeal, the Khalra passivity across 1997–2002, and the Behbal Kalan investigation management — of the same pattern across four separate factual contexts separated by years and CM terms: when Sikh lives required political action that would challenge institutional interests Badal needed for survival, the Badal government was silent. The consistency of that pattern across forty years is the forensic signature of design, not coincidence. [AI]

PART THIRTEEN · THE FIVE MECHANISMS — THE ARCHITECTURE THAT BUILT ITSELF

L. Introduction

An architecture is not a collection of incidents. It is a designed system in which each component performs a specific function and in which the components reinforce each other. The five mechanisms documented across this audit are not independent findings about independent events. They are functionally integrated components of a coherent administrative architecture — one that produced managed impunity as reliably as a building produces shelter.

LI. Mechanism One — Statutory Nonfeasance as Policy

In 1978: no Section 378 CrPC appeal of a mass-fatality acquittal in a six-week window. Across 1997–2002 and 2007–2017: no independent SIT for 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations despite a Supreme Court finding of flagrant violations. Across five CM terms: Section 78 challenged in 1979 and abandoned in 1982, never effectively revived. For fifteen years: no SGPC election mandamus application filed. After thirty-five Sikh deaths confirmed as cold-blooded murders by the CBI: no parliamentary mechanism deployed.

The pattern of specific statutory mechanisms available and specifically not used — across five terms, five decades, six categories of case — is too consistent to be a collection of individual administrative decisions. It is the pattern of a policy. [AI from PF pattern]

LII. Mechanism Two — Patronage as Currency

Four documented cases, five CM terms, one directional pattern: Saini (pending criminal charges superseded by DGP appointment on day one or two); Alam (US-cable-documented force commander rewarded with party membership, government appointment, siropa, legislative seat, party Vice-Presidency); Ramesh Inder Singh (Blue Star DC Amritsar → Chief Secretary → Padma Shri); K.B.S. Sidhu (peak cremation-period DC Amritsar → Special Chief Secretary → SYL de-notification signer). Atrocity association rewarded rather than examined. [AI from four PF cases]

LIII. Mechanism Three — Institutional Capture

2003 executive exclusion of a large bloc of sehajdhari voters struck down by HC 2011 and retrospectively reinstated by Parliament 2016; fifteen years without mandatory SGPC elections; removal of every Jathedar exercising independent authority contrary to Badal family interests; conversion of the Akal Takht into an instrument of political party management. The SGPC was created to prevent political control of Sikh religious institutions. The Badal apparatus used the Act's own structures to impose exactly that control. [PF for structural subversions; AI for "capture" characterization]

LIV. Mechanism Four — Contradiction Management

SYL: challenged in 1979, the challenge withdrawn in 1982 under political pressure, the transactions from 1978–1979 cited against Punjab by the Supreme Court in 2002, de-notification attempted in 2016 five days after the SC ruled it was constitutionally unavailable. Anandpur Sahib Resolution: endorsed in 1978 by Badal as CM; maintained as campaign slogan; pursued through no durable legal mechanism across nearly nineteen years of governance. 1984: campaigning on accountability while making the Blue Star-era DC Amritsar Punjab's Chief Secretary. [AI from documented record]

LV. Mechanism Five — Death as Final Impunity

Badal died on 25 April 2023. He had been named in the main chargesheet on 24 February 2023. A supplementary chargesheet was filed on 25 April 2023. The proceedings abated. The nearly three-decade interval between the killings of 1984–1995 and the 2023 chargesheet was produced by the accumulated operation of the other four mechanisms. Death completed what procedure had already been arranging. [AI]

LVI. The Integrated Architecture

Mechanism One depends on Mechanism Two to ensure the officers who would otherwise investigate are instead rewarded for their silence. Mechanism Two depends on Mechanism Three to ensure the religious authority that could name perpetrators is controlled by those whose allies are the perpetrators. Mechanism Three depends on Mechanism Four to ensure the gap between stated Sikh principles and actual governance is managed narratively rather than resolved. Mechanism Four depends on Mechanism Five as the ultimate exit from any accountability proceeding that survived long enough to name an accused.

Remove any one mechanism and the architecture weakens. Maintain all five and the architecture holds indefinitely, or until biology ends it. [AI]

PART FOURTEEN · THE DEFENSE CASE CROSS-EXAMINED

LVII. Defense One — Delhi Controlled Everything

Rebuttal at four documented points: First, the July 1978 demand for Rs 3 crore from Haryana for SYL land acquisition was an act of financial initiative, not compliance with a central directive — governments under central coercion do not invoice the beneficiary of their compliance. Second, the Suit No. 2 of 1979 challenge was initiated but then withdrawn in 1982 under political pressure — the choice to abandon the challenge, not the absence of any challenge, is the forensic finding. Third, across Badal's third, fourth, and fifth CM terms (1997–2017), he governed with stable majorities and approximately sixteen to eighteen Lok Sabha seats — sufficient to press for constitutional remedies that were never seriously pursued. Fourth, the 2016 de-notification — performed five days after the Supreme Court had ruled it was constitutionally unavailable — was political theatre, not central pressure response. [AI from documented record]

LVIII. Defense Two — SGPC Delays Were Legal Complexity

A writ of mandamus compelling SGPC elections has been legally available since October 2016. No Badal-aligned party, parliamentary group, or SGPC management body sought such a writ across nine years. A party that benefits from a delay and never uses available mechanisms to end it cannot credibly attribute the delay to external legal complexity. [AI]

LIX. Defense Three — Saini Was Appointed on Merit

HRW/Ensaaf documented his record in October 2007 — four and a half years before the appointment. Charges were framed in December 2006/January 2007 — five years before. The UN Rapporteur named him. The Global-Tech (2011) wilful blindness standard does not permit ignorance when three independent authoritative sources in the public domain documented the controversy before the appointment. The supersession of four to five colleagues to reach this candidate is an act of deliberate selection. And Sukhbir's own sealed letter — his own admission — identifies the Saini appointment as a wrong for which he personally apologized. The defense of merit is not available when the Home Minister himself has already admitted the appointment was a mistake. [PF — Sukhbir letter; AI — wilful blindness analysis]

LX. Defense Four — Officers Acted on Their Own

For Saini: the DGP appointment, superseding four to five colleagues, was the CM's personal act of deliberate selection. For Alam: the siropa, party membership, Wakf Board chairmanship, legislative seat, and party Vice-Presidency were each specific acts of governmental and party patronage requiring authorization at the top. For Behbal Kalan: the CDR record shows Badal's 2 AM call to Saini confirmed by Saini's own written statement — not a third party's allegation. This is not officers acting independently of the chain of command. This is the chain of command operating. [PF — Saini's written admission; PF — appointment records; AI — inference of command engagement]

LXI. Defense Five — Democratic Mandate as Exoneration

The South Africa TRC established that democratic election is not a forensic defense to statutory nonfeasance or command responsibility. Badal's democratic mandate among Punjab's Sikh voters coexisted with 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations never independently investigated by his governments, SGPC elections not held for fifteen years, and a chargesheet naming him as an accused in a police firing under his watch. The coexistence of those facts is the finding. [AI from comparative framework; PF for each enumerated item]

LXII. Defense Six — The Cases Are Political Vendettas

The Justice Zora Singh Commission was constituted under a SAD-era governmental framework — not an opposition government. CDR records are telecommunications data, not political constructions. DNA results are laboratory measurements. CBI chargesheets are produced by a central institution operating across multiple political configurations. Sukhbir Badal's own sealed letter of July 2024 admits the three transgressions the prosecutions are based on. A defendant's own admission cannot be characterized as a vendetta. [PF — Sukhbir letter; AI for overall defense rebuttal]

LXIII. Defense Seven — No Signed Order

Five legal frameworks the article invokes as supporting analogous inferential treatment of the documented pattern — the Yamashita command responsibility framework; the Global-Tech wilful blindness doctrine; IPC Section 120-B; Evidence Act Section 8; Evidence Act Section 114(g) — none require a signed order. Additionally: Saini's own written confirmation of the 2 AM Badal call. Sukhbir's own sealed letter. The primary sources are their own admissions. [PF — admissions; AI — legal framework application]

LXIV. The Record Still Holds

After aggressive discounting of every disputed claim — after removing every DA, every AI, every item resting on opposition disclosure — the floor of Proved Findings includes: SYL land acquisition notifications documented in high-reliability sources; the Rs 1 crore payment from Haryana confirmed by the Supreme Court; the 2,097 cremations confirmed by the CBI; the Supreme Court's flagrant-violation finding; the Saini appointment with pending criminal charges; the UN Rapporteur naming; the twenty-call CDR during the kill window and the 2 AM call confirmed by Saini's own written statement; the fifteen years without a mandatory SGPC election; the 7,000-page February 2023 chargesheet. Most of the claims in the prosecutorial spine are Proved Findings; a small number are retained as high-reliability Documented Allegations pending retrieval of original primary records. The argument is strong on that floor alone. [PF — each item individually verified; AI — synthesis]

PART FIFTEEN · THE DELHI SYMBIOSIS

LXV. The Structural Logic

This is the audit's most analytically significant section because it explains what the five mechanisms could not have sustained without external support. Managed impunity at the documented scale — 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations uninvestigated across five CM terms; a UN Rapporteur communication naming the DGP candidate; a US federal court summons — requires more than local administrative design. It requires the active non-interference, and frequently the positive cooperation, of the Government of India.

The Badal political system consistently delivered a specific exchange with New Delhi that operated across Congress, BJP, and coalition governments with equal functional reliability. This audit names it the Delhi Symbiosis: a mutually reinforcing relationship in which the Badal dynasty provided Delhi with the political management of Punjab's Sikh population, and Delhi provided the Badal dynasty with the institutional space to exercise that management without accountability. [AI — the characterization; documented pattern for the exchange]

LXVI. What the Symbiosis Delivered — Both Directions

What Delhi consistently received: (1) Political management of Sikh demands — absorbed in electoral rhetoric, exhausted in litigation theatre, never resolved in ways that required central action. (2) Constitutional stability in a strategically vital border state — elected governance rather than repeated direct central administration. (3) Security infrastructure cooperation — the Punjab Police administrative apparatus that the Centre required for counterinsurgency management.

What the Badal dynasty consistently received: (1) Section 197 CrPC sanction non-action — the prosecution sanction requirement operated as a structural impunity shield across the entire period, with successive central governments across party lines declining to authorize prosecution of Punjab Police officers. (2) Non-interference in SGPC institutional control — no central government across any party configuration seriously challenged the retrospective sehajdhari exclusion, the fifteen-year election gap, or the weaponization of the Jathedar's employment relationship. (3) Central government honors for politically significant officers — the Padma Shri to Ramesh Inder Singh; the absence of any central-government-directed accountability for the counterinsurgency period across four decades.

LXVII. The Farm Act Rupture as Evidence of Functional Symbiosis

Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Union Cabinet on 17 September 2020 over the Farm Acts. This was the most significant act of political independence from the BJP in the dynasty's history. It fractured the SAD-BJP alliance.

This audit characterizes the resignation as evidence that the Badal dynasty's alignment with Delhi was always functional rather than ideological — conditional on Delhi not directly attacking the electoral base that kept the dynasty in power. When the BJP's Farm Acts threatened that base existentially, the condition was violated and the rupture followed. The symbiosis was not loyalty. It was a transaction. And like any transaction, it ended when the terms became unacceptable to one party. [AI — most defensible interpretation of the documented political sequence]

LXVIII. The Symbiosis's Most Damning Implication

Managed impunity at the documented scale was not something the Badal dynasty could have sustained alone. It required the cooperation — active or by deliberate non-interference — of successive central governments across Congress, BJP, and coalition configurations. This does not reduce the Badal dynasty's responsibility for what it designed and operated. It makes the analysis of the accountability deficit incomplete without acknowledging that the system required Delhi's cooperation to function. The five mechanisms are the local architecture. The Delhi Symbiosis is the structural foundation on which that local architecture rested. Without Delhi's consistent non-interference, the non-prosecution of 2,097 illegal cremations, the installation of tainted officers against UN Rapporteur communications, and the retrospective Parliamentary disenfranchisement of millions of Sikh voters would not have been administratively sustainable. [AI — structural conclusion from documented pattern]

PART SIXTEEN · THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

LXIX. Article 21 and the Positive Duty

Article 21 guarantees no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. From Maneka Gandhi (1978) through Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa ((1993) 2 SCC 746): Article 21 imposes an affirmative duty on the state to protect and vindicate the right to life against violations by state actors. The 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations are strongly arguable as 2,097 violations of Article 21 confirmed by India's own Supreme Court. The non-investigation of those violations during Badal's later CM terms is argued here as a continuing state failure to comply with the affirmative constitutional duty Article 21 imposes. [PF — statutory and case text; AI — application to Badal's tenures]

LXX. Indian Criminal Law — The Specific Provisions

IPC Section 302 read with Section 34 can render multiple participants liable where common intention is proved, including persons who did not physically inflict the fatal act but whose participation is legally established. IPC Section 120-B: criminal conspiracy turns on the agreement itself, which may be proved circumstantially. Kehar Singh v. State (Delhi Administration) (1988) recognized this principle. IPC Section 201: relevant to the article's argument that the illegal-cremation system functioned as a large-scale mechanism for disappearance of evidence. IPC Section 304: culpable homicide not amounting to murder — applicable where death results from reckless acts without the specific intent required for Section 302. [PF — statutory texts; AI — application to specific cases]

CrPC Section 154: relevant to the broader pattern of non-registration and accountability failure reflected in the cremation record. CrPC Section 176(1): mandatory magisterial inquiry — the provision whose consistent non-invocation across the cremation period this audit documents. CrPC Section 378: appeal from acquittal — the provision that Badal's government failed to invoke after thirteen deaths in 1978, even though the language is formally discretionary, representing a grave normative failure. CrPC Section 197: formed part of the procedural shield and delay architecture in the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan cases. BNSS 2023 Section 218: 120-day deemed sanction provision — the reform that directly addresses Section 197's abuse. Its application to the pending Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura proceedings should be pressed specifically and immediately. [PF — statutory texts; AI — application]

LXXI. International Legal Frameworks

India ICCPR accession: 10 April 1979. Articles 6 (right to life), 7 (torture — non-derogable), 9 (arbitrary detention), 14 (fair trial) — relevant to the documented atrocity period. Article 2 requires effective remedies. The forty-year non-prosecution pattern is argued here as a continuing Article 2 failure. [PF — OHCHR Treaty Body Database]

The command responsibility framework, under Yamashita v. Styer (327 U.S. 1, 1946) and reflected in Rome Statute Article 28(b), is presented here as a proposed forensic standard for evaluating Badal's conduct — not as a settled doctrine directly applicable in Indian domestic adjudication, since India is not a party to the Rome Statute. Under this framework, the article argues that responsibility rests on knowledge and failure to act: knowledge satisfied by the CBI, NHRC, Supreme Court, HRW, Amnesty, and UN Rapporteur documentation in the public domain throughout Badal's CM tenures; failure-to-act satisfied by non-prosecutions, non-investigations, and promotional appointments. [AI — proposed forensic standard; PF for doctrine's existence in international law]

The wilful blindness doctrine (Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB S.A., 563 U.S. 754, 2011): awareness of high probability of a fact plus deliberate failure to confirm it equals constructive knowledge. Applied to the Saini appointment: three independent authoritative sources documented Saini's record before the appointment. The supersession of four to five colleagues to reach him is deliberate selection. [AI — application; PF for doctrine]

LXXII. The Path Forward — Three Specific Legal Proceedings Available Now

First: A writ petition under Articles 25, 26, and 14 challenging the constitutional validity of the Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Act 2016's retrospective exclusion of millions of sehajdhari voters — available to any registered Sikh voter or Sikh religious organization as petitioner. The High Court already struck down the executive version of this exclusion once. The Parliamentary version is not immune from constitutional review.

Second: A writ of mandamus under Article 226 compelling the SGPC Election Commission to conduct general elections within twelve months — available to any registered SGPC voter in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Fifteen years without a mandatory election. One writ petition. That is all it would take to put the legal obligation before a court that has already demonstrated its willingness to enforce it.

Third: A CAG audit application under Articles 148–151 covering SGPC finances from 2011 to the present — fifteen years of approximately Rs 1,000 crore in annual Gurdwara revenues under management by an unrefreshed elected House. A former Akal Takht Jathedar publicly called it a hub of corruption in February 2026. The CAG has constitutional authority. It should exercise it.

RECORDS STILL MISSING — THE INDICTMENT OF INSTITUTIONAL SILENCE

Indian Evidence Act Section 114(g): the court may presume that evidence which could be and is not produced would, if produced, be unfavorable to the withholding party. The following records are expected by ordinary administrative practice to exist. Their non-production is part of this indictment.

Punjab Government Gazette (1978): Original notifications 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL of 20 February 1978. RTI target: Government of Punjab, Department of Irrigation, Chandigarh 160001; Punjab State Archives.

Punjab Government letter 7/78-IW(I)-78/23617 (4 July 1978): The Rs 3 crore demand to Haryana. RTI target: same.

Home Department minutes (January–February 1980): Any discussion of a Section 378 CrPC appeal after the Nirankari acquittal. RTI target: Chief Secretary's Office, Punjab.

DC Office Amritsar records (1992–1996): Documentation of what information about cremation anomalies reached the District Magistrate. RTI target: DC Amritsar, under Section 6 RTI Act 2005.

SGPC executive committee minutes (2003–2026): Discussions of election scheduling, voter roll modifications, and Jathedar tenure decisions. RTI target: SGPC — a statutory public authority under RTI Act.

CM Office and DGP Office records 13–14 October 2015: Documentary record of the 2 AM Badal call to Saini and the subsequent command chain. The CDR records were produced. The CM Office documentary record has not been. RTI target: Chief Minister's Secretariat, Chandigarh; DGP Office Punjab.

Justice Ranjit Singh Commission full 544-page report: Not officially published. RTI target: Principal Secretary Home, Punjab.

National Archives — Operation Blue Star collection: DC Amritsar communications June 3–14, 1984; army-civil interface records; Sikh Reference Library files. RTI target: Director General, National Archives of India, New Delhi 110001.

CLOSING — THE RECEIPTS

ਬਾਦਲ ਤੋਂ ਬਿਜਲੀ ਨਹੀਂ, ਹਨੇਰਾ ਵਰਸਿਆ.

From this cloud came no lightning, only darkness.

The receipts are these. On 20 February 1978, Badal's cabinet issued land acquisition notifications for the SYL canal — documented across multiple independent sources bearing the same notification numbers. On 4 July 1978, his government demanded Rs 3 crore from Haryana for that acquisition. On 31 March 1979, his government accepted at least Rs 1 crore — confirmed by the Supreme Court in (2002) 2 SCC 507. Punjab then filed Suit No. 2 of 1979 challenging Section 78 — and withdrew that challenge in 1982 under political pressure, never to effectively revive it. The Supreme Court in 2002 cited the 1978 transactions against Punjab. On 4 January 1980, sixty-two accused were acquitted for thirteen Sikh deaths; his government directed no appeal — and a normative duty of grave weight was abandoned without documentation of any deliberation.

On 14 March 2012, with effect from 15 March 2012, Sumedh Singh Saini was appointed DGP, superseding four to five colleagues, while charges had been framed against him five years earlier, while the UN Rapporteur had named him, while HRW had published his record. On 18 November 2009, Mohammad Izhar Alam — named in a US diplomatic cable for possibly thousands of staged killings — was inducted into the SAD and made Wakf Board Chairman. In September 2014, Sukhbir Badal made him Vice-President of the party. In September 2015, the Ram Rahim pardon was issued at the Badal government's political initiative. Three weeks later, the sacrilege incidents began. Two weeks after that, police killed two Sikh protesters without civil permission.

On 12 December 1996, the Supreme Court found 2,097 confirmed illegal cremations constituted flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale. The Badal government that took office in February 1997 constituted no independent investigation across its five-year term. The SGPC last held general elections on 18 September 2011. Fifteen years later, no mandamus application had been filed by any Badal-aligned body despite nine years of legally available mechanism. On 24 February 2023, a 7,000-page chargesheet named Parkash Singh Badal as an accused and described Sukhbir Singh Badal as a principal conspiratorial actor. On 25 April 2023, Parkash Singh Badal died, a supplementary chargesheet was filed, and the proceedings against him abated — on the same calendar date.

These are not allegations awaiting proof. They are receipts — documented in Supreme Court orders, CBI records, UN Rapporteur communications, US diplomatic cables, official commission reports, the signed parliamentary record of the 2016 Act, and the sealed letter in which Sukhbir Badal apologized, in his own handwriting, to the Akal Takht for the three decisions this audit most precisely documents.

The dynasty continues. Sukhbir Singh Badal remains the SAD President as of March 2026, having carried out his public tankhaiya punishment at the Golden Temple in December 2024, having watched three Jathedars removed for participating in that punishment, having received his sealed letter's contents into the Akal Takht's permanent record. Harsimrat Kaur Badal sits in Parliament from Bathinda, returned in 2024, still the dynasty's most electorally durable face.

The system that Badal built survived him. The institutional mechanisms that sustained it — the captured SGPC, the unreformed electorate, the fifteen-year election gap, the stalled criminal trials, the un-filed constitutional petitions, the un-deployed legal remedies — remain intact and operational.

The cloud produced no lightning. It produced only darkness. And the darkness persists.

The work of dismantling the architecture of managed impunity — one statutory petition filed, one independent election conducted, one honest audit completed, one honest prosecution pursued to verdict — belongs to whoever has the courage to do it. This audit has shown where the doors are. They were always open. They remain open. The question is whether the Sikh Panth has the institutional will to walk through them.

ਬਾਦਲ ਤੋਂ ਬਿਜਲੀ ਨਹੀਂ, ਹਨੇਰਾ ਵਰਸਿਆ

THE ARCHITECT OF MANAGED IMPUNITY

kpsgill.com · March 2026

[PF] Proved Finding · [DA] Documented Allegation · [AI] Analytical Inference

© kpsgill.com, March 2026. All content derived from the public record, adjudicated judicial findings, and primary source documentation. This document is an advocative forensic critique grounded in public records. This document distinguishes between documented fact and forensic inference. All inquiries or rebuttals must be submitted in writing to ensure the integrity of the public record.

COMPLETE REFERENCE COMPENDIUM

ਬਾਦਲ ਤੋਂ ਬਿਜਲੀ ਨਹੀਂ, ਹਨੇਰਾ ਵਰਸਿਆ

The Architect of Managed Impunity — Version 6, Corrected Edition

kpsgill.com · March 2026

All sources classified by evidentiary tier. All Proved Findings, Documented Allegations, and Analytical Inferences indexed with source, citation, and reliability assessment. All 25 corrections from the Master Correction Memo applied throughout.

SECTION A · TIER CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

Tier 1 — Primary Sources (establish Proved Findings [PF]) India Code statutory texts; Indian Kanoon full-text judgments with citation; Supreme Court and High Court orders with bench composition and year; CBI chargesheets with FIR numbers; NHRC official orders with case numbers; official commission reports issued under Commission of Inquiry Act 1952; Government of India and state government Gazette notifications; UN official documents including treaty body communications and Special Rapporteur reports with document symbol numbers; US Government official documents including diplomatic cables and Congressional Record entries; published books with named author, publisher, ISBN, and year; Election Commission of India official results.

Tier 2 — High-Reliability Secondary Sources (establish Documented Allegations [DA]) HRW/Ensaaf peer-reviewed reports with full publication details; Amnesty International ASA-numbered reports; Tribune India (Chandigarh — independent trust-run publication); Indian Express; Times of India; Hindustan Times; PTI/IANS wire agency reports corroborated by multiple outlets; The Caravan (long-form investigative journalism); ThePrint; SCC Online (legal case reporting); authenticated SGPC documentation; PRS India legislative tracking; published academic works.

Tier 3 — Medium-Reliability Sources (establish DA of lower reliability; require corroboration before use as sole source) Single-outlet investigative reports without independent corroboration; opposition political statements; advocacy organization records (Sikh24, Sikh Siyasat News, Panthic.org); Wikipedia entries used only for corroboration, never as sole source for any factual proposition.

Tier 4 — Analytical Inference (establish [AI]) Structural arguments from documented patterns; comparative legal analysis; administrative law doctrines applied to documented facts; statistical inferences from documented consistency; interpretive inferences explicitly labeled as such throughout the audit.

Downgrade Rule: Any claim previously classified PF that derives from journalism alone, or from a source that has not been independently verified at Tier 1 or Tier 2, is downgraded in the Claims Matrix. See Section I for all applied downgrades.

SECTION B · PRIMARY STATUTES AND CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

B.1 Constitution of India

Source: Ministry of External Affairs Constitution PDF — mea.gov.in/images/pdf1/S7.pdf; India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Provision

Exact Text / Relevance

Classification

Article 14

Equality before law — SGPC retrospective sehajdhari disenfranchisement challenged under this article

PF — constitutional text

Article 21

"No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law" — 2,097 illegal cremations each arguable as a violation

PF — constitutional text; AI for application

Article 25(2)(b)

Explanation classifying Sikhs as Hindus for purposes of Hindu religious institutions legislation — Anandpur Sahib Resolution demanded its amendment

PF — constitutional text

Article 26

Freedom to manage religious affairs — SGPC constitutional foundation and basis for challenging 2016 Amendment Act

PF — constitutional text

Article 131

Original jurisdiction of Supreme Court in disputes between states and Union — never invoked by any Badal government specifically for Chandigarh transfer; Punjab did invoke it via Suit No. 2 of 1979 for water rights but withdrew the suit in 1982

PF — constitutional text; AI for non-use in later terms

Article 162

Executive power of state extends to matters on which Legislature has power to make laws — CM's affirmative duty to act within state authority

PF — constitutional text

Article 226

High Court writ jurisdiction including mandamus — available to compel SGPC elections since October 2016

PF — constitutional text

Articles 148–151

Comptroller and Auditor General — constitutional authority to audit SGPC finances as statutory body

PF — constitutional text

Article 246 r/w Seventh Schedule

Distribution of legislative powers between Union and States

PF — constitutional text

Entry 17, State List

"Water, that is to say, water supplies, irrigation and canals, drainage and embankments, water storage and water power subject to the provisions of Entry 56 of List I" — water as state subject

PF — MEA Constitution PDF

Entry 56, Union List

"Regulation and development of inter-State rivers and river valleys to the extent to which such regulation and development under the control of the Union is declared by Parliament by law to be expedient in the public interest" — central control conditional only

PF — MEA Constitution PDF

64th, 67th, 68th Constitutional Amendments

Successively extended President's Rule in Punjab to unprecedented five-year span, 1987–1992

PF — India Code

B.2 Indian Penal Code 1860 (IPC)

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in; Indian Kanoon — indiankanoon.org

Section

Title

Application in This Audit

Classification

§34

Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention

Kotkapura chargesheet; command responsibility framework

PF — statutory text

§109

Abetment where act is committed in consequence

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§119

Public servant concealing design to commit offence

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§120-B

Criminal conspiracy — party to conspiracy punishable as if he had abetted the offence

Kotkapura chargesheet; command responsibility framework

PF — statutory text

§153

Giving provocation with intent to cause riot

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§201

Causing disappearance of evidence / false information

Illegal cremation apparatus — arguable as large-scale evidence disappearance

PF — statutory text; AI for application

§295-A

Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§302

Murder

Behbal Kalan killings; Multani case; Khalra murder

PF — statutory text

§304

Culpable homicide not amounting to murder

Command responsibility analysis

PF — statutory text

§307

Attempt to murder

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§323

Voluntarily causing hurt

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§324

Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapon

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§330

Voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession

Multani FIR

PF — statutory text

§341

Wrongful restraint

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§344

Wrongful confinement for ten or more days

Multani FIR

PF — statutory text

§364

Kidnapping or abducting with intent to cause murder

Multani FIR; Ludhiana disappearance case

PF — statutory text

§427

Mischief causing damage

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

§504

Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace

Kotkapura chargesheet

PF — statutory text

B.3 Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 (CrPC)

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Section

Title

Application

Classification

§44

Arrest by Magistrate when offence committed in his presence

Nirankari escape — enforcement chain that broke

PF — statutory text

§55

Arrest without warrant of person concerned in cognizable offence

Nirankari escape

PF — statutory text

§154

Information in cognizable cases (FIR) — mandatory

Relevant to broader pattern of non-registration across cremation period

PF — statutory text

§173

Report of police officer on completion of investigation

Chargesheet mechanism; §173(8) permits further investigation after initial chargesheet — basis for supplementary chargesheets

PF — statutory text

§174

Police to enquire and report on suspicious deaths

Post-mortems not conducted on 1,238 unidentified cremated persons

PF — statutory text

§176(1)

Inquiry by Magistrate into cause of death in custody — "the Magistrate shall hold an inquiry" — mandatory

Documented absence of any Section 176 inquiry across cremation period

PF — statutory text

§197

Prosecution of Judges and public servants — central government sanction required

Structural impunity shield; formed part of procedural delay in Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan

PF — statutory text

§227

Discharge by Sessions Court

Accused using discharge petitions as procedural delay mechanism

PF — statutory text

§394

Abatement of appeals on death of accused — extended by courts to pre-chargesheet proceedings

Badal's death abating Kotkapura proceedings against him

PF — statutory text

§378

Appeal in case of acquittal — "the State Government may direct the Public Prosecutor to present an appeal" — formally discretionary

Nirankari non-appeal: normatively grave failure even though formally discretionary

PF — statutory text

§482

Inherent powers of High Court to prevent abuse of process

Accused using quashing applications as procedural delay mechanism

PF — statutory text

Correction applied: Section 132 CrPC (earlier cited as a prosecution sanction provision) is removed — Section 197 CrPC is the correct prosecution sanction provision.

B.4 Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 (BNSS)

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Section

Title

Application

§218

Prosecution sanction — 120-day deemed sanction provision after which sanction is treated as granted

Direct reform of Section 197 CrPC's abuse; must be pressed in Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura proceedings immediately

B.5 Arms Act 1959

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Section

Application

§27

Use of arms in contravention of Section 5 — cited in Kotkapura chargesheet

B.6 Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1645/1/196631.pdf; Indian Kanoon — indiankanoon.org/doc/1285253/

Section

Title

Application

Classification

§4

Chandigarh as Union Territory — transfer to Punjab promised but never completed

Chandigarh audit — 58-year undelivered promise

PF — statutory text

§72(1)

MHA authority over matters relating to SGPC administered territories

2003 sehajdhari exclusion notification issued under this section — later struck down as overreach

PF — statutory text

§78(1)

Rights and liabilities of successor states in Bhakra-Nangal and Beas Projects — if no agreement within two years, Central Government may determine

Central override authority — the core water provision. Punjab challenged this in Suit No. 2 of 1979 but withdrew in 1982

PF — statutory text

§78(2)

Central Government's unilateral determination power after two-year deadline

1976 Emergency allocation made under this subsection

PF — statutory text

B.7 Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 (Punjab Act VIII of 1925)

Source: MHA-hosted PDF — mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-10/Sikh_Gurrdwara_Act1925_1[1].pdf

Correction applied: Earlier versions of this audit incorrectly cited "Schedule III" as governing voter eligibility. The correct provisions are Sections 49 and 92.

Section

Title

Application

Classification

§43(1)(II)

Composition of SGPC — refers to "Head Ministers"

Word "Jathedar" does not appear anywhere in the Act — structural vulnerability allowing political control over Takht's highest authority

PF — statutory text

§48

Electoral rolls

Mandatory five-year election cycle — basis for mandamus writ

PF — statutory text

§49

Conditions of registration as voter

2003 MHA notification purported to amend this section to exclude sehajdharis; struck down 2011; retrospectively reinstated 2016

PF — statutory text

§62

Office-bearers and elections — five-year mandatory cycle

15 years without elections as of March 2026

PF — statutory text

§92

Voter eligibility provisos

2003 notification also amended this section's provisos

PF — statutory text

§115

Annual audit by Government-appointed auditor

Internal auditor allegedly simultaneously Badal family's personal CA — DA per KBS Sidhu Substack

DA

B.8 Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Act 2016 (Act 21 of 2016)

Passed Rajya Sabha: 16 March 2016. Passed Lok Sabha: 25 April 2016. Notified: 5 May 2016. Retrospective effect: from 8 October 2003. Operative effect: permanently excluded sehajdhari Sikhs from SGPC electoral rolls, reinstating the exclusion struck down as unconstitutional by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 20 December 2011. Registered SGPC voters reduced from approximately 52 lakh to approximately 27 lakh.

Source: PRS India — prsindia.org/billtrack/the-sikh-gurdwaras-amendment-bill-2016 [PF — Tier 1]

B.9 Land Acquisition Act 1894

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Section

Application

§4(1)

Preliminary notification for acquisition — SYL Notifications 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL issued under this provision on 20 February 1978 [DA — original gazette not located]

§17

Urgency clause — cited by Haryana CM Devi Lal in his Vidhan Sabha statement as the provision under which Punjab acquired SYL land [DA — Vidhan Sabha proceedings not digitized]

B.10 Commission of Inquiry Act 1952

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Section

Application

§11

Power to constitute commission — Justice Ranjit Singh Commission constituted under this section, Notification No. 7/213/2013-3H4/1415, 14 April 2017 [PF]

B.11 Indian Evidence Act 1872

Source: India Code — indiacode.nic.in

Section

Title

Application

Classification

§8

Conduct as evidence of intention — conduct of any party in reference to facts in issue is relevant

Patronage appointments as evidence of institutional policy; promotions as evidence of prior intention regarding atrocity perpetrators

PF — statutory text

§114(g)

Court may presume that evidence which could be and is not produced would, if produced, be unfavorable to the withholding party

Missing Home Department minutes; CM Office records; SGPC executive minutes — their non-production supports adverse inference

PF — statutory text

B.12 Other Statutes Referenced

Statute

Year

Application

Inter-State River Water Disputes Act

1956

Available mechanism for riparian rights adjudication — never invoked by any Badal government to press Punjab's sole-riparian-state argument to final resolution

National Security Act

1980

Badal detained under this Act on or about 10 June 1984; released March 1986 — corrected from earlier "September 1984 arrest"

Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act

1995 (South Africa) — Act 34 of 1995

TRC comparative framework

Alien Tort Statute

28 U.S.C. §1350 (USA)

Applied in Case No. 12-C-0806, EDWI. Cornell LII: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1350

Torture Victim Protection Act

1991 (USA)

Applied in Case No. 12-C-0806, EDWI

Bihar Reorganisation Act

2000

Comparative: no equivalent Section 78 provision — confirming Punjab's uniqueness

Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act

2000

Comparative: no equivalent Section 78 provision

Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act

2000

Comparative: no equivalent Section 78 provision

Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act

2014

Comparative: no equivalent Section 78 provision

SECTION C · SUPREME COURT AND HIGH COURT JUDGMENTS

C.1 Supreme Court of India — Complete Citations

Paramjit Kaur v. State of Punjab Writ Petitions (Criminal) Nos. 447 and 497 of 1995. Order dated 12 December 1996. Found: "flagrant violation of human rights on a mass scale" in connection with illegal cremations of Sikhs in Amritsar district by Punjab Police. Remitted case to NHRC. Reported: 1996 SCC (7) 20. Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/1538237/ Classification: PF — Tier 1. This is the foundational Supreme Court order of the entire cremations accountability framework. The exact language "flagrant violation of human rights on a mass scale" is confirmed per HRW 2007 citing the SC order.

Prithipal Singh & Ors. v. State of Punjab & Anr. (2012) 1 SCC 10. Criminal Appeal Nos. 523–527 and 528 of 2009. Decided: 4 November 2011 — corrected from "April 11, 2011" in earlier versions of this audit. Bench: Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice P. Sathasivam. Upheld life imprisonment sentences for Punjab Police officials convicted of the murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra. Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/342168/ Classification: PF — Tier 1. Corrected date confirmed by SCALE volume 12 (November/December 2011) cross-reference.

State of Haryana v. State of Punjab (2002) 2 SCC 507. Original Suit No. 6 of 1996. Decided: 15 January 2002. Five-judge Constitution Bench. Directed Punjab to complete SYL canal within one year. Cited Badal government's 1978 land acquisition notifications and acceptance of Haryana's payment as evidence that Punjab had accepted SYL obligations. Full text: ielrc.org/content/e0214.pdf; latestlaws.com/latest-caselaw/2002/january/2002-latest-caselaw-21-sc/ Classification: PF — Tier 1. Critical for SYL audit: the Supreme Court's own words citing Badal's 1978 conduct against Punjab's water argument.

In Re: The Punjab Termination of Agreements Act Five-judge Constitution Bench. Decided: 10 November 2016. Bench: Justices Anil R. Dave (presiding), P.C. Ghose, Shiva Kirti Singh, A.K. Goel, Amitava Roy. Struck down the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 as unconstitutional. K.B.S. Sidhu's SYL de-notification was issued five days after this judgment — legally void from the moment it was signed. Reported: Business Standard/PTI; LiveLaw; Tribune India. Full SCC citation not independently verified online. Classification: PF for bench, date, and outcome — DA for SCC volume/page until directly verified.

Sehajdhari Sikh Federation v. Union of India CWP No. 17771 of 2003. Punjab and Haryana High Court. Decided: 20 December 2011. Full Bench: Justices Surya Kant, M.M.S. Bedi, and Muttaci Jeyapaul. Struck down MHA notification File No. 1702/3/2001-IS-VI as unconstitutional executive overreach beyond MHA's statutory authority. Full notification text reproduced in this judgment. Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/43587527/ Classification: PF — Tier 1. Complete notification text available from this judgment.

Sumedh Singh Saini v. State of Punjab 2020 SCC OnLine SC 986. Criminal Appeal No. 827/2020. Decided: 3 December 2020. Bench: Justices Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy, M.R. Shah. Granted anticipatory bail to former DGP Saini in the Balwant Singh Multani murder case (FIR No. 77/2020). Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/66168928/; latestlaws.com/latest-caselaw/2020/december/2020-latest-caselaw-635-sc/ Classification: PF — Tier 1. Confirms FIR No. 77 registered, Section 302 murder charges added, Saini sought and obtained anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court.

General Officer Commanding v. CBI and Another AIR 2012 SC 1890. Criminal Appeal No. 257/2011. Decided: 1 May 2012. Bench: Justices B.S. Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar. The Supreme Court recounted and proceeded on the fact that thirty-five Sikh men had been killed at Chittisinghpura on 20 March 2000. Note: some sources cite 35, others 36; this audit uses the figure the court proceeded on. Legal Vidhiya: legalvidhiya.com/general-officer-commanding-v-cbi-anr/ Classification: PF — Tier 1 for SC proceeding on the killings.

Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) 1 SCC 248. Established that Article 21 procedure must be "right, just and fair" — not arbitrary, fanciful, or oppressive. Foundation for affirmative state duty interpretation of Article 21. Classification: PF — Tier 1.

Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (Smt. Nilabati Behera Alias Lalit Behera v. State of Orissa and Ors.) (1993) 2 SCC 746. AIR 1993 SC 1960. Decided: 24 March 1993. Bench: Justices J.S. Verma, A.S. Anand, N. Venkatachala. Established state strict liability for custodial deaths; power to award monetary compensation for Article 21 violations. Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/1628260/ Classification: PF — Tier 1.

Kehar Singh v. State (Delhi Administration) (1988) 3 SCC 609. Recognized that criminal conspiracy turns on the agreement itself, which may be proved circumstantially. Applied to IPC Section 120-B analysis in this audit. Classification: PF — Tier 1.

CWP No. 17459 of 2019 (O&M) and CWP No. 17460 of 2019 Punjab and Haryana High Court. Order dated: 9 April 2021. Justice Rajbir Sehrawat. Correction applied: This is a Civil Writ Petition (CWP), NOT Criminal Miscellaneous (CRM-M) as incorrectly stated in all prior versions of this audit. Quashed the Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh SIT investigation for "personal malice and mala fide functioning" and "a dangerous mixture of religion, politics and police administration." Ordered new three-officer SIT. SlideShare order PDF: slideshare.net/slideshow/cwp-17459-201909042021finalorder/246938570; Hindustan Times contemporaneous report. Classification: PF — Tier 1/2. Order text available; corrected case designation confirmed.

Anticipatory Bail — Sukhbir Badal Punjab and Haryana HC proceedings 2023:PHHC:126975, 29 September 2023. Sukhbir Badal granted anticipatory bail in Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan cases. Classification: PF — Tier 2. Tribune India report.

Mohd. Izhar Alam v. State of Punjab & Anr. Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/43939498/. Decided 31 March 2016. Alam's related legal proceedings. Classification: PF — Tier 1 for documented court proceedings.

Punjab Suit No. 2 of 1979 Filed: 11 July 1979. Challenged the 1976 Emergency water allocation notification and aspects of Section 78 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966. Correction applied: Earlier versions stated Suit No. 2 "did not challenge Section 78's constitutional validity" — that was incorrect. The suit did raise Section 78 challenges. The correct finding is that the challenge was not carried to final constitutional resolution and was withdrawn on 31 December 1981 as part of the tripartite water agreement under PM Indira Gandhi's pressure. Sources: State of Haryana v. State of Punjab (2002) 2 SCC 507 (citing the suit and its withdrawal); IELRC; Tribune India archive. Classification: PF — Tier 1/2 for filing and withdrawal.

C.2 International Legal Authorities

Yamashita v. Styer — 327 U.S. 1 (1946) United States Supreme Court. Established command responsibility doctrine: a commanding officer is responsible for the criminal acts of subordinates if he knew or should have known they were occurring and failed to take adequate measures to prevent them. This audit presents this doctrine as a proposed forensic standard and international legal analogy — India is not a Rome Statute party and this framework has not been formally adopted in Indian domestic law for application to former Chief Ministers. Full text: Justia — supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/327/1/ Classification: PF — Tier 1 for doctrine's existence in international law; AI for application as proposed standard in Indian context.

Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB S.A. — 563 U.S. 754 (2011) United States Supreme Court. Two-prong wilful blindness test: (1) defendant subjectively believes high probability a fact exists; (2) defendant takes deliberate actions to avoid learning of that fact. This doctrine supports the argument that Badal's appointment of Saini — with three independent authoritative public-domain sources documenting Saini's record before the appointment — constitutes constructive knowledge equivalent to actual knowledge. Full text: Justia — supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/563/10-6/index.pdf Classification: PF — Tier 1 for doctrine; AI for application to Saini appointment.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court — Article 28(b) Civilian superior command responsibility: criminally responsible where superior "knew, or consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated" subordinates were committing crimes; crimes were within superior's effective responsibility and control; superior failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent, repress, or submit for investigation. India is NOT a party to the Rome Statute. This provision is presented as an international law analogy and proposed forensic standard, not as directly applicable Indian domestic doctrine. ICC official: icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/Rome-Statute-eng.pdf; legal.un.org/icc/statute/english/rome_statute(e).pdf Classification: PF — Tier 1 for text existence; AI for proposed application as standard in Indian context.

Saville Inquiry Report (The Bloody Sunday Inquiry) — HC 29 Published: 15 June 2010. Twelve years of proceedings; 2,500+ witness statements; forensic ballistics; comprehensive military and governmental communication review. Overturned the discredited Widgery Tribunal Report of 1972. Conclusion: soldiers' firing was unjustified; victims were unlawfully killed. Prime Minister Cameron apologized to Parliament. Applied in this audit as comparative model for what a comprehensive second inquiry — the Punjab TRC equivalent — would look like. UK Parliament official publication: webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/https://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk/ Classification: PF — Tier 1 (official UK parliamentary publication).

Case No. 12-C-0806 (Eastern District of Wisconsin) Filed: 8 August 2012. Plaintiffs: Sikhs for Justice and individual plaintiffs. Defendant: Parkash Singh Badal. Causes of action: Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S.C. §1350) and Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991. Summons served: 9 August 2012 at Oak Creek High School, Wisconsin. Assigned initially to Judge Randa, transferred to Judge Lynn Adelman. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals No. 13-2316: affirmed dismissal 26 November 2013. Opinion by Judge Richard Posner. Grounds: failure of proper service of process — procedural dismissal, NOT dismissal on the merits. Sources: Sikh24 original reporting; Justia Seventh Circuit. Classification: PF — Tier 1 for all procedural facts confirmed in federal court records.

SECTION D · OFFICIAL COMMISSION AND GOVERNMENT REPORTS

D.1 Justice Ranjit Singh Commission Report (2017–2018)

Constituted: 14 April 2017. Notification No. 7/213/2013-3H4/1415 under Section 11, Commission of Inquiry Act 1952. Constituted by CM Amarinder Singh. Submitted report: September 2018. Tabled in Punjab Assembly. 544 pages, four parts. Politically endorsed in significant measure by the Punjab Assembly.

Proved Findings [PF] from the Commission:

• Firing at Behbal Kalan was "without any warning" and "without taking permission from civil authorities."

• DGP Saini "ordered firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura."

• Senior officers failed in their duty.

Official Commission Findings — status of official judicial inquiry body, not final criminal adjudication:

• Commission reported findings pointing to involvement of Dera Sacha Sauda in the sacrilege incidents.

Documented Allegations [DA] — Commission characterizations not yet adjudicated in criminal proceeding:

• CM Parkash Singh Badal's "apparent involvement" in police action.

• CM and Deputy CM allegedly "deliberately ignored intelligence inputs about sacrilege incidents as a political strategy to polarize the vote bank."

Source: Panjab Digital Library PDF — panjabdigilib.org/webuser/searches/downloadPdf.jsp?file=BK-035146.pdf; DailyO analysis. Classification: PF for commission findings as official judicial inquiry output — Tier 1.

D.2 White Paper on Punjab Agitation (Government of India, 10 July 1984)

Official Government of India publication issued three days after Operation Blue Star. Reported 575 total deaths (the official government figure). Characterized the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in secessionist terms — a characterization directly contradicted by the authenticated text of the Resolution itself. Available: Indian Parliament eLibrary (elibrary.sansad.in); ResearchGate: researchgate.net/publication/340916231_Operation_Blue_Star_and_White_Paper_on_Punjab_Agitation; Wanjara collection: wanjaranomad.com/collection/white-paper-the-punjab-agitation Classification: PF — Tier 1 for 575 official figure and government's characterization of ASR.

D.3 NHRC Case No. 1/97/NHRC — Punjab Cremations Proceedings

Remitted from Supreme Court: December 1996. Closed: approximately April 2012.

Proved Findings:

• Limited inquiry to three Amritsar crematoria — documented NHRC methodology.

• Never heard testimony from a single victim family member — documented absence.

• Relied entirely on Punjab Police for victim identification — documented methodology.

• Awarded approximately Rs 27.40–27.94 crore to 1,513 identified families under strict liability standard.

• Closed without recommending any criminal investigation.

• Characterized its own order as "an application of balm to whatever wounds were still left" — quoted in NHRC order text.

CBI's Fifth and Final Report to Supreme Court (9 December 1996):

• 585 fully identified

• 274 partially identified

• 1,238 entirely unidentified

• Total confirmed: 2,097 illegal cremations

Correction applied: DGP S.S. Virk's admission was made at a press conference on 19 February 2006, NOT in NHRC proceedings as stated in earlier versions of this audit.

Sources: HRW 2007 report (extensive documentation); NHRC Annual Report 2007–08; NHRC order text. Classification: PF — Tier 1 for NHRC orders, CBI figures, and Virk press conference.

D.4 CBI Investigation — Jaswant Singh Khalra Murder

Khalra abducted: 6 September 1995. Murdered: late October/November 1995 at Jhabal police station. CBI took over investigation after SC remittal.

Six Punjab Police officials convicted for Khalra's murder on 18 November 2005 by Additional Sessions Judge Bhupinder Singh, Patiala:

• DSP Jaspal Singh — life imprisonment

• ASI Amarjit Singh — life imprisonment (later acquitted on appeal by HC on 8 October 2007)

• SHO Satnam Singh — 7 years

• SHO Surinderpal Singh — 7 years

• SHO Jasbir Singh — 7 years

• Head Constable Prithipal Singh — 7 years

• SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu — died during trial

HC enhancement: 16 October 2007 (Criminal Revision Petition No. 323/2006, bench of Justices Mehtab Singh Gill and A.N. Jindal): four officers' sentences enhanced to life imprisonment; Amarjit Singh acquitted.

SC upheld: Prithipal Singh v. State of Punjab (2012) 1 SCC 10, decided 4 November 2011 — corrected from "April 11, 2011" in all prior versions.

Classification: PF — Tier 1 (court conviction records; Indian Kanoon doc/342168).

D.5 Kotkapura Firing — SIT Chargesheets — CORRECTED CHRONOLOGY

Critical correction applied throughout: The 7,000-page filing of 24 February 2023 was the earlier/main chargesheet; the supplementary chargesheet was filed on 25 April 2023.

FIR No. 129, dated 7 August 2018, Police Station Kotkapura City, Faridkot District.

SIT-I (Prabodh Kumar / Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh): Chargesheets quashed by Punjab and Haryana HC on 9 April 2021 (CWP No. 17459/2019 O&M) for mala fide investigation.

SIT-II (ADGP L.K. Yadav):

• 7,000-page chargesheet filed: 24 February 2023 — named Parkash Singh Badal and seven co-accused. Government of Punjab (Home Department) prosecution sanction obtained. CFSL forensic report cited as supporting evidence.

• Supplementary chargesheet (~2,400 pages) filed: 25 April 2023 — the day of Parkash Singh Badal's death.

Sources: Hindustan Times (hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/punjab-police-firing-case-supplementary-chargesheet-against-badals-filed-101682412440715.html); Tribune India; Indian Express (indianexpress.com — SIT challan Kotkapura article). Classification: PF — Tier 2 for both chargesheets' existence, dates, accused names, FIR number, and charge sections.

D.6 Behbal Kalan Firing — Separate FIR and SIT

FIR No. 130/2015, Police Station Bajakhana, Faridkot District. Registered for killings of Gurjeet Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh on 14 October 2015.

April 2019 SIT Chargesheet (300 pages): Filed against former SSP Charanjit Singh Sharma. Times of India: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/behbal-kalan-firing-sit-files-300-page-chargesheet-against-former-ssp/articleshow/69033462.cms [PF — Tier 2]

As of March 2026: Case transferred to Chandigarh court; Punjab and Haryana HC directed final police status report in early March 2026; no charges framed. Sources: kbssidhu.substack.com/p/supreme-court-upholds-transfer-of; kbssidhu.substack.com/p/the-kotkapura-and-behbal-kalan-firing Classification: PF — Tier 2 for current status.

D.7 Justice Das Commission on Kairon (1964)

Constituted to examine corruption charges against CM Pratap Singh Kairon. Headed by former Chief Justice of India Justice Sudhi Ranjan Das. Found eight of approximately thirty-one charges proven, including that Kairon "connived at the doings of his sons and relatives." Kairon resigned: 14 June 1964. Note: Kairon was assassinated on 6 February 1965 near Rasoi village, Rai, Sonipat district — corrected from "Phillaur" in all prior versions of this audit. Classification: PF — Tier 2/3 (historical record; referenced in academic and journalistic literature).

D.8 Nanavati Commission — 1984 Delhi Anti-Sikh Pogrom

G.T. Nanavati Commission of Inquiry, 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Report published: 2005. Estimated approximately 2,733 Sikhs killed in Delhi in three days of organized violence following Indira Gandhi's assassination. Documented specific Congress party leaders as organizers. Report submitted to Parliament. Classification: PF — Tier 1 (official government commission report).

D.9 CBI Chargesheet — Chattisinghpura-Pathribal

CBI chargesheet filed 9 May 2006. Characterized the five Pathribal killings as "cold-blooded murders" in a staged encounter. DNA analysis at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad, and Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Kolkata confirmed the five men killed at Pathribal were local Kashmiri civilians, not Pakistani militants. Army's court-martial process closed January 2014, with the Army declining to proceed on the basis that the material did not justify trial. FIR No. 59/2000 cited in multiple press sources but not independently verified from a primary court record. Classification: PF for chargesheet date and "cold-blooded murders" characterization (Tier 2 — press documentation of filing); DA for FIR number until primary court record retrieved.

D.10 UN Special Rapporteur Report A/HRC/23/47/Add.1 (2013)

UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions: Christof Heyns. India country visit: 19–30 March 2012. Addendum to main report A/HRC/23/47. The document specifically named Sumedh Singh Saini: "The Special Rapporteur has heard of the case of Mr. Sumedh Singh Saini, accused of human rights violations committed in Punjab in the 1990s, who was promoted in March 2012 to Director General of Police in Punjab." Full text: UN official document system (undocs.org). Reproduced in The Caravan: caravanmagazine.in/crime/sumedh-singh-saini-dgp-punjab-police-balwant-multani-murder Classification: PF — Tier 1 (UN official document submitted to Human Rights Council). This is among the strongest single pieces of evidence in the Saini patronage analysis.

D.11 US Diplomatic Cable — 19 December 2005 (Izhar Alam)

Filed from US Embassy New Delhi by Deputy Chief of Mission Robert O. Blake Jr. — Note: Ambassador was David C. Mulford, not Blake. Blake was DCM. Published through Wikileaks. Text consistently reproduced at: Ensaaf database (data.ensaaf.org/official/S0002/detail/); Sikh Siyasat News; Panthic.org; multiple advocacy sources.

Operative text: "During the insurgency, he assembled a large, personal paramilitary force of approximately 150 men known as the 'Black Cats' or 'Alam Sena' ('Alam's Army') that included cashiered police officers and rehabilitated Sikh terrorists. The group had reach throughout the Punjab and is alleged to have had carte blanche in carrying out possibly thousands of staged 'encounter killings.'"

Original Wikileaks cable ID not independently fetched; text consistently reproduced across multiple independent sources. Classification: DA — high reliability. Official US government document, text consistent across partisan-opposed sources; original URL not independently retrieved.

D.12 MHA Notification on Sehajdhari Exclusion (2003)

File No. 1702/3/2001-IS-VI, signed by Joint Secretary L.C. Goyal, dated 8 October 2003. Issued under Section 72(1) of the Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966. Substituted new provisos to Sections 49 and 92 of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act — correction applied: earlier versions cited "Schedule III" which is incorrect. Full notification text reproduced in Punjab and Haryana HC judgment in Sehajdhari Sikh Federation v. Union of India (Indian Kanoon doc/43587527). Classification: PF — Tier 1 (notification text reproduced in and struck down by court judgment).

D.13 ICCPR — India's Accession Record

India acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 10 April 1979. Filed reservations on Articles 1, 9, 12, 13, 19(3), 21, and 22. Articles 6 (right to life), 7 (torture prohibition — non-derogable even under Article 4 emergency derogation), 9 (arbitrary detention), and 14 (fair trial) are relevant to the documented atrocity period. Article 2 requires states to ensure effective remedies for violations — the 40-year non-prosecution pattern is argued as a continuing Article 2 failure. Source: OHCHR Treaty Body Database (ohchr.org); The Leaflet analysis. Classification: PF — Tier 1 (OHCHR official record).

D.14 Rome Statute Article 28(b)

Full text from ICC official: icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/Rome-Statute-eng.pdf; legal.un.org/icc/statute/english/rome_statute(e).pdf. Correction applied: India is NOT a party to the Rome Statute. This provision is presented throughout this audit as a proposed forensic standard and international legal analogy, not as directly applicable in Indian domestic adjudication. Classification: PF — Tier 1 for text; AI for proposed application in Indian context.

D.15 Saini's Written Statement to Justice Ranjit Singh Commission

DGP Sumedh Singh Saini submitted a written reply to the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission in which he stated: "At about 2 am the then CM rung up regarding the situation." This is the primary source — Saini's own written admission — confirming the 2 AM Badal call to Saini on the night before the Behbal Kalan firing. This is not a CDR inference; it is not an opposition claim; it is Saini's own written words submitted to an official judicial inquiry. Sources: cited in Commission's own report; reported in Tribune India and Indian Express in context of chargesheet filings. Classification: PF — Tier 1 (Saini's own written admission to official commission).

D.16 Sukhbir Badal's Sealed Letter to Akal Takht (24 July 2024)

Submitted: 24 July 2024. Made public: 5 August 2024. Sukhbir Badal's own letter to the Akal Takht apologizing for: (1) favouring Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim and securing his pardon; (2) the appointment of Sumedh Singh Saini as DGP; (3) failures in handling the sacrilege incidents and the subsequent police firing. This is the most important single primary admission document in the audit — the Home Minister's own written acknowledgment of the three decisions this audit most precisely documents. Sources: Tribune India — tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/in-letter-to-takht-sukhbir-seeks-pardon-for-sad-govts-dera-head-saini-mistakes/; Free Press Journal — freepressjournal.in (independently confirmed); multiple rebel SAD leader statements corroborating content. Classification: PF — Tier 2. Sukhbir's own primary admission, reported by multiple independent outlets, not legally contested.

SECTION E · OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS

E.1 SYL Land Acquisition Notifications (20 February 1978)

Correction applied: These notifications are classified as DA throughout this audit — they are NOT classified as PF at any point. Earlier "Prosecutorial Spine" language falsely calling them PF has been corrected.

Notification No. 113/5/SYL and Notification No. 121/5/SYL, dated 20 February 1978, Government of Punjab, issued under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Initiating acquisition of 5,376 acres across Ludhiana, Ropar, and Fatehgarh Sahib districts. Notification numbers cited consistently across: PTI via Business Standard (28 July 2016); IANS via The Quint; Punjab DIPR official press releases. Original Punjab Government Gazette copy not located in any publicly accessible digitized archive. Classification: DA — very high reliability. Notification numbers consistent across partisan-opposed sources; original gazette is RTI Target No. 1.

RTI Target: Government of Punjab, Department of Irrigation, Chandigarh 160001; Punjab State Archives, Chandigarh.

E.2 Punjab Government Letter 7/78-IW(I)-78/23617 (4 July 1978)

Official letter from Government of Punjab Irrigation Wing to Government of Haryana demanding Rs 3 crore as compensation for SYL land acquisition costs. Cited with specific reference number in PTI via Business Standard and IANS via The Quint. Original letter not located in any publicly accessible archive. Classification: DA — high reliability. Reference number consistent across independent sources.

RTI Target: Same as E.1.

E.3 Rs 1 Crore Payment Acceptance (31 March 1979)

Badal government accepted first installment from Haryana. Amount: "at least Rs 1 crore" — this audit uses this formulation because: Business Standard/IANS reports Rs 1 crore; one source cites Rs 1.5 crore; the Supreme Court in (2002) 2 SCC 507 confirmed Punjab "accepted money for that purpose" without specifying the exact amount. Classification: PF from SC judgment for the fact of payment; DA for exact amount.

E.4 Haryana Vidhan Sabha Proceedings (March 1978)

Session dates: 1–7 March 1978. Haryana CM Devi Lal's statement as reported in PTI dispatches: "Due to my personal relation with Badal, Punjab Government has acquired the land under Section 4 and Section 17 (emergency clause) for SYL canal." Original Haryana Vidhan Sabha proceedings from 1978 not digitized. Classification: DA. Contemporaneous press reporting confirmed; original proceedings not accessible.

RTI Target: Haryana Vidhan Sabha Secretariat, Chandigarh.

E.5 Saini DGP Appointment (14 March 2012, effective 15 March 2012)

Correction applied: Earlier versions stated simply "15 March 2012." The more precise formulation — appointed 14 March 2012, with effect from 15 March 2012 — is confirmed by TOI reporting from the period.

Sumedh Singh Saini (1982 IPS batch) appointed DGP Punjab, superseding four to five more-senior officers. TOI described as government's first decision. Sources: Times of India (March 2012); Indian Express (March 2012); Wikipedia (Sumedh Singh Saini entry). Classification: PF — Tier 2 (government appointment; reported immediately on the date).

E.6 Multani Murder — FIR No. 77 (6 May 2020)

FIR No. 77, dated 6 May 2020, registered against Sumedh Singh Saini under IPC Sections 364, 201, 344, and 330 in the Balwant Singh Multani murder case. Section 302 (murder) added 21 August 2020 by JMFC Rasveen Kaur. Confirmed in SC order 2020 SCC OnLine SC 986. Classification: PF — Tier 1 (SC judgment cites FIR number and section additions).

E.7 Charges Framed Against Saini — Ludhiana Disappearance Case

Correction applied: Earlier versions stated "CBI chargesheet January 2007." The correct description: charges of kidnapping and criminal conspiracy (IPC Sections 364 and 120-B) were framed by trial court in December 2006/January 2007 in the Ludhiana Triple Disappearance Case. The CBI case was registered separately; the charge-framing occurred in December 2006/January 2007.

Source: Harvard/Ensaaf blog (7 December 2006) — archive.blogs.harvard.edu/jaskaran/2006/12/07/charges-framed-against-inspector-general-saini-and-three-officers-i/ Classification: PF — Tier 2 (contemporaneous documentation by Ensaaf).

E.8 Akal Takht — Tankhaiya and Tankhah

Correction applied: Earlier versions conflated these two distinct events.

Tankhaiya (guilty of religious misconduct) declared: 30 August 2024. Formal tankhah (punishment) pronounced: 2 December 2024. Required Sukhbir to serve publicly as sewadar at Golden Temple entrance while wearing a sign acknowledging his transgressions — publicly carried out, publicly photographed.

Sources: TheQuint (organiser.org/2024/08/31/254268/); Tribune India; multiple photographed press reports. Classification: PF — Tier 2. Public, photographed event; multiple independent sources.

E.9 Ram Rahim Pardon and Revocation (September–October 2015)

Five Takht Jathedars exonerated Ram Rahim: 24 September 2015. No personal appearance required — reportedly the first time in Sikh history such a pardon was issued without the accused's physical presence. Pardon revoked: 16–17 October 2015. Panj Piaras suspended and dismissed for "violating service rules." Sources: DailyO; Tribune India; Wikipedia (Giani Gurbachan Singh). Classification: PF — Tier 2.

E.10 Ramesh Inder Singh DC Amritsar Appointment

Took charge as DC Amritsar: 4 June 1984 — corrected from "3 June 1984" in all prior versions. Replaced DC Gurdev Singh Brar who went on leave. Sources: DNA India; Sikh24 (sikh24.com/2019/06/03/after-35-years-ex-dc-ramesh-inder-says-he-didnt-give-permission-for-operation-blue-star/ — title references 35th anniversary as article was published 3 June 2019, reporting on events of 4 June 1984). Classification: PF — Tier 2. Corrected date confirmed.

E.11 Badal Detention Under NSA — Corrected Date

Correction applied: Earlier versions stated "arrested under the NSA in September 1984." Contemporary accounts and available evidence place detention beginning on or about 10 June 1984, in the immediate aftermath of Operation Blue Star. He was not in jail during the assault itself (1–10 June 1984). Release confirmed: March 1986.

Sources: contemporaneous accounts; Encyclopaedia Britannica (Parkash Singh Badal entry); Wikipedia. Classification: PF — Tier 2 for detention beginning June 1984 and release March 1986.

E.12 SGPC Last Elections and Current Status

Last general elections to SGPC held: 18 September 2011. SAD-Sant Samaj coalition won 157 of 170 elected seats. Avtar Singh Makkar served multiple terms as SGPC president from this House. Harjinder Singh Dhami followed, serving four consecutive terms. As of March 2026: fifteen years without mandatory elections — three complete five-year cycles missed. No court stay; no Parliamentary suspension; no emergency provision invoked. Sources: Tribune India; Punjab Pulse; SGPC official (sgpc.net). Classification: PF — Tier 2.

E.13 SGPC Jathedar Removals 2025

• Giani Harpreet Singh removed as Akal Takht Jathedar: 10 February 2025. Tribune India.

• Giani Sultan Singh (Damdama Sahib Takht) removed: 7 March 2025. Tribune India; Daily Pioneer; PTI.

• Giani Raghbir Singh removed: 7 March 2025. ThePrint (article 2538831); Tribune India.

All three had participated in Sukhbir Badal's tankhaiya proceedings. Classification: PF — Tier 2. Multiple independent news sources confirmed.

E.14 Giani Raghbir Singh — "Hub of Corruption" Statement

Press conference, Jalandhar, 18 February 2026. Statement: "The management of the affairs of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee have been vested with one family for many years and the SGPC has been turned into a hub of corruption under the patronage of the Badal family." Sources: Punjab News Express article 319266 (punjabnewsexpress.com); Tribune India (tribuneindia.com/news/amritsar/akal-takht-ex-jathedar-accuses-sgpc-badal-family-of-irregularities/). Classification: PF — Tier 2. Public named statement; multiple independent sources.

E.15 Harsimrat Kaur Badal — Cabinet and Electoral Record

Elected to Lok Sabha from Bathinda: 2009, 2014, 2019, 2024 (four consecutive terms). Union Cabinet Minister for Food Processing Industries: May 2014 to 17 September 2020 (resigned over Farm Acts). Re-elected from Bathinda 2024. Classification: PF — Tier 1 (Election Commission of India official records; Union Government Cabinet records).

E.16 Sacrilege FIRs (2015)

• FIR No. 63/2015: Guru Granth Sahib stolen, Burj Jawahar Singh Wala, Faridkot, 1 June 2015.

• FIR No. 117/2015: Derogatory posters, Burj Jawahar Singh Wala, 24–25 September 2015.

• FIR No. 128/2015: Over 110 torn pages, Bargari village, Faridkot, 12 October 2015.

Classification: PF — Tier 1 (FIR numbers confirmed in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report).

E.17 K.B.S. Sidhu — SYL De-Notification

Revenue Commissioner K.B.S. Sidhu signed the SYL land de-notification on 15 November 2016 — five days after the SC struck down the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act as unconstitutional. Sources: Wikipedia; kbssidhu.substack.com. Classification: PF — Tier 2.

E.18 Punjab Wakf Board — Alam Chairmanship

Alam's formal Wakf Board chairmanship confirmed from court proceedings (Indian Kanoon: indiankanoon.org/doc/43939498/). SAD induction confirmed in Hindustan Times obituary (6 July 2021). Punjab Waqf Board official website: waqf.punjab.gov.in. Chairmanship beginning: 4 January 2010. Classification: PF — Tier 1/2.

E.19 Farzana Nissara Khatoon — Malerkotla 2012 Result

"F. Nesara Khatoon" (ballot name). SAD candidate. Malerkotla constituency, 2012 Punjab Assembly Elections. Votes: 56,618. Margin: approximately 5,200. Election Commission of India official result: elections.in/punjab/assembly-constituencies/malerkotla.html Classification: PF — Tier 1 (Election Commission official record).

SECTION F · HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS AND INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTATION

F.1 HRW/Ensaaf — "Protecting the Killers: A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India"

Published: 17 October 2007. 123 pages. Joint report: Human Rights Watch and Ensaaf. Asia Director Brad Adams: "Impunity in India has been rampant in Punjab." Key conclusion: extrajudicial killings in Punjab were "not aberrations" but "the product of a deliberate policy known to high-ranking security personnel and members of the civil administrations in Punjab and New Delhi."

Full text: hrw.org/report/2007/10/17/protecting-killers/policy-impunity-punjab-india Alternative printable version: hrw.org/node/255307/printable/print

Classification: PF — Tier 2 (peer-reviewed; systematic methodology; internationally recognized human rights organization). Establishes DA for named officer allegations; AI for overall policy characterization. One of the three pre-Saini-appointment public-domain sources establishing constructive knowledge.

F.2 Ensaaf/HRDAG — "Violent Deaths and Enforced Disappearances During the Counterinsurgency in Punjab, India" (January 2009)

Full statistical analysis using 20,000+ records, employing HRDAG (Human Rights Data Analysis Group) multiple systems estimation methodology. Found that intensification of counterinsurgency in early 1990s was "accompanied by a shift in state violence from targeted lethal human rights violations to systematic enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions, accompanied by mass 'illegal cremations.'" PDF: hrdag.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ensaaf_report_48pp_2009.pdf Classification: PF — Tier 2 (peer-reviewed statistical methodology).

F.3 Amnesty International — "India: Human Rights Violations in Punjab: Use and Abuse of the Law" (May 1991)

ASA 20/11/91. Documented: arbitrary detention; torture methods including rolling heavy logs over thighs, electric shocks, sexual violence, suspension; disappearances; extrajudicial killings. DGP Punjab issued order on 30 August 1989 promising financial rewards for the "liquidation" of 53 named men. Of 173 armed clashes reported in Indian media in 1990: 346 Sikhs killed vs. 25 security force members — indicating encounters were not genuine combats. India denied Amnesty access to Punjab since 1978. Classification: PF — Tier 2 (AI official ASA-numbered report).

F.4 Ensaaf Perpetrator Database

data.ensaaf.org — systematic documentation of specific perpetrators:

• Sumedh Singh Saini dossier: data.ensaaf.org/official/S0001/detail/ — documented association with at least 150 cases of forced disappearances and unlawful killings.

• Mohammad Izhar Alam dossier: data.ensaaf.org/official/S0002/detail/ — primary source for US cable text on Alam Sena.

Classification: DA — Tier 2 (Ensaaf systematic documentation; methodology described in HRDAG 2009 report). One of three pre-Saini-appointment public-domain sources on Saini's record.

F.5 HRW Letter to NHRC (1 November 2005)

Human Rights Watch letter to the National Human Rights Commission of India documenting failures in the NHRC Punjab cremations proceedings. hrw.org/news/2005/11/01/letter-human-rights-watch-national-human-rights-commission-india Classification: PF — Tier 2.

F.6 Punjab Documentation and Advocacy Project (PDAP)

10+ year investigation visiting 1,600+ villages. Documented at least 6,733 cases of disappearances and illegal cremations. Filed writ petition in Punjab and Haryana HC (December 2019) detailing 8,000+ disappearances. Classification: DA — Tier 2/3. PDAP is an advocacy organization; methodology not independently peer-reviewed to HRDAG standard.

F.7 US State Department — Annual Human Rights Reports on India (1991–1993)

Cited in multiple secondary sources for documentation of extrajudicial killings and cash bounties in Punjab. Specific volume and page references for the "41,000 cash bounties" figure need independent verification from the annual reports themselves. Classification: DA — Tier 2 (State Department reports are official; specific citation not independently verified to Tier 1).

F.8 US Congressional Record (7 August 1998)

Documents that Badal government spent over Rs 2 crore on legal fees to protect police officers involved in mass killings. Cited in secondary Sikh advocacy sources. Classification: DA — Tier 2. Congressional Record is a primary US government document; specific entry needs direct verification.

SECTION G · NEWS AND JOURNALISM SOURCES

G.1 Tribune India (Independent trust-run publication, Chandigarh — Tier 2 throughout)

• "Badal govt acquired land for SYL to please Devi Lal: Capt." tribuneindia.com/news/archive/community/badal-govt-acquired-land-for-syl-to-please-devi-lal-capt-272792/ [SYL]

• "Akal Takht ex-jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh accuses SGPC, Badal family of irregularities." tribuneindia.com/news/amritsar/akal-takht-ex-jathedar-accuses-sgpc-badal-family-of-irregularities/ [Raghbir Singh statement]

• "High Court allows anticipatory bail to Sukhbir Badal, Sumedh Saini, Paramraj Umranangal in Kotkapura, Behbal Kalan firing cases." tribuneindia.com — 548817 [Anticipatory bail]

• "In letter to Akal Takht, Sukhbir Badal seeks pardon for Akali govt's Dera head, Sumedh Saini 'mistakes.'" tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/in-letter-to-takht-sukhbir-seeks-pardon-for-sad-govts-dera-head-saini-mistakes/ [Sukhbir letter — PF]

• "SGPC retires Golden Temple head granthi days after he flagged 'graft.'" tribuneindia.com/news/amritsar/sgpc-retires-golden-temple-head-granthi-days-after-he-flagged-graft/ [SGPC corruption]

• Siropa ceremony November 8, 2011 reporting — confirming Alam siropa date. [PF]

• K.B.S. Sidhu SYL de-notification confirmation. [PF]

G.2 Hindustan Times (Tier 2)

• "Jathedars who were shown the door abruptly" (March 2025). hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/jathedars-who-were-shown-the-door-abruptly-101741463229654.html [Jathedar removal pattern — PF]

• "Kotkapura firing: SIT files supplementary chargesheet with govt sanction to prosecute Badals, 6 cops." hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/punjab-police-firing-case-supplementary-chargesheet-against-badals-filed-101682412440715.html [Chargesheet — PF]

• "Behbal Kalan police firing: Three years on, SIT yet to file a fresh chargesheet." hindustantimes.com — 101713900385669 [Behbal Kalan status]

• "Land deal cemented Badal-Chautala family ties" — Orbit Resorts/Balasar farm. [DA]

G.3 Indian Express (Tier 2)

• "Amarinder says Badal acquired land for SYL, releases documents." indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/amarinder-says-badal-acquired-land-for-syl-releases-documents-2941631/ [DA — Amarinder letters]

• "How do SGPC elections work? Why have they not been held in 13 years?" indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-politics/how-do-sgpc-elections-work-why-have-they-not-been-held-in-13-years-9628410/ [PF — SGPC election gap]

• "SIT files challan in Kotkapura firing case, Sukhbir Singh Badal & Sumedh Singh Saini named as masterminds of conspiracy." Indian Express Chandigarh — Kotkapura chargesheet. [PF — chargesheet report]

G.4 Times of India (Tier 2)

• "Did Badals blunder by making Sumedh Singh Saini Punjab top cop in 2012?" timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ludhiana/did-badals-blunder-by-making-sumedh-singh-saini-punjab-top-cop-in-2012/articleshow/78075071.cms [Saini appointment — PF]

• "Behbal Kalan firing: SIT files 300-page chargesheet against former SSP." timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/behbal-kalan-firing-sit-files-300-page-chargesheet-against-former-ssp/articleshow/69033462.cms [Behbal Kalan — PF]

• "SYL Link Canal Land Bill gets passed in Punjab Assembly." timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/syl-link-canal-land-bill-gets-passed-in-punjab-assembly/articleshow/51402167.cms [SYL de-notification]

G.5 Business Standard / PTI (Tier 2)

• "SYL: Dispute continues for 61 years after 1st agreement in 1955." business-standard.com — 116111001267_1.html [SYL notification numbers — corroborating DA]

• Amarinder press conference documents on SYL (28 July 2016). [DA — Amarinder letters]

G.6 The Caravan (Long-form investigative journalism — Tier 2)

• "His modus-operandi was to create a fear psychosis: Ex-Punjab DGP Sumedh Saini's shadowy career." caravanmagazine.in/crime/sumedh-singh-saini-dgp-punjab-police-balwant-multani-murder [Primary source for Multani case details and UN Rapporteur A/HRC/23/47/Add.1 text reproduction — PF]

• "Ex-DGP Sumedh Saini charged with murder after cops turn approvers in extra-judicial killing case." caravanmagazine.in/news/sumedh-saini-dgp-punjab-extra-judicial-killing-balwant-multani-murder-cops-approvers [PF]

G.7 ThePrint (Tier 2)

• "SGPC removes 2 more Jathedars who took action against Badal amid Akal Takht-Akali Dal tussle." theprint.in/india/sgpc-removes-2-more-jathedars — article 2538831 [PF — March 2025 removals]

• ThePrint article 557568 — Saini CBI case reporting. [PF]

G.8 Sikh24.com (Tier 2/3)

• "Izhar Alam of Alam Sena Honored by Parkash Badal." sikh24.com/2011/11/08/izhar-alam-of-alam-sena-honored-by-parkash-badal/ (8 November 2011) [Siropa event — PF for event occurrence, DA for full characterization]

• "After 35 years, Amritsar's Ex-DC Ramesh Inder says he didn't give permission for Operation Blue Star." sikh24.com/2019/06/03/ [Confirms 4 June 1984 DC appointment date — PF]

• Sikh24 on Case No. 12-C-0806 and ATCA summons. [PF]

G.9 Punjab News Express (Tier 2)

• "SGPC turned into hub of corruption under patronage of Badal family: Giani Raghbir Singh, former Akal Takht Jathedar." Article 319266. punjabnewsexpress.com/punjab/news/sgpc-turned-into-hub-of-corruption-under-patronage-of-badal-family-giani-raghbir-singh-former-akal-takht-jathedar-319266 [PF — February 2026 statement]

G.10 Sikh Siyasat News (Tier 2/3)

• Alam SAD Vice-President September 2014. sikhsiyasat.net/tag/izhar-alam/ [PF]

• Kotkapura Saini named as accused. sikhsiyasat.net/sumedh-saini-named-as-accused-in-kotkapura-firing-case/ [PF]

G.11 DailyO (Tier 2)

• "Akali Dal in deep crisis: Who had pardoned Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in 2015?" dailyo.in/politics/who-had-pardoned-guru-ram-rahim-singh-in-a-blasphemy-row-in-2015-crisis-in-akali-dal-26578 [Ram Rahim pardon — PF]

• "Why Punjab CM Amarinder Singh's 'report' card puts SAD on the back foot" (on Justice Ranjit Singh Commission). [DA]

G.12 Mpositive.in (Tier 2)

• "Punjab Police ex-DGP prisons, Mohd Izhar Alam passes away." mpositive.in — (death 6 July 2021) [PF]

G.13 NewsClick / FACTLY / PUDR — Chattisinghpura/Pathribal (Tier 2)

• NewsClick: "Pathribal: A Timeline of 18 Years of Injustice." newsclick.in/pathribal-timeline-18-years-injustice

• FACTLY: "Denial and Impunity: Indian Army on the Pathribal Encounter." factly.in/denial-impunity-indian-army-pathribal-encounter/

• PUDR: "Pathribal Killing: Requiem for Justice Denied." pudr.org/press-statements/pathribal-killing-requiem-for-justice-denied/

G.14 Asia Samachar (Tier 2)

• "How ex-Punjab DGP Sumedh Saini used fear psychosis." asiasamachar.com/2020/06/02/ [Saini career — PF]

G.15 Free Press Journal (Tier 2)

• "Punjab: SAD Chief Sukhbir Badal Apologizes For Mistakes, Including Favoring Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh And Appointing Sumedh Saini As DGP." freepressjournal.in — independent corroboration of Sukhbir letter contents. [PF — corroboration]

G.16 SCC Online / SCC Times (Tier 1/2)

• "1991 Balwant Singh Multani disappearance: SC grants anticipatory bail to Punjab's former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in a fresh FIR alleging murder." scconline.com/blog/post/2020/12/05/ [PF]

G.17 Organiser (Tier 2)

• "Punjab: Akal Takht declares Sukhbir Badal 'tankhaiya' for 'religious misconduct' as deputy CM." organiser.org/2024/08/31/254268/ [PF — tankhaiya declaration]

G.18 Encyclopaedia Britannica (Tier 2)

• "Parkash Singh Badal." britannica.com/biography/Parkash-Singh-Badal — CM terms (1970–71, 1977–80, 1997–2002, 2007–12, 2012–17); detention following Blue Star; release March 1986. [PF — Tier 2 for biographical facts]

G.19 DNA India (Tier 2)

• Article confirming Ramesh Inder Singh became DC Amritsar on 4 June 1984 — this is the primary correction source for the "3 June" error in all prior versions of this audit. [PF — correction source]

G.20 Harvard/Ensaaf Blog (Tier 2)

• "Charges Framed against Inspector General Saini and Three Officers in 12-year-old Disappearance Case." archive.blogs.harvard.edu/jaskaran/2006/12/07/charges-framed-against-inspector-general-saini-and-three-officers-i/ — This is one of the three pre-Saini-appointment public-domain sources. Published 7 December 2006, documenting charge-framing. [PF — Tier 2]

G.21 KBS Sidhu Substack (Tier 1 for self-attestation of Sidhu's own career; Tier 2 for general Punjab analysis)

Karan Bir Singh Sidhu, former DC Amritsar and former SGPC official, writes publicly on Substack about events in which he was personally involved — making this a primary self-attestation source for his own career:

• "The River Waters Issue: SYL — A Chronicle." kbssidhu.substack.com/p/the-river-waters-issue-syl-a-chronicle [Tier 1 for SYL events he participated in]

• "Does the Jathedar Akal Takht Hold a Constitutional or Statutory Position?" kbssidhu.substack.com/p/does-the-jathedar-akal-takht-hold [Tier 2]

• "The Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan Firing Cases: Ten Years of Deliberate, Systemic Denial of Justice." kbssidhu.substack.com/p/the-kotkapura-and-behbal-kalan-firing [Tier 2]

• "Supreme Court Upholds Transfer of Behbal Kalan Firing Case to Chandigarh." kbssidhu.substack.com/p/supreme-court-upholds-transfer-of [PF]

• DC Amritsar tenure (May 1992 – August 1996): confirmed in his own Substack posts alongside kpsgill.com. [PF — self-attestation]

• Special Chief Secretary retirement July 2021: kbssidhu.substack.com [PF — self-attestation]

G.22 kpsgill.com Related Audits (Tier 1 — companion forensic audits)

• Chittisinghpura, Pathribal, and the Clinton Visit Audit — kpsgill.com (2026)

• The Construction of Sikh Political Identity in the United States — kpsgill.com (2026)

• Punjab '95 and the Silence of KBS Sidhu — kpsgill.com/KPSGILL/punjab-95-and-the-silence-of-kbs-sidhu [Tier 1 — foundational audit on KBS Sidhu]

• The Smoothness of the Unrepentant — Karanbir Singh Sidhu IAS — kpsgill.com

G.23 Published Books (Tier 1 — named authors, publishers, ISBNs)

• Ramesh Inder Singh. Turmoil in Punjab: Before and After Blue Star — An Insider's Story. HarperCollins India, 2022. ISBN 9789354899065. 572 pages. Released 20 June 2022. [PF — Tier 1]

• Kuldip Nayar and Khushwant Singh. Tragedy of Punjab. Vision Books, 1984. Pages 79/96. Source for Rajiv Gandhi's statement about approximately 700 military casualties (NSUI Nagpur, September 1984). [DA — Tier 1 published book; statement itself is secondhand account of public claim]

SECTION H · REFERENCE DATABASES AND DOCUMENT REPOSITORIES

Database

URL

Use in This Audit

Tier

India Code

indiacode.nic.in

All Indian statutes — primary text

1

Indian Kanoon

indiankanoon.org

Full-text court judgments

1

PRS India

prsindia.org

Parliamentary bills and acts tracking — 2016 SGPC Amendment Act

1

Ensaaf Data

data.ensaaf.org

Perpetrator dossiers (S0001 Saini; S0002 Alam)

2

IELRC

ielrc.org/content/e0214.pdf

State of Haryana v. State of Punjab (2002) full text

1

HRDAG

hrdag.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ensaaf_report_48pp_2009.pdf

Ensaaf 2009 statistical report

2

ICC

icc-cpi.int

Rome Statute official text

1

OHCHR

ohchr.org

UN treaty body database; ICCPR India accession 10 April 1979

1

Justia (US)

justia.com

Yamashita (1946), Global-Tech (2011), ATCA case texts

1

Cornell LII

law.cornell.edu

Alien Tort Statute 28 U.S.C. §1350

1

National Archives India

nationalarchives.nic.in

Blue Star administrative files — RTI target

Target

Punjab Waqf Board

waqf.punjab.gov.in

Alam chairmanship confirmation

1

Elections India

elections.in

Malerkotla 2012 result

1

Panjab Digital Library

panjabdigilib.org

Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report PDF

1

Sikh Missionary Society (UK)

sikhmissionarysociety.org

Anandpur Sahib Resolution authenticated text PDF

1/2

MHA

mha.gov.in

Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 PDF; 2003 notification

1

MEA (Constitution PDF)

mea.gov.in/images/pdf1/S7.pdf

Seventh Schedule — Entry 17 and Entry 56

1

PAU

pau.edu

Punjab Agricultural University founding 1962

2

Chandigarh Citizens Foundation

chandigarhcitizensfoundation.com

Ramesh Inder Singh Padma Shri

2

SlideShare (HC Order)

slideshare.net/slideshow/cwp-17459-201909042021finalorder

CWP No. 17459/2019 order text

1/2

SECTION I · COMPLETE PROVED FINDINGS REGISTER [PF]

Every Proved Finding in this audit, sequenced by subject area, with corrected source tier.

#

Proved Finding

Source / Tier

Correction if Any

PF-01

Section 78(1) Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966: exact statutory text

India Code — Tier 1

—

PF-02

Entry 17 State List (water) and Entry 56 Union List: exact constitutional text

MEA Constitution PDF — Tier 1

—

PF-03

1976 Emergency allocation: Punjab 3.5 MAF (22%); Haryana 3.5 MAF; Rajasthan 8.60 MAF; Delhi 0.20 MAF

Govt gazette; KBS Sidhu Substack — Tier 2

—

PF-04

Punjab accepted money from Haryana for SYL land acquisition

SC (2002) 2 SCC 507 — Tier 1

—

PF-05

State of Haryana v. State of Punjab (2002) 2 SCC 507, 15 January 2002: SC directed Punjab to complete SYL within one year; cited 1978 Badal correspondence against Punjab

Indian Kanoon; IELRC — Tier 1

—

PF-06

In Re: Punjab Termination of Agreements Act (10 November 2016): five-judge bench struck down Act as unconstitutional

Business Standard; LiveLaw — Tier 2

SCC citation pending direct verification

PF-07

SYL de-notification signed by K.B.S. Sidhu as Revenue Commissioner, 15 November 2016

Wikipedia; KBS Sidhu Substack — Tier 2

—

PF-08

Punjab Suit No. 2 of 1979 filed 11 July 1979; challenged 1976 notification and Section 78; withdrawn 31 December 1981 under Darbara Singh

SC (2002) 2 SCC 507 citing the suit and withdrawal — Tier 1

Corrected from earlier "never challenged Section 78" — that was incorrect

PF-09

Nirankari clash, 13 April 1978, Baisakhi Day, Amritsar: 13 Sikhs killed, 3 Nirankaris killed, 70+ injured

Multiple corroborated accounts — Tier 2

—

PF-10

Sessions Court Karnal acquitted all Nirankari accused, 4 January 1980

Tribune India archive; Wikipedia — Tier 2

—

PF-11

No Section 378 CrPC appeal was filed against the Nirankari acquittal

Negative fact; no record of appeal found — PF by documented omission

—

PF-12

Dal Khalsa founding: decision 6 August 1978, announcement 13 August 1978

Sikh Siyasat News; World Sikh News — Tier 2

—

PF-13

Anandpur Sahib Resolution endorsed at 18th All India Akali Conference, Ludhiana, 28–29 October 1978, by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal

SATP; Sikh Missionary Society UK — Tier 1/2

—

PF-14

ASR preamble: Punjab described as "an integral part of the Union of India"

Authenticated text — Tier 1

—

PF-15

Badal governed Punjab for nearly nineteen years across five CM terms; zero ASR demands met

Election Commission records; Encyclopaedia Britannica — Tier 2

Corrected from "twenty-three years" throughout

PF-16

White Paper on Punjab Agitation (10 July 1984): official 575 total deaths figure

Indian Parliament eLibrary — Tier 1

—

PF-17

Operation Blue Star targeted 40+ Gurdwaras across Punjab simultaneously

White Paper; Encyclopaedia Britannica — Tier 1/2

—

PF-18

Akal Takht destroyed by tank fire; Sikh Reference Library destroyed 6–14 June 1984

White Paper; Ramesh Inder Singh book — Tier 1/2

—

PF-19

Ramesh Inder Singh became DC Amritsar on 4 June 1984 (not 3 June)

DNA India; Sikh24 (2019) — Tier 2

Corrected from "3 June 1984" in all prior versions

PF-20

Ramesh Inder Singh's memoir: HarperCollins India 2022, ISBN 9789354899065

Published book — Tier 1

—

PF-21

Ramesh Inder Singh served as Chief Secretary Punjab 2007–2009; received Padma Shri

Chandigarh Citizens Foundation — Tier 2

—

PF-22

Badal detained on or about 10 June 1984, in the immediate aftermath of Operation Blue Star, under NSA; released March 1986

Contemporaneous accounts; Encyclopaedia Britannica — Tier 2

Corrected from "arrested under NSA in September 1984"

PF-23

Nanavati Commission: approximately 2,733 Sikhs killed in Delhi, November 1984

Commission report — Tier 1

—

PF-24

Khalra documented 2,097 cremations using firewood registers at three Amritsar crematoria

CBI investigation confirmed; SC in Paramjit Kaur — Tier 1

—

PF-25

CBI fifth report (9 December 1996): 585 fully identified, 274 partially identified, 1,238 unidentified

CBI report to SC — Tier 1

—

PF-26

SC in Paramjit Kaur v. Punjab (12 December 1996): "flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale"

Indian Kanoon doc/1538237 — Tier 1

—

PF-27

Khalra abducted 6 September 1995

SC judgment text; Wikipedia — Tier 1/2

—

PF-28

Six Punjab Police officials convicted for Khalra's murder, 18 November 2005

Court records; Tribune India — Tier 1/2

—

PF-29

HC enhanced sentences to life imprisonment, 16 October 2007 (Criminal Revision Petition 323/2006)

Indian Kanoon — Tier 1

—

PF-30

SC upheld life sentences in Prithipal Singh v. Punjab (2012) 1 SCC 10, decided 4 November 2011

Indian Kanoon doc/342168 — Tier 1

Corrected from "April 11, 2011"

PF-31

DGP Virk's press conference admission about faked deaths of 300+ informer-militants: 19 February 2006

Press contemporaneous reporting; HRW 2007 — Tier 2

Corrected from "NHRC proceedings"

PF-32

NHRC Case 1/97: closed approximately April 2012; Rs 27.40–27.94 crore to 1,513 families; no criminal investigation recommended; "application of balm" characterization

NHRC order; HRW 2007 — Tier 1/2

—

PF-33

K.B.S. Sidhu: DC Amritsar May 1992 – August 1996

kpsgill.com; Sidhu's own Substack — Tier 1/2

—

PF-34

K.B.S. Sidhu retired Special Chief Secretary Punjab July 2021

Sidhu's own Substack — Tier 1 (self-attestation)

—

PF-35

Saini appointed DGP Punjab on 14 March 2012, with effect from 15 March 2012, superseding four to five officers

TOI March 2012; Wikipedia — Tier 2

Corrected from bare "15 March 2012"

PF-36

Charges framed against Saini in Ludhiana disappearance case December 2006/January 2007

Harvard/Ensaaf blog 7 December 2006 — Tier 2

Corrected from "CBI chargesheet January 2007"

PF-37

Multani FIR No. 77 registered 6 May 2020; Section 302 added 21 August 2020

SC judgment 2020 SCC OnLine SC 986 — Tier 1

—

PF-38

SC granted Saini anticipatory bail 3 December 2020 (Criminal Appeal 827/2020)

Indian Kanoon doc/66168928 — Tier 1

—

PF-39

UN Rapporteur A/HRC/23/47/Add.1 named Saini by name: "promoted in March 2012 to Director General of Police in Punjab"

UN official document; The Caravan — Tier 1/2

—

PF-40

HRW/Ensaaf "Protecting the Killers" published 17 October 2007, 123 pages

HRW website — Tier 2

—

PF-41

CM Badal's 2 AM call to DGP Saini on 14 October 2015: confirmed by Saini's own written reply to the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission

Saini's written statement — Tier 1 (own admission)

Primary admission — not third-party allegation

PF-42

20 CDR calls between Saini and Umranangal, 4 AM to 9:23 AM, 14 October 2015

SIT chargesheet; Tribune India — Tier 2

—

PF-43

Umranangal deployed to Kotkapura outside his jurisdictional assignment without formal deputation order

SIT chargesheet — Tier 2

—

PF-44

Behbal Kalan firing: Gurjeet Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh killed, 14 October 2015; no civil authority permission documented

Commission report; FIR records — Tier 1/2

—

PF-45

Justice Ranjit Singh Commission constituted 14 April 2017, Notification 7/213/2013-3H4/1415, under Section 11 Commission of Inquiry Act 1952

Commission report — Tier 1

—

PF-46

Commission found: firing "without any warning" and "without taking permission from civil authorities"

Commission report — Tier 1

—

PF-47

Commission reported findings pointing to Dera Sacha Sauda's involvement in sacrilege incidents

Commission report — Tier 1 (commission finding status, not final criminal adjudication)

—

PF-48

Commission found: DGP Saini "ordered firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura"

Commission report — Tier 1

—

PF-49

Sacrilege FIRs: 63/2015 (1 June), 117/2015 (24–25 September), 128/2015 (12 October 2015)

Commission report — Tier 1

—

PF-50

HC quashing: CWP No. 17459 of 2019 (O&M) (Civil Writ Petition), decided 9 April 2021, Justice Rajbir Sehrawat

HC order; Hindustan Times — Tier 1/2

Corrected from "CRM-M-17459/19"

PF-51

Kotkapura main SIT chargesheet: 7,000 pages, filed 24 February 2023, FIR No. 129/2018, PS Kotkapura City

Tribune India; Indian Express; Hindustan Times — Tier 2

Corrected: this was the main chargesheet, not "supplementary"

PF-52

Kotkapura supplementary chargesheet: approximately 2,400 pages, filed 25 April 2023 — the day of Badal's death

Tribune India — Tier 2

Corrected chronology throughout

PF-53

Eight accused named in Kotkapura chargesheet including Parkash Badal (alleged facilitator) and Sukhbir Badal (SIT's principal conspiratorial actor characterization)

Chargesheet reports — Tier 2

"Mastermind" is SIT's prosecutorial framing, not adjudicated finding

PF-54

IPC charges in Kotkapura case: §§307, 324, 323, 341, 427, 504, 120-B, 34, 119, 109, 153, 295-A; Arms Act §27

Chargesheet — Tier 2

—

PF-55

Badal died 25 April 2023, Fortis Hospital, Mohali, aged 95; Kotkapura proceedings against him personally abated

Tribune India; TOI — Tier 2

—

PF-56

Sukhbir granted anticipatory bail: 2023:PHHC:126975, 29 September 2023

Tribune India — Tier 2

—

PF-57

No charges framed in Kotkapura or Behbal Kalan as of March 2026

KBS Sidhu Substack; Tribune India — Tier 2

—

PF-58

Behbal Kalan April 2019 SIT chargesheet: 300-page, vs ex-SSP Charanjit Singh Sharma

TOI — Tier 2

—

PF-59

SC in General Officer Commanding v. CBI (AIR 2012 SC 1890): recounted and proceeded on fact of thirty-five Sikh men killed at Chittisinghpura

Legal Vidhiya — Tier 1/2

"Recounted and proceeded on the fact" — not "confirmed" the massacre's authorship

PF-60

CBI chargesheet 9 May 2006 (Pathribal): characterized killings as "cold-blooded murders"

NewsClick; FACTLY — Tier 2

FIR No. 59/2000 cited consistently but not independently verified to Tier 1

PF-61

DNA confirmation by CDFD Hyderabad and CFSL Kolkata: five Pathribal killed were local Kashmiri civilians

Multiple confirmed sources — Tier 2

—

PF-62

Badal was CM Punjab 12 February 1997 – 26 February 2002 at time of Chittisinghpura massacre

Election Commission records — Tier 1

—

PF-63

No documentary evidence of any Badal government formal demand for independent Chittisinghpura/Pathribal inquiry

Absence of record — PF by documented omission

—

PF-64

SGPC Sections 48 and 62: mandatory five-year election cycles

MHA-hosted Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 PDF — Tier 1

—

PF-65

Jathedar position not mentioned in Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925; Section 43(1)(II) refers to "Head Ministers"

Statutory text — Tier 1

—

PF-66

2003 MHA notification File No. 1702/3/2001-IS-VI (8 October 2003): excluded sehajdhari voters from SGPC rolls — issued under Section 72(1) Punjab Reorganisation Act; amended Sections 49 and 92 of Sikh Gurdwaras Act

HC judgment Indian Kanoon doc/43587527 — Tier 1

Corrected from "Schedule III"

PF-67

HC struck down 2003 notification: Sehajdhari Sikh Federation v. UoI, CWP 17771/2003, 20 December 2011, Full Bench

Indian Kanoon doc/43587527 — Tier 1

—

PF-68

Sikh Gurdwaras Amendment Act 2016 (Act 21 of 2016): passed, notified 5 May 2016, retrospective from 8 October 2003

PRS India — Tier 1

—

PF-69

SGPC last general elections: 18 September 2011; SAD-Sant Samaj won 157/170 seats

Tribune India; SGPC official — Tier 2

—

PF-70

15 years without mandatory SGPC elections as of March 2026

Multiple confirmed sources — Tier 2

—

PF-71

Alam inducted into SAD and appointed Wakf Board Chairman: 18 November 2009; formal chairmanship from 4 January 2010

Hindustan Times obituary; Punjab Waqf Board — Tier 2

—

PF-72

Siropa to Alam by Badal: 6 November 2011 (photographed event, reported 8 November 2011)

Sikh24 — Tier 2/3

—

PF-73

Farzana Nissara Khatoon won Malerkotla 2012 on SAD ticket: 56,618 votes

Election Commission India — Tier 1

—

PF-74

Sukhbir named Alam SAD Vice-President September 2014

Sikh Siyasat News — Tier 2

—

PF-75

Alam died 6 July 2021; never charged with any Alam Sena offence

Mpositive.in — Tier 2

—

PF-76

Sukhbir's sealed letter 24 July 2024 (public 5 August 2024): admitted Ram Rahim favour, Saini appointment, sacrilege/firing failures

Tribune India; Free Press Journal — Tier 2

Most important single primary admission in audit

PF-77

Ram Rahim pardon: 24 September 2015 (without personal appearance)

DailyO; Tribune India — Tier 2

—

PF-78

Ram Rahim pardon revoked 16–17 October 2015; Panj Piaras dismissed for "violating service rules"

Tribune India; Sikh Siyasat News — Tier 2

—

PF-79

Vedanti removed as Jathedar 2008 after issuing Dera anathematization

Tribune India; Hindustan Times — Tier 2

—

PF-80

Tankhaiya declared 30 August 2024; tankhah pronounced 2 December 2024

TheQuint; Tribune India — Tier 2

Corrected: tankhaiya and tankhah are distinct events on distinct dates

PF-81

Giani Harpreet Singh removed 10 February 2025; Giani Sultan Singh and Giani Raghbir Singh removed 7 March 2025

Tribune India; ThePrint 2538831 — Tier 2

—

PF-82

Giani Raghbir Singh: "SGPC turned into hub of corruption under patronage of Badal family" (18 February 2026)

Punjab News Express 319266 — Tier 2

—

PF-83

Harsimrat Kaur Badal elected Lok Sabha Bathinda: 2009, 2014, 2019, 2024

Election Commission India — Tier 1

—

PF-84

Harsimrat served as Union Cabinet Minister for Food Processing Industries May 2014 – 17 September 2020

Union Government official Cabinet records — Tier 1

—

PF-85

Harsimrat resigned from Cabinet 17 September 2020 over Farm Acts

Union Government announcement — Tier 1

—

PF-86

Case No. 12-C-0806 (EDWI) filed 8 August 2012; served 9 August 2012; Seventh Circuit dismissed 26 November 2013 on procedural grounds, not merits

Justia; Sikh24 — Tier 1/2

—

PF-87

Kairon assassinated 6 February 1965 near Rasoi village, Rai, Sonipat district

Tribune India; ThePrint; multiple sources — Tier 2

Corrected from "Phillaur" in all prior versions

PF-88

PAU founded 1962, inaugurated by Nehru 8 July 1962

PAU official website — Tier 2

—

PF-89

Bhakra Dam completed and dedicated October 1963 during Kairon's tenure

Tribune India archive — Tier 2

—

PF-90

Das Commission (1964): eight of approximately 31 charges proven against Kairon

Historical record; Tribune India — Tier 2/3

—

PF-91

Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966: reduced Punjab from ~262,000 to 50,362 sq km; in force 1 November 1966

India Code — Tier 1

—

PF-92

ICCPR: India acceded 10 April 1979

OHCHR Treaty Body Database — Tier 1

—

PF-93

Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993) 2 SCC 746, 24 March 1993: Article 21 affirmative duty; state strict liability

Indian Kanoon doc/1628260 — Tier 1

—

PF-94

Yamashita v. Styer, 327 U.S. 1 (1946): command responsibility doctrine (presented as proposed forensic standard in Indian context, not settled domestic doctrine)

Justia — Tier 1

Classification corrected to AI for application

PF-95

Rome Statute Article 28(b): civilian superior command responsibility text (India not a party — presented as proposed forensic standard)

ICC official PDF — Tier 1

Classification corrected to AI for application

PF-96

Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB S.A., 563 U.S. 754 (2011): wilful blindness doctrine

Justia — Tier 1

—

PF-97

Saville Inquiry Report HC 29 (15 June 2010): overturned Widgery Report

UK Parliament official — Tier 1

—

PF-98

TRC Act 34 of 1995 (South Africa): victim-centred accountability model

South African Government — Tier 1

—

PF-99

By October 2021, hundreds of Guru Granth Sahib desecration cases documented; one cited figure is 272 with 12 arrests

Tribune India — Tier 2

Softened from flat "272" PF to "hundreds; one cited figure"

PF-100

BNSS 2023 Section 218: 120-day deemed sanction provision

India Code — Tier 1

—

PF-101

Saini's own written reply to Commission: "At about 2 am the then CM rung up regarding the situation" — confirming the 2 AM Badal-Saini call

Commission record; Tribune India reporting — Tier 1 (own admission)

This is the most important single primary admission on the Behbal Kalan chain of command

PF-102

Sukhbir Badal designated as SAD President from 2008; continues as SAD President as of March 2026

SAD official record; Election Commission India — Tier 2

—

PF-103

Badal's five CM terms: (1) March 1970–June 1971; (2) June 1977–February 1980; (3) February 1997–February 2002; (4) March 2007–March 2012; (5) March 2012–March 2017. Total: nearly 19 years

Encyclopaedia Britannica; Election Commission — Tier 2

Corrected from "twenty-three years" everywhere

SECTION J · COMPLETE DOCUMENTED ALLEGATIONS REGISTER [DA]

#

Documented Allegation

Source / Tier

Notes

DA-01

SYL Notifications 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL (20 February 1978) — original gazette copy not located in publicly accessible archives

PTI/IANS; Punjab DIPR

High reliability; notification numbers consistent across partisan-opposed sources

DA-02

Punjab Government letter 7/78-IW(I)-78/23617 (4 July 1978) demanding Rs 3 crore

PTI/Business Standard; IANS/The Quint

High reliability; specific reference number consistent

DA-03

Rs 1 crore — exact amount of Haryana payment (fact of payment PF; amount DA)

Business Standard

Payment confirmed PF via SC; exact amount DA

DA-04

Devi Lal Haryana Vidhan Sabha statement (1 March 1978): "personal relation with Badal" secured SYL cooperation

PTI dispatches

Session dates confirmed; original proceedings not digitized

DA-05

Amarinder Singh's handwritten Badal-Devi Lal letters (July 2016) alleging personal Rs 3 crore quid pro quo

Business Standard (28 July 2016)

Letters not authenticated judicially; SAD denied; DA only

DA-06

Orbit Resorts Gurgaon plot and Balasar farm Sirsa as personal benefits from SYL cooperation

Hindustan Times; CAG-flagged parliamentary proceedings

DA — corroborated by Sukhbir's parliamentary confirmation of ownership

DA-07

Nirankari convention permit issued by Badal Home Department; foreseeability documented in prior communications

Historical accounts

Convention permitted (PF); specific internal communications DA

DA-08

Case transfer to Karnal court — specific court order not located

Historical accounts

Transfer itself consistently documented; order not retrieved

DA-09

Gurbachan Singh's departure before arrest facilitated by official vehicle

Community accounts

No police log, vehicle record, or Home Dept order produced

DA-10

US cable December 2005 (Izhar Alam) — "possibly thousands of staged encounter killings"

Ensaaf; Sikh Siyasat News; multiple sources

Original Wikileaks URL not independently fetched; text consistently reproduced

DA-11

Sukhbir's direct instructions to Jathedars as mechanism for Ram Rahim pardon

Rebel SAD leaders; TheQuint

Sukhbir's sealed letter admits the pardon; mechanism of direct instruction DA

DA-12

CM and Deputy CM "deliberately ignored intelligence inputs" (Commission characterization)

Commission report

Commission characterization; not adjudicated in criminal proceeding

DA-13

Badal's "apparent involvement" in police action (Commission characterization)

Commission report

Commission characterization; not adjudicated

DA-14

Rajiv Gandhi's ~700 military casualties statement (Nagpur NSUI, September 1984)

Kuldip Nayar/Khushwant Singh, Tragedy of Punjab (1984)

Secondhand account of public statement; exact figure is DA

DA-15

SGPC election rules tightened under Badal to exclude dissenting voices

Multiple news accounts

Pattern documented; specific internal decisions DA

DA-16

SGPC internal auditor simultaneously Badal family personal CA

KBS Sidhu Substack

DA — not independently verified from SGPC financial records

DA-17

SGPC extracting up to 51% of Darbar Sahib revenue vs. mandated 38%

Babushahi

DA — not verified from SGPC audit records

DA-18

Haryana constructed irrigation branch canal to Balasar property

Tribune India

DA — corroborated circumstantially

DA-19

US Congressional Record (7 August 1998): Rs 2 crore in legal fees for police officers

Congressional Record

Specific entry needs independent verification

DA-20

41,000 cash bounties for extrajudicial killings 1991–1993 (US State Dept)

US State Department Human Rights Reports

Annual reports not cited by volume/page; DA pending precise citation

DA-21

Punjab challenging Section 78 was subjected to political coercion under Indira Gandhi when Suit No. 2 was withdrawn in 1982 (Darbara Singh coercion)

Journalofpoliticalscience; academic accounts

Coercion of Darbara Singh consistently reported; primary documentation not located

DA-22

BJP consistently avoids seriously contesting Harsimrat's Bathinda seat

Electoral pattern observation

DA — electoral data shows pattern; informal accommodation inference

DA-23

272 Guru Granth Sahib desecration cases (this exact figure)

Tribune India press accounts

Figure consistently reported; primary source is Commission-related documentation; cited as "one cited figure" not absolute PF

SECTION K · COMPLETE ANALYTICAL INFERENCES REGISTER [AI]

#

Analytical Inference

Basis

AI-01

Kairon's strategic insight (Punjab touching Delhi = uncontainable) was correct; its abandonment was consequential

Documented post-1966 consequences

AI-02

The 1966 trifurcation created the "geography of impunity" — structural precondition for Blue Star, Emergency water allocation, President's Rule

Documented sequence post-1966

AI-03

Section 78 was designed as an intended expropriation mechanism — its singularity among all reorganisation acts is not accidental

Comparative statutory analysis

AI-04

The managed withdrawal of Suit No. 2 in 1982 and the failure to revive the challenge in later Badal terms constitutes a deliberately discarded mechanism — more damning than never having challenged at all

Filed 1979; withdrawn 1982; never revived across two decades of autonomous governance capacity

AI-05

Badal's 1978 transactions (land acquisition, payment demand, payment acceptance) simultaneously with the lawsuit contradict each other and establish the forensic conclusion that the political settlement was already operationalized

Documented sequence: DA notifications → DA demand letter → PF payment acceptance → PF withdrawal of Suit No. 2

AI-06

Coalition constraint defense fails: specific documented points show autonomous governance capacity in 1997–2017 terms

Documented record of stable majorities and Lok Sabha strength

AI-07

The 1978 non-appeal was a normatively grave failure of public responsibility even though Section 378 CrPC is formally discretionary

Statutory text (discretionary); normative weight of thirteen deaths

AI-08

The 1978 non-appeal directly catalyzed the radicalization trajectory that eventually produced the 1984 assault

Organizational founding statements of Babbar Khalsa and Dal Khalsa

AI-09

The managed grievance thesis: Anandpur Sahib Resolution maintained as political mobilization resource because resolution would eliminate its utility

Documented pattern across five CM terms

AI-10

Badal's post-Blue Star imprisonment was politically necessary for the martyrdom asset that sustained the next three CM terms

Documented political trajectory

AI-11

The promise of accountability for 1984 was the instrument; the non-delivery was the designed outcome

Documented absence of any accountability action across nearly 19 years of governance

AI-12

2,097 non-investigations reflect deliberate administrative policy, not individual oversights — consistency across decade, state, multiple CM terms

Pattern analysis from PF record

AI-13

K.B.S. Sidhu's DC Amritsar tenure raises statutory omission questions that have never been judicially examined

Administrative structure of DC office; Municipal Committee reporting chain to DC

AI-14

Saini supersession of four to five colleagues is an act of deliberate selection, not ignorance — defeating any ignorance defense

Three independent pre-appointment public-domain sources documenting Saini's record

AI-15

The patronage test: the currency of the Badal system was consistent reward of atrocity-infrastructure association across five CM terms

Pattern analysis from four documented PF cases

AI-16

SGPC election delay consistently and exclusively benefits the controlling faction — coincidence defense not plausible

Nine years of no mandamus application by controlling faction

AI-17

Ram Rahim pardon timing (24 September 2015) and sacrilege incidents (October 2015) reflect connected political management, not coincidence

Commission finding on Dera responsibility + pardon timeline

AI-18

Command responsibility framework (Yamashita/Rome Statute Article 28(b)) is the appropriate proposed forensic standard for evaluating Badal's and Sukhbir's conduct — presented as international legal analogy, not settled Indian domestic doctrine

India not a Rome Statute party; framework not formally adopted in Indian domestic law for CMs

AI-19

The architecture of managed impunity is a self-reinforcing five-mechanism system, not a collection of independent decisions

Mechanism interaction analysis

AI-20

Death as final impunity: Badal's death on the day of the supplementary chargesheet completed what the five mechanisms had arranged over nearly three decades

Chargesheet chronology: main 24 February 2023; supplementary 25 April 2023

AI-21

The Delhi Symbiosis was a functional rather than ideological relationship — conditional on Delhi not attacking the dynasty's core electoral base

Farm Act resignation as evidence; consistent cross-party pattern

AI-22

Harsimrat's Cabinet position 2014–2017 during Sukhbir's Home Ministry provided a direct channel for potential coordination — whether that channel was used in specific decisions is not documented

Familial and institutional relationship documented; channel use not documented

AI-23

Farm Act resignation was a political recalibration, not a genuine break from the symbiosis structure

SAD's subsequent attempts to rebuild BJP alliance; Harsimrat's re-election 2024

AI-24

Managed impunity at documented scale required active non-interference or positive cooperation from successive central governments across party lines

Scale of documented violations; structural support mechanisms

AI-25

The ASR secessionist framing was a strategic construction of the Indira Gandhi intelligence apparatus — not a good-faith reading of the Resolution's authenticated text

Authenticated ASR text vs. White Paper characterization

AI-26

Behbal Kalan CDR evidence and Saini's own written admission collectively satisfy the knowledge and failure-to-act elements of the proposed command responsibility framework for both Badal and Sukhbir

Saini's own admission of 2 AM Badal call; 20 CDR calls during kill window; Sukhbir's ministerial authority as Home Minister

AI-27

The Widgery-to-Saville trajectory should be replicated for Punjab's inadequate NHRC proceedings — a comprehensive TRC-equivalent is the minimum proportionate institutional response

Comparative accountability framework analysis

AI-28

Democracy does not exonerate statutory nonfeasance — the coexistence of democratic mandate and documented managed impunity is itself the forensic finding

South Africa TRC comparative; documented evidence floor

SECTION L · CORRECTION REGISTER — 25 ERRORS FIXED IN THIS EDITION

#

Error in Prior Versions

Correction Applied

Source for Correction

C-01

"Twenty-three years" of Badal CM governance

"Nearly nineteen years" — correct total across five terms

Encyclopaedia Britannica; Election Commission records

C-02

"Arrested under NSA in September 1984"

"Detained on or about 10 June 1984, in the immediate aftermath of Operation Blue Star"

Contemporaneous accounts; Encyclopaedia Britannica

C-03

"7,000-page supplementary chargesheet filed on day of death"

7,000-page main chargesheet filed 24 February 2023; supplementary chargesheet (~2,400 pages) filed 25 April 2023

Tribune India; Hindustan Times; Indian Express

C-04

"Section 78 was never challenged"

Punjab challenged Section 78 in Suit No. 2 of 1979; that challenge was withdrawn in 1982 and not effectively revived in later Badal terms

SC (2002) 2 SCC 507 citing the suit and withdrawal

C-05

"Suit No. 2 did not challenge Section 78's constitutional validity"

Corrected: Suit No. 2 did challenge Section 78; the stronger criticism is that the challenge was not carried through and was abandoned

SC records and academic analysis

C-06

SYL notifications listed as PF in Prosecutorial Spine

Retained as DA throughout; Prosecutorial Spine revised to "substantially on Proved Findings and a small number of high-reliability Documented Allegations"

Internal audit of the document's own PF/DA/AI system

C-07

"Every one of the claims is a Proved Finding"

"Most of the claims are Proved Findings; a small number are retained as high-reliability Documented Allegations"

Internal audit

C-08

Command responsibility classified as PF and directly applicable

Reclassified as AI — proposed forensic standard; India not a Rome Statute party

International law analysis

C-09

Kairon assassination "at Phillaur"

Near Rasoi village, Rai, Sonipat district

Tribune India; ThePrint; multiple confirmed sources

C-10

DC Amritsar appointment "3 June 1984"

4 June 1984

DNA India; Sikh24 2019 report

C-11

HC quashing case "CRM-M-17459/19"

CWP No. 17459 of 2019 (O&M) — Civil Writ Petition, not Criminal Miscellaneous

SlideShare order PDF; Hindustan Times

C-12

Prithipal Singh SC date "April 11, 2011"

4 November 2011 — (2012) 1 SCC 10

Indian Kanoon doc/342168; SCALE volume cross-reference

C-13

Liberhan Commission referenced re Sikh Reference Library

Removed entirely — Liberhan Commission investigated Babri Masjid demolition only

Wikipedia (Liberhan Commission entry)

C-14

SGPC voter eligibility "Schedule III"

Sections 49 and 92 of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925

MHA-hosted Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 PDF

C-15

Tankhaiya "December 2, 2024" as declaration date

Tankhaiya declared 30 August 2024; tankhah (punishment) pronounced 2 December 2024

TheQuint; Tribune India

C-16

DGP Virk admission "in NHRC proceedings"

Press conference on 19 February 2006

Press contemporaneous reporting; HRW 2007

C-17

"CBI chargesheet January 2007" for Saini

Charges framed by trial court December 2006/January 2007

Harvard/Ensaaf blog 7 December 2006

C-18

Bhan Singh "706 martyrs" listed as PF

Downgraded to AI — not independently verified in accessible English-language primary sources

Verification audit

C-19

Saini appointment bare "15 March 2012"

14 March 2012, with effect from 15 March 2012

TOI March 2012 reporting

C-20

"Seven million sehajdhari voters" as precise flat PF

Softened to "millions" or "very large bloc" where precise figure not from Tier 1 source

Internal audit of sourcing

C-21

"This document is not a polemic"

Revised: "This document is an advocative forensic critique grounded in public records"

Master Correction Memo recommendation

C-22

"That is what a forensic audit looks like when it is working correctly"

Removed — self-certifying rhetorical overclaim

Master Correction Memo recommendation

C-23

Section 132 CrPC cited as prosecution sanction provision

Removed — Section 197 CrPC is the correct prosecution sanction provision

India Code statutory analysis

C-24

"Fifteen years of DC Amritsar tenure during the cremation period"

Corrected: separated into (a) absence of Section 176 inquiries during relevant cremation-period administration AND (b) fifteen years without SGPC elections — these are distinct propositions

Internal drafting review

C-25

"Mastermind" presented as adjudicated fact

Clarified throughout as SIT's prosecutorial characterization in the chargesheet — not an adjudicated judicial finding

Internal audit of classification system

SECTION M · MISSING RECORDS — COMPLETE RTI TARGET LIST

Indian Evidence Act Section 114(g): the court may presume that evidence which could be and is not produced would, if produced, be unfavorable to the withholding party. The non-production of each of the following categories is documented here as part of the indictment.

Priority

Document

Why It Matters

RTI Target / Archive

1

Punjab Government Gazette: Notifications 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL (20 February 1978)

Would upgrade DA to PF on SYL audit's foundational documents

Government of Punjab, Department of Irrigation, Chandigarh 160001; Punjab State Archives, Chandigarh

2

Punjab Govt letter 7/78-IW(I)-78/23617 (4 July 1978) demanding Rs 3 crore

Would upgrade DA to PF on Rs 3 crore demand

Same as above

3

Punjab Law Department / Home Department minutes (January–February 1980)

Would confirm or deny whether any discussion of a Section 378 CrPC appeal occurred before Badal government's dismissal

Chief Secretary's Office, Punjab; Punjab State Archives

4

DC Office Amritsar records (1992–1996)

Would establish what information about cremation anomalies reached DM Sidhu and what was communicated to state government

DC Amritsar Office, Amritsar 143001, under Section 6 RTI Act 2005

5

CM Office and DGP Office records 13–14 October 2015

Would provide complete documentary record of command chain during Behbal Kalan kill window — beyond CDR data alone

Chief Minister's Secretariat, Chandigarh; DGP Office Punjab; Punjab Home Department

6

SGPC executive committee minutes (2003–2026)

Documentary record of election scheduling decisions, voter roll modifications, Jathedar appointment/termination decisions

SGPC is a statutory public authority under RTI Act — applications under Section 6 are legally compellable. Target: SGPC Office, Teja Singh Samundri Hall, Amritsar 143001

7

Justice Ranjit Singh Commission full 544-page report including all evidence annexures

Publicly available summaries cited; full evidence chapters including command chain analysis not officially published

Principal Secretary Home, Punjab Secretariat, Chandigarh 160001

8

National Archives India — Operation Blue Star collection

DC Amritsar communications 3–14 June 1984; army-civil administration interface records; post-operation administrative files; Sikh Reference Library-related files

Director General, National Archives of India, Janpath, New Delhi 110001

9

Punjab Personnel Department files — Saini, Alam, Ramesh Inder Singh, K.B.S. Sidhu

Official appointment orders, cabinet notes approving appointments, CM-level approval documentation for each appointment

Principal Secretary Personnel, Punjab Secretariat, Chandigarh

10

Haryana Vidhan Sabha proceedings (March 1–7, 1978)

Devi Lal's statement on "personal relation with Badal" — would upgrade DA to PF

Haryana Vidhan Sabha Secretariat, Chandigarh

11

SGPC financial accounts 2011–2026

15 years of approximately Rs 1,000 crore annual revenue without independent oversight; Giani Raghbir Singh's "hub of corruption" statement (February 2026) provides the trigger

CAG of India under Articles 148–151 Constitution of India; alternatively RTI to SGPC

12

CBI — Chattisinghpura/Pathribal case files (FIR 59/2000)

Complete investigation records; DNA testing documentation; Army-CBI correspondence

CBI Regional Office, Chandigarh; available via RTI or court application

13

Punjab Home Department — Section 197 CrPC sanction files (Kotkapura/Behbal Kalan)

Would establish the full record of prosecution sanction decisions by successive Punjab governments

Principal Secretary Home, Punjab; BNSS Section 218 (120-day deemed sanction) now provides a direct legal pressure mechanism

14

Akal Takht official records — Ram Rahim pardon proceedings (September 2015)

Internal deliberation records; any documented instructions received from government

Akal Takht Sahib, Amritsar 143001

SECTION N · BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE — THE BADAL DYNASTY

Parkash Singh Badal (8 December 1927 — 25 April 2023) Born: Abul Khurana village, near Malout, Muktsar district, Punjab. Elected sarpanch of Badal village approximately age 20. First elected to Punjab Vidhan Sabha: 1957 (Gidderbaha constituency). Five terms as Chief Minister totaling nearly nineteen years:

• (1) March 1970 – June 1971

• (2) June 1977 – February 1980

• (3) February 1997 – February 2002

• (4) March 2007 – March 2012

• (5) March 2012 – March 2017

SAD President 1995–2008; SAD Patron 2008 until death. Detained under NSA: on or about 10 June 1984 (corrected from "September 1984"). Released: March 1986. Named in 7,000-page Kotkapura chargesheet: 24 February 2023. Died: 25 April 2023, Fortis Hospital, Mohali, aged 95. Supplementary chargesheet filed same day. Criminal proceedings against him personally abated on death. Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica; Election Commission India.

Sukhbir Singh Badal (born 1962) Son of Parkash Singh Badal. Married Harsimrat Kaur. Elected to Lok Sabha from Faridkot (1996), Ferozepore (2009, 2014). Elected to Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Jalalabad constituency (multiple terms). Deputy Chief Minister Punjab and effective Home Minister: March 2007 – March 2017 (full ten-year period). President, Shiromani Akali Dal: 2008 to present. Named in Kotkapura SIT chargesheet as principal conspiratorial actor (SIT's prosecutorial framing): 24 February 2023. Akal Takht tankhaiya declared: 30 August 2024. Tankhah carried out: 2 December 2024. Anticipatory bail: 2023:PHHC:126975 (29 September 2023). Sealed letter to Akal Takht: 24 July 2024 (public 5 August 2024) — admitted Ram Rahim pardon, Saini appointment, and sacrilege/firing failures. SAD reduced to 3 seats in 2022 Punjab Assembly elections; 2 Lok Sabha seats in 2024. No charges framed as of March 2026. Sources: Election Commission India; Tribune India; TheQuint.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal (born 8 March 1966) Daughter-in-law of Parkash Singh Badal; wife of Sukhbir Singh Badal. Elected to Lok Sabha from Bathinda: 2009, 2014, 2019, 2024 (four consecutive terms). Union Cabinet Minister for Food Processing Industries: May 2014 – 17 September 2020. Resigned over Farm Acts. SAD withdrew from NDA: September 2020. Re-elected from Bathinda: 2024. Dynasty's most electorally durable face as of March 2026. Sources: Election Commission India; Union Government Cabinet records.

SECTION O · CHRONOLOGICAL MASTER TIMELINE — CORRECTED

Date

Event

Classification

Correction if Any

1 November 1966

Punjab Reorganisation Act comes into force; Punjab reduced to 50,362 sq km

PF

—

1966

Chandigarh designated Union Territory — transfer to Punjab promised but never completed

PF

—

24 March 1976

Emergency water allocation under Section 78(2): Punjab 3.5 MAF (22%); Haryana 3.5 MAF

PF

—

20 February 1978

SYL land acquisition notifications 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL issued by Badal cabinet (reported across multiple independent sources)

DA — high reliability

Not PF — original gazette not located

28–29 October 1978

18th All India Akali Conference, Ludhiana: Badal endorses Anandpur Sahib Resolution as CM

PF

—

13 April 1978

Nirankari-Sikh clash, Amritsar, Baisakhi Day: 13 Sikhs killed; Gurbachan Singh leaves Punjab before arrest

PF

—

4 July 1978

Punjab government demands Rs 3 crore from Haryana (letter 7/78-IW(I)-78/23617)

DA

—

6 August 1978

Dal Khalsa founding decision; announced 13 August 1978

PF

—

31 March 1979

Badal government accepts at least Rs 1 crore from Haryana

PF (from SC)

Amount is DA

11 July 1979

Punjab Suit No. 2 of 1979 filed in SC — challenged 1976 notification and Section 78

PF

Corrected: suit did challenge Section 78

4 January 1980

Karnal Sessions Court acquits all Nirankari accused; no appeal filed

PF

—

31 December 1981

Tripartite water agreement: Punjab 4.22 MAF, Haryana 3.50 MAF — Suit No. 2 withdrawn

PF

—

8 April 1982

PM Indira Gandhi lays SYL canal foundation stone at Kapoori

PF

—

4 June 1984

Ramesh Inder Singh becomes DC Amritsar

PF

Corrected from "3 June"

1–10 June 1984

Operation Blue Star: Akal Takht destroyed; Sikh Reference Library destroyed

PF

—

On or about 10 June 1984

Badal detained under NSA

PF

Corrected from "September 1984"

May 1992

K.B.S. Sidhu becomes DC Amritsar

PF

—

6 September 1995

Khalra abducted

PF

—

August 1996

K.B.S. Sidhu leaves Amritsar DC post

PF

—

12 December 1996

SC in Paramjit Kaur: "flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale"; remits to NHRC

PF

—

12 February 1997

Badal begins third CM term

PF

—

20 March 2000

Chittisinghpura massacre: 35 Sikh men killed in J&K

PF

—

25 March 2000

Pathribal: Army kills five civilians, presents as Pakistani militants

PF

—

26 February 2002

Badal third CM term ends

PF

—

15 January 2002

SC in State of Haryana v. Punjab: directs SYL completion within one year

PF

—

8 October 2003

MHA notification File 1702/3/2001-IS-VI: sehajdhari voters excluded from SGPC rolls

PF

Sections 49 and 92 amended, not Schedule III

18 November 2005

Six Punjab Police officials convicted for Khalra's murder

PF

—

19 February 2006

DGP Virk press conference on faked deaths of informer-militants

PF

Corrected from "NHRC proceedings"

9 May 2006

CBI chargesheet in Pathribal: "cold-blooded murders"

PF

—

December 2006/January 2007

Charges framed against Saini in Ludhiana disappearance case by trial court

PF

Corrected from "CBI chargesheet January 2007"

16 October 2007

HC enhances Khalra murder convictions to life imprisonment

PF

—

17 October 2007

HRW/Ensaaf "Protecting the Killers" published

PF

—

2008

Sukhbir becomes SAD President; Vedanti removed after issuing Dera anathematization

PF

—

March 2007

Badal begins fourth CM term; Sukhbir becomes Deputy CM and Home Minister

PF

—

18 November 2009

Alam inducted into SAD; appointed Wakf Board Chairman

PF

—

4 November 2011

SC upholds Khalra murder convictions (Prithipal Singh v. Punjab (2012) 1 SCC 10)

PF

Corrected from "April 11, 2011"

6 November 2011

Alam honored with siropa by Badal

PF

—

20 December 2011

HC strikes down 2003 sehajdhari exclusion (CWP 17771/2003)

PF

—

18 September 2011

Last SGPC general elections held

PF

—

March 2012

Badal begins fifth CM term; Sukhbir continues as Deputy CM/Home Minister

PF

—

14 March 2012, eff. 15 March 2012

Saini appointed DGP Punjab, superseding 4–5 officers

PF

Corrected date formulation

8 August 2012

Case No. 12-C-0806 filed in EDWI under ATS/TVPA against Badal

PF

—

26 November 2013

Seventh Circuit dismisses 12-C-0806 on procedural grounds (not merits)

PF

—

September 2014

Sukhbir names Alam SAD Vice-President

PF

—

May 2014

Harsimrat enters Union Cabinet as Food Processing Minister

PF

—

1 June 2015

Guru Granth Sahib stolen from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala (FIR 63/2015)

PF

—

24 September 2015

Ram Rahim pardoned by five Takht Jathedars without personal appearance

PF

—

12 October 2015

Bargari desecration: torn pages scattered (FIR 128/2015)

PF

—

14 October 2015, ~2 AM

Badal calls DGP Saini — confirmed by Saini's own written statement to Commission

PF — admission

Primary admission by Saini

14 October 2015

Behbal Kalan firing: Gurjeet Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh killed; ~100 injured at Kotkapura; no civil permission

PF

—

16–17 October 2015

Ram Rahim pardon revoked; Panj Piaras dismissed for "violating service rules"

PF

—

10 November 2016

SC strikes down Punjab Termination of Agreements Act

PF

—

15 November 2016

K.B.S. Sidhu signs SYL de-notification as Revenue Commissioner — legally void

PF

—

April–May 2016

Sikh Gurdwaras Amendment Act 2016 passed; sehajdhari exclusion reinstated retrospectively from 2003

PF

Sections 49 and 92, not Schedule III

14 April 2017

Justice Ranjit Singh Commission constituted

PF

—

March 2017

Fifth Badal CM term ends

PF

—

September 2018

Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report submitted to Punjab Assembly

PF

—

April 2019

Behbal Kalan SIT files 300-page chargesheet against ex-SSP Sharma

PF

—

17 September 2020

Harsimrat resigns from Union Cabinet over Farm Acts

PF

—

September 2020

SAD withdraws from NDA

PF

—

6 July 2021

Mohammad Izhar Alam dies; never charged for Alam Sena activities

PF

—

9 April 2021

HC quashes Kunwar Vijay Pratap SIT (CWP No. 17459/2019 O&M)

PF

Corrected case designation

March 2022

AAP wins Punjab elections; Bhagwant Mann becomes CM

PF

—

24 February 2023

Kotkapura 7,000-page main chargesheet filed naming Badal, Sukhbir, Saini, and others

PF

Corrected: this was the main chargesheet, not supplementary

25 April 2023

Parkash Singh Badal dies; supplementary chargesheet (~2,400 pages) filed same day; proceedings against him abated

PF

Corrected: supplementary on this date; main was 24 February

29 September 2023

Sukhbir Badal granted anticipatory bail (2023:PHHC:126975)

PF

—

24 July 2024

Sukhbir's sealed letter to Akal Takht submitted

PF

—

5 August 2024

Sukhbir's letter made public

PF

—

30 August 2024

Akal Takht declares Sukhbir tankhaiya (guilty of religious misconduct)

PF

Corrected: tankhaiya on this date

2 December 2024

Formal tankhah (punishment) pronounced; Sukhbir performs public punishment at Golden Temple

PF

Corrected: tankhah on this date, not tankhaiya

10 February 2025

Giani Harpreet Singh removed as Akal Takht Jathedar

PF

—

7 March 2025

Giani Sultan Singh and Giani Raghbir Singh removed

PF

—

18 February 2026

Giani Raghbir Singh: "SGPC turned into hub of corruption" press conference

PF

—

March 2026

No charges framed in Kotkapura or Behbal Kalan; Punjab and Haryana HC directs final status report

PF

—

SECTION P · PRINCIPAL ACCUSED AND OFFICIALS NAMED IN OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS

In the Kotkapura/Behbal Kalan chargesheet and Commission proceedings:

Name

Position 2015

Role per SIT/Commission

Status (March 2026)

Parkash Singh Badal

Chief Minister

Alleged facilitator; 2 AM call to Saini (confirmed by Saini's own written statement)

Died 25 April 2023; proceedings abated

Sukhbir Singh Badal

Deputy CM / Home Minister

SIT's "principal conspiratorial actor" — not adjudicated

Anticipatory bail; no charges framed

Sumedh Singh Saini

DGP Punjab

SIT's "principal conspiratorial actor" — not adjudicated; Commission found he ordered firing

Absconder from Punjab Police process; anticipatory bail from SC

Paramraj Singh Umranangal

IGP / CP Ludhiana

Execution-level; irregular deployment; 20 CDR calls with Saini during kill window

Anticipatory bail

Charanjit Singh Sharma

SSP Moga

Execution-level; Behbal Kalan 300-page SIT chargesheet (April 2019)

Proceedings ongoing

Amar Singh Chahal

DIG Ferozepur

Execution-level, Kotkapura

Proceedings ongoing

Sukhmander Singh Mann

SSP Faridkot

Alleged concealment

Proceedings ongoing

Gurdeep Singh

SHO Kotkapura

Alleged concealment

Proceedings ongoing

In the Khalra murder proceedings: DSP Jaspal Singh (life — convicted); SHOs Satnam Singh, Surinderpal Singh, Jasbir Singh (life — enhanced on appeal); Head Constable Prithipal Singh (life — enhanced); ASI Amarjit Singh (acquitted on HC appeal 8 October 2007); SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu (died during trial).

In the Multani/Saini proceedings: Approver: Inspector Jagir Singh (described torture sessions in sworn approver statement, 2020). JMFC Rasveen Kaur (added Section 302 murder charge, 21 August 2020).

In SGPC and Akal Takht proceedings: Avtar Singh Makkar — SGPC President (multiple terms from 2011 House). Harjinder Singh Dhami — SGPC President (four consecutive terms, current as of this audit). Giani Gurbachan Singh — Akal Takht Jathedar (appointed under Badal influence; died 2023). Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti — removed 2008. Giani Harpreet Singh — removed 10 February 2025. Giani Sultan Singh — removed 7 March 2025. Giani Raghbir Singh — removed 7 March 2025; "hub of corruption" statement 18 February 2026.

MHA official who signed 2003 sehajdhari exclusion: Joint Secretary L.C. Goyal (File No. 1702/3/2001-IS-VI).

SECTION Q · KPSGILL.COM VOICE AND METHODOLOGY

kpsgill.com is authored by Dr. Kanwar Partap Singh Gill, M.D., a physician in Fresno, California. The site's Statutory Notice & Forensic Disclosure (footer of main page, citing 18 U.S.C. §2511) establishes the epistemological framework: "All content is derived from the public record, adjudicated judicial findings, and primary source documentation. … This site distinguishes between documented fact and forensic inference."

Key rhetorical signatures applied throughout this audit:

Silence-as-evidence methodology: The audit treats omissions, non-responses, and administrative silences as documentable, auditable acts — specifically through the Indian Evidence Act Section 114(g) adverse inference doctrine. The non-production of Home Department minutes, CM Office records, and SGPC files is treated as evidence, not merely as a gap.

Chain-of-command specificity: Individual officials are named and their structural roles documented. The 2 AM Badal call to Saini, confirmed by Saini's own written admission, is the paradigmatic example of this methodology producing primary-source accountability documentation.

Forensic-prosecutorial register: Cold precision. Clinical distance. The medical examiner's discipline: examine what the documentary body tells you, classify what you can prove, mark what you can only infer. Avoid the pressure to make the body tell a story it does not actually tell — while maintaining the full prosecutorial weight of the story the body does tell.

The receipt methodology: Each section ends with, or builds toward, the document that closes the argument — the receipt that shows what the system actually paid for. Saini's own written admission. Sukhbir's own sealed letter. The Supreme Court's citation of Badal's own 1978 letters against Punjab's water argument. The Commission's finding from Saini's own statement. These are not inferences. They are the accused's own documents.

SECTION R · SUMMARY COUNTS

Category

Count

Proved Findings [PF] registered

103

Documented Allegations [DA] registered

23

Analytical Inferences [AI] registered

28

Corrections applied (Master Correction Memo)

25

RTI targets identified

14

Primary statutes cited

12

Supreme Court and HC judgments cited

15

Official commission / government reports cited

9

UN / international official documents cited

4

News and journalism sources cited

22

Published books cited

2

Reference databases

18

This Reference Compendium is complete, corrected, and internally consistent. Every claim in the body of the audit — ਬਾਦਲ ਤੋਂ ਬਿਜਲੀ ਨਹੀਂ, ਹਨੇਰਾ ਵਰਸਿਆ, The Architect of Managed Impunity, Version 6 Corrected Edition — can be traced to a specific entry in this register. Every correction identified in the Master Correction Memo of 25 items has been applied. The document's thesis survives all 25 corrections. The argument rests on the documented floor.

kpsgill.com · March 2026 · [PF] Proved Finding · [DA] Documented Allegation · [AI] Analytical Inference