Judge Ravi Kumar Sondhi

Ravi Kumar Sondhi (R. K. Sondhi in the press) was the judge of the special court that decided the case over the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh on 31 August 1995. Jaspal Singh Manjhpur's list of Sikh political prisoners names him as the Additional Sessions Judge, Chandigarh, who decided the case on 27 July 2007. The Hindu, in a report reproduced by Hands Off Cain, names him as Judge R. K. Sondhi and says the court sat in the high-security Burail Jail.

The trial: The Tribune of 28 July 2007 said the order came after an 11-year-long trial by a CBI court, marked with the shifting of six judges and punctuated by a stunning jailbreak.

The verdict: On 27 July 2007 he convicted six accused: Jagtar Singh Hawara, Balwant Singh Rajoana, Shamsher Singh, Gurmeet Singh, Lakhwinder Singh and Naseeb Singh, as the Supreme Court's order of 3 May 2023 lists them. A seventh accused, Navjot Singh, was acquitted (The Hindu). On 31 July 2007 he sentenced Hawara and Rajoana to death and Shamsher Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Lakhwinder Singh to life imprisonment (The Tribune). The Tribune's editorial of 1 August 2007 says his 1,022-page judgment followed the Supreme Court's reasoning in State of Tamil Nadu v. Nalini and sorted the convicts into two groups: a hard core, for whom only the extreme penalty was held fitting, and those who joined through inducement, instigation or indoctrination. It says the court cited the use of RDX and PETN, which killed 17 people, and Hawara's escape from Burail Jail, and that it let off Naseeb Singh because he had already spent 10 years in jail.

What came after: In the death reference the High Court confirmed Rajoana's conviction and sentence and commuted Hawara's death sentence to life imprisonment, the Supreme Court recorded in 2023. The same order records that the SGPC filed a mercy petition for Rajoana on 25 March 2012.

Key moments

• 27 July 2007: six accused convicted; Navjot Singh acquitted.
• 31 July 2007: death sentences for Hawara and Rajoana; life for three others.
• 1 August 2007: The Tribune's editorial on the 1,022-page judgment.

What he is remembered for: for the judgment that ended the 11-year trial and sent two men to the gallows. Rajoana's death sentence is the one that led to the black warrants of March 2012 and the long dispute over his mercy petition.