Navkiran Singh
Navkiran Singh: A man with a mission, Navkiran Singh is the General
Secretary of the organization. The growth and development of the
organization has its debt to him. Born on June 6, 1961, he is
the only son of a known senior civil lawyer of Chandigarh, Gurmukh
Singh. Father of two, his wife is also a lawyer and helps him
in the social service. He completed his law in 1986 and followed
in the footsteps of his father and joined legal profession. He
remained as an associate of Mr. Amar Singh Chahal for some time
and then started practicing independently in the Punjab &
Haryana High Court at Chandigarh and came to be known as an expert
on human rights law and criminal law. Having a soft heart towards
the victims of injustice, he got seriously involved in the campaign
to provide free legal aid to the poor and indigent persons, started
by his organization, which he is continuing even till today. In
1991, he even escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of Chandigarh
Police, when he tried to rescue a boy who had been acquitted by
the court and whom the police wanted to re-arrest after his acquittal.
He was shot at by the cops, but escaped unhurt by Gods grace.
He was then given a severe beating in a busy market place and
kept in illegal detention. From 1986, he undertook the task of
fighting cases against police brutality and elimination of Sikh
youth in fake encounter, custodial torture, extra- judicial methods
and other heinous crimes by the Punjab Police , very courageously.
He did all these cases on pro-bono basis and even spent miscellaneous
expenses from his pocket. By now, he has filed more than two thousand
petitions highlighting cases of various human rights violations
committed by the Punjab police in the supreme court, High Court,
National human rights commission and Punjab state Human Rights
Commission and other foras. He has been successful in getting
judicial or independent inquiries into many cases of human rights
violations. He is responsible for bringing to dock more than a
hundred police officers and their prosecution and conviction in
equal number of cases. Due to his overzealous activities against
state repression and cruel police officers, he is known as a dare
devil lawyer among the violators. He is committed to the cause
of human rights to the core.
When a young lawyer member of the organization, Mr. Kulwant Singh
saini along with his wife and three years old child were brutally
killed by Punjab Police in Ropar in 1995, he was instrumental
in bringing together all the lawyer bodies in Punjab, Haryana
and Chandigarh to a common platform to express its anguish at
this dastardly act and demanded a judicial inquiry into the whereabouts
of the lawyers family and punishment to the guilty police officials.
The petition filed by the Punjab & Haryana High Court Bar
Association, was sadly dismissed by the High Court. Then, Mr.
Navkiran Singh filed the appeal in the Supreme Court, argued on
behalf of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association, and
succeeded in getting a C.B.I. inquiry y into the disappearance
of the lawyer’s family. He also filed another pettion in
the supreme court of India seeking protection to the life of lawyers
in Punjab apprehending threat to their lives at the hands of Punjab
Police. More than hundred cases successfully conducted by him
concerning human rights issues are being cited in the courts.
Performing the duty is the General Secretary of the organization,
he has led many investigations into thee custodial deaths, and
other cases of human rights violations. He has trained many members
of the organization by imparting legal knowledge as well as practical
training to undertake investigation and preparation of reports
of investigation done by them. He had been going to different
districts Punjab and Haryana in order to bring many like-minded
lawyers to one platform. At present there are more than three
hundred active members of the organization who are providing free
legal aid to the poor and indigent persons in their respective
areas.
He is also the member of International Bar Association, Commonwealth
Lawyers Association, besides an active member of the Supreme Court
Bar Association and Punjab and Haryana Court Bar Association.
He has visited USA, UK and Canada number of times and has appeared
as an expert witness on human rights in foreign courts in the
matters relating to extradition and refugee claims. He has also
attended four United Nations sub-committee meetings on Involuntary
disappearances and extra-judicial killings in Geneva (Switzerland)
and New York and placed before the sub-committee around five hundred
cases.He also has the honour of being the only Indian lawyer Who
is working as a defence counsel in the infamous case of Air India
air crash which took place in 1985 and the trial is taking place
in Vancouver, Canada.
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