A sedition and UAPA case in Punjab, 7 years, 2 deaths and contrasting bail orders

The first two years of the case were effectively lost following the late transfer of the investigation to the NIA. The four accused are alleged members of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a banned terrorist organisation operating under US-based terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannu. SFJ was not designated a terrorist organisation in 2018. This 2018 case was, in fact, one of the cases referenced in the order declaring SFJ a terrorist outfit.

Crime

The case originated when Sukhraj Singh alias Raju and a co-accused were arrested at the Kot Mit Singh Flyover in Amritsar while hanging “Khalistan Zindabad” and “Khalistan Referendum 2020” cloth banners. The investigation revealed an alleged wider conspiracy—propaganda activities, recruitment of youth into the “terror network”, an attempt to procure weapons, and receipt of funds, some routed through legal channels, via alleged SFJ proxies in South Africa. One weapon was recovered during the investigation, though it was not linked to any crime in the case. The accused were also alleged to have set fire to a couple of liquor shops.
By 2026, the trial before the special NIA judge in SAS Nagar (Mohali) had examined only 31 of 117 prosecution witnesses.

A Christian accused in a Khalistan case

Rufal belongs to the Christian community — an unusual profile in a case centred on Khalistan separatism. His counsel argued before the court that his client was Christian and had no connection to the Khalistan movement and that no incriminating material had been recovered from him. The NIA countered that Rufal was an active member of the SFJ network, and that a country-made .32 bore pistol along with four live cartridges had been recovered from him—the only weapon recovered in this case. Other evidence against him included photographs of weapons found on his mobile phone and call detail records establishing regular contact with co-conspirators.

The legal benchmark: jail as the rule

Gurwinder Singh was also an accused in the same case, and the Supreme Court had rejected his bail petition with a landmark ruling: “Jail, not bail, is the rule under UAPA”.

In a February 2024 order, the two-judge bench applied the twin-pronged test under section 43-D(5) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention ) Act, as articulated by the Supreme Court in NIA vs. Zahoor Ahmad Watali (2019). At the Supreme Court, a larger bench carries greater precedential weight. Still, the two-judge bench proceeded with a strict denial of bail to Gurwinder, even though the defence application cited the landmark three-judge bench ruling in Union of India v KA Najeeb (2021), which favoured bail on account of long custody in UAPA cases.

Gurwinder’s family alleged that he died under mysterious circumstances in judicial custody at Ludhiana jail in August 2025.

In the same case, Dalit Sikh priest Loverpreet Singh, 23, was summoned by the NIA on July 13, 2020. On the same evening, after appearing before the NIA, he died by suicide inside a room at Gurudwara Amb Sahib in Mohali.

Yet bail was granted—to another accused in the same FIR

Between the February 2024 and February 2026 bail denials, a different bench of the high court granted bail to a co-accused from the same FIR. In July 2024, a bench of Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and Justice Lapita Banerji allowed the bail application of Manjit Singh alias Manga, accused in the same case of funding SFJ and allegedly receiving Rs 14.63 lakh from abroad between 2016 and 2019.

The July 2024 bench leaned heavily on Article 21 of the Constitution—the right to life and personal liberty —relying on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Union of India v KA Najeeb. No arms, drugs, or incriminating material had been recovered from Manjit Singh.

The February 2026 bench, by contrast, found the material against the four appellants sufficient to clear the prima facie threshold under section 43D(5) and declined to extend the Article 21 reasoning to their cases, noting that protected witnesses were yet to be examined and that release could lead to witness intimidation.

Similar allegations, different outcome

In a separate UAPA case heard in February 2026, the same bench—Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal, this time sitting with Justice Deepak Manchanda—granted bail to Harvinder Singh alias Prince, setting aside a trial court order that had denied him bail. Harvinder had spent more than three years in custody. The case stemmed from an FIR dated July 28, 2022, registered at the Baldev Nagar police station in Ambala under Indian Penal Code sections 153A and 120B and section 13 of the UAPA.

Harvinder and a co-accused were accused of affixing an objectionable banner on a tree. The state alleged he was in WhatsApp contact with Gurpatwant Singh Pannu and had prepared the banner. The court granted bail with the observation: ‘Criminals are not born but made… every saint has a past and every sinner a future.’

The contrast is instructive. The Khalistan Referendum FIR No. 152 case also stems from the installation of a pro-Khalistan banner — yet the outcomes could not be more different.

When UAPA is not invoked—a liquor shop, a designated gangster and easy bail

The picture gains another dimension when FIR No. 152 is placed alongside a case where the crime was similar, but the anti-terror law was not invoked at all—despite the alleged involvement of a Canada-based gangster officially designated as a terrorist by the Union Government.

On October 8, 2023, a liquor shop in Kotkapura, Faridkot district, was set ablaze. The attackers, the police said, carried out the arson to extort money from the shop’s owners.

Notably, the investigators did not invoke the UAPA despite the link of the accused with Goldy Brar, a designated individual terrorist. The case was registered under ordinary penal provisions. All the arrested accused secured bail. The same is not true of FIR No. 152.