When Jinnah defended Bhagat Singh

Jinnah as a personality evolved over years from a person with liberal approach to a communal approach.
In 1930s was a liberal in his approach like his friend Tej Bahadur Sapru. Jinnah strongly believed in constitutionalism, reposing faith in the institutions of Empire such as legislatures, courts and even the British Parliament to deliver progress to India.
On the other hand Bhagat Singh was a socialist in his ideology .

Bhagat Singh was jailed in 1929 for throwing bombs in Central Legislative Assembly .
Bhagat Singh went on hunger strike in the jail ,which made it difficult to hold trial.
So the British got a bill introduced whereby the a judgement could be given if a trial took place without hearing the accused.

In September 1929, Jinnah representing Bombay city in the Assembly, spoke powerfully, opposing this bill. Calling the trial a “farce” and a “travesty of justice”, he said that if the trial continued in the absence of the accused he “stands already condemned”. He also pointed out that Singh was a political prisoner and how the government was making a mistake by treating him a common criminal.

“Well, you know perfectly well that these men are determined to die. It is not a joke. I ask the honourable law member to realise that it is not everybody who can go on starving himself to death. Try it for a little while and you will see…. The man who goes on hunger strike has a soul. He is moved by that soul and he believes in the justice of his cause; he is not an ordinary criminal who is guilty of cold-blooded, sordid, wicked crime.”

Even as he spoke, the Assembly’s closing time neared and Jinnah was asked to resume the next day. Madan Mohan Malaviya, up, came to Jinnah’s support. “Sir, cannot we go on for another 15 minutes?” Malviya asked the speaker urgently, only to see his request be rejected. (Two years later, Malaviya also filed Singh’s final mercy petition with the Viceroy).

The next day, Jinnah, the highest-paid lawyer in India at the time, took the British Government to task on the legality of Singh’s trial:

"It seems to me, Sir, that the great and fundamental doctrine of British jurisprudence, which is incorporated and codified in the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code has very wisely not made such an absurd provision in the criminal law of this country and I am not satisfied that there is a lacuna in our system of criminal law.”

The outrage over the show trial of Singh made the Assembly reject this bill. The British Indian government simply ignored the assembly & promulgated ordinance .

The Tribune, generally hostile to him, reported on September 14, 1929: “Mr Jinnah created a profound impression by the excellent form in which he argued the case. The government was sacrificing the fundamental principles of jurisprudence and wanted the House to change the law of the land to create a farce. As regards the Lahore accused, they were creatures of the present system. Mr Jinnah was proceeding in this strain winning applause after applause from the spell-bound House....” Jinnah had done considerable research. The issue was whether a criminal trial can proceed if the accused “has voluntarily rendered himself incapable of remaining before the court” by a hunger strike. He said, “May I ask, with whom are you at war? What are the resources of these few young men who, according to you, have committed certain offences? ... Surely this is not a matter on which there should be this struggle that you should not at once yield to their demands for bare necessities of life.

AG Noorani has described the legal perfidy :

“Having lost in the Assembly, the governor-general promulgated an ordinance, which was not subject to approval by the Assembly and expired after six months. It set up a tribunal to try the case. The entire trial was vitiated by flaws. A member of the tribunal, Justice Syed Agha Haider, was removed from the tribunal because, unlike the two European judges, he questioned the witnesses closely and repeatedly dissociated himself in writing from their orders.

The tribunal which pronounced death sentences on the accused was itself under a sentence of death. The judges lost their office after six months. The accused were largely unrepresented by counsel and there was no right of appeal. The high court bar association set up a committee to consider the validity of the ordinance. Its report on June 19, 1930, found it to be ‘invalid’.”

Bhagat Singh was secretly hanged on March 23, 1931 in Lahore.

Source : Sumit Sircar & Bipan Chandra writings ; AG Noorani