Captain Amarinder Singh has claimed that any re-investigation in Bikram Singh Majithia’s criminal cases would amount to “double jeopardy.” That claim is legally untenable. In Indian law, the constitutional shield of double jeopardy under Article 20(2) bars a person from being prosecuted or punished twice for the same offence after a trial—it does not bar constitutional courts from ordering a fresh investigation, often described as re-investigation, when earlier probes are deemed inadequate or compromised. The Supreme Court as well as various High Courts have long drawn a clear line between an impermissible re-trial after acquittal and a permissible de novo re-investigation before the completion of trial—the difference lies in the stage and scope of proceedings.
The Faridkot Occasion (October 2025)
Captain Singh made the “double jeopardy” quip in Faridkot on 29/30 October 2025, while inducting his former OSD, Sandeep “Sunny” Brar, into the BJP and attacking the AAP government. The setting was overtly political—an organisational event for 2027, not a legal forum—so the line was naturally construed as rhetoric, not doctrine.
Re-investigation ≠ Re-trial: What Double Jeopardy Actually Means
Double jeopardy comes into play after a full trial culminating in conviction or acquittal; it does not prevent supplementary or fresh investigation pre-trial, or parallel probes of distinct offences arising from a common or connected factual matrix. Courts have also cautioned that ordering a new investigation after an acquittal on the same facts/offences risks crossing into double-jeopardy territory—again underscoring why precision about stage and scope is crucial. In short: re-investigation before trial can be lawful; a re-trial after acquittal on the same offence is not.
A Useful Mirror: Captain’s Own AIT Case
Incidentally, in the Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) land case), the Punjab Vigilance Bureau—then functioning under the leadership of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Home Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal—conducted a fresh probe in the mid-2010s. Following this re-investigation, a Mohali court accepted the closure report and discharged all accused, including Captain Amarinder Singh, in July 2018. The Captain did not describe that exercise as “double jeopardy”—because it clearly wasn’t. It was, in fact, a textbook example of a lawful re-examination before trial. This also gives rise to a reasonable presumption that Captain Amarinder Singh’s present equivocation stems less from any misunderstanding of law and more from political compulsions—a desire to retain relevance within the BJP and possibly lay the groundwork for a rapprochement between the saffron party and Sukhbir Singh Badal’s Shiromani Akali Dal, rather than from any genuine legal confusion, or misinterpretation.
Why “Double Jeopardy” Doesn’t Fit Majithia’s Situation
Bikram Majithia currently faces three legally distinct matters:
NDPS case (2021)—he obtained bail from the Punjab & Haryana High Court in August 2022; the Supreme Court declined to cancel that bail on 25 April 2025. The NDPS trial remains pending, and the charges do not appear to have been framed so far.
Disproportionate Assets case (FIR 25 June 2025)—alleging roughly ₹540 crore in unexplained assets; a ~40,000-page chargesheet was filed in Mohali on 22 August 2025 with 200+ witnesses. Majithia continues to be incarcerated in Nabha Jail in the meanwhile.
Obstruction of public servants (FIR 31 July 2025)—for allegedly obstructing Vigilance officials during the 25 June raid.
These are different offences under different statutes (NDPS Act; Prevention of Corruption Act; obstruction), so calling them “double jeopardy” confuses the concept. Investigative spin-offs (e.g., a DA case emerging from financial red flags noticed during a drugs probe) are routine and legally separable and distinct.
Politics, Responsibility—and an Inconvenient Timeline
Here the tone must be mild but frank: while Captain Amarinder Singh now postures as a legal purist, his record as Chief Minister of Punjab for over four and a half years (March 2017 to September 2021) on the 2015 Faridkot police-firing cases—Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan—invites scrutiny. The firings occurred on 14 October 2015, amid widespread protests following incidents of sacrilege; two protesters were killed at Behbal Kalan and several others injured at Kotkapura. After multiple Special Investigation Teams (SITs), a CBI detour, and several judicial reversals, the constitutional and trial courts are still grappling with issues of reconstitution and quashing as late as October 2025, reflecting years of drift that extended well into and beyond his tenure as Chief Minister.
It is more than a little ironical that Captain Amarinder Singh’s re-emergence from political hibernation took place in Faridkot—the very district where those egregious police firings occurred—while, a full decade later on 14 October 2025, families of the victims and civil society groups continued to observe the grim anniversary under the banner of “ten years, no justice.” More than ten years have passed, and trial has not yet begun in either case, even though the SIT investigations—after numerous SIT and CBI U-turns—have finally concluded. Captain Singh’s legal, moral, and political responsibility cannot be ignored or absolved.
The CBI Zigzag & SIT Churn
It must be underscored, even at the cost of repetition, that Captain Amarinder Singh’s government first handed over the police firing and sacrilege cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2018, and then, within weeks, withdrew consent and brought them back under the Punjab Police, prompting further litigation and repeated Special Investigation Team (SIT) reshuffles.
In April 2021, the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed—with strong strictures—the SIT report led by the controversial IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh (now a suspended Aam Aadmi Party MLA) in the Kotkapura firing investigation, and directed the formation of a new SIT. It was yet another reset in a case—along with the related Behbal Kalan FIR—already burdened by repeated investigations and procedural restarts.
These decisions, though fully justified on legal and constitutional grounds, delayed the momentum toward trial. Although Captain Amarinder Singh had publicly criticised the High Court’s quashing order, he did not instruct his legal team to challenge the single-judge verdict—neither by filing a Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) before the Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, nor by seeking relief through a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court of India.
Where the Law Leaves Us
In this background—recapitulated briefly for the benefit of our readers—and in the context of Captain Amarinder Singh’s “double jeopardy” statement, which, ironically, seems to incriminate him not in a legal sense but certainly from political and Panthic standpoints, we flag the following key points.
The doctrine of double jeopardy protects against repeat trials/punishments for the same offence after a trial. It does not invariably bar pre-trial re-investigation where warranted.
Captain’s Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) episode illustrates why a fresh probe can be lawful—and sometimes salutary.
Bikram Majithia’s cases involve three distinct offences and separate FIRs—not the same offence being tried twice. Captain Amarinder Singh’s political insinuations, whatever their motivation, do not alter the underlying legal position.
On Faridkot’s tragedies—Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan (14 Oct 2015)—the larger failure is bipartisan; but Captain’s tenure cannot be airbrushed from an accountability timeline in which trials still struggle to take off.
Captain’s Conundrum: Legal Clarity vs. Political Theatre
On balance, Captain Amarinder Singh’s Faridkot soundbite reads less like a legal proposition and more like a political googly. The test is simple: Are new probes targeting the same offence after acquittal—which would indeed be problematic—or are they pre-trial or concern distinct offences, which are perfectly permissible? By that standard, the “double jeopardy” argument simply doesn’t hold water in Bikram Majithia’s case.
And yet, in Faridkot of all places—the very soil still haunted by the memory of the 2015 police firings and the anguish that followed—such casual legal shortcuts from a seasoned leader risk appearing as theatre, not principle. The rural people of Punjab may, in Captain Amarinder Singh’s estimation, be simple and trusting, but the collective Sikh psyche remains deeply scarred by the sacrilege incidents, the twin police firings, and the botched, meandering investigations that followed. For them, justice delayed is not merely justice denied—it is a wound left open.
If Captain Amarinder Singh believes that sharp media bites can lift him from political wilderness back into relevance, he forgets that it was his own squandered four-and-a-half-year tenure and failure to deliver justice that pushed him there in the first place. In invoking “double jeopardy,” he risks reopening old wounds rather than restoring credibility—and for a leader who once commanded Punjab’s political centre stage, that may well prove to be the most unforgiving reckoning of all.