INA Trials

The INA trials or the Red Fort Trials refer to the courts-martial of a number of officers of the Indian National Army between November 1945 and May 1946 variously for treason, torture, murder and abetment to murder. The first, and most famous, of the approximately ten trials was held in the Red Fort in Delhi, hence deriving the name. In total, approximately ten courts-martial were held. The first of these, and the most celebrated one, was the joint court-martial of Colonel Prem Sahgal, Colonel Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan. The three had been officers in the British Indian Army and taken PoW in Malaya or Singapore. They had, like a large number of other troops and officers of the British Indian Army, joined the Indian National Army and later fought in Imphal and Burma alongside the Japanese forces in allegiance to Azad Hind. These three came to be the only defendants in the INA trials who were charged of "Waging War against the King Emperor" (The Indian Army act of 1911 did not have a separate charge for treason) as well as Murder and abetment of Murder. Those charged later only faced trial for torture and murder or abetment of murder. The trials covered arguments based on Military Law, Constitutional Law, International Law, and Politics. These trials attracted much publicity, and public sympathy for the defendants who were perceived as patriots in India, and outcry over the grounds of the trial, as well as general emerging unease and unrest within the troops of the Raj ultimately forced the then Army Chief Claude Auchinleck to commute the sentences of the three defendants in the first trial.