Harpreet Singh Giani

The Liberhan Commission was appointed by the Government of India in December 1992 to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the demolition of the Babri Masjid earlier the same month. Six years after the commission was formed, Giani accepted the responsibility of serving as the Commission's Counsel. He joined the Commission in 1998, after the previous Counsel had resigned. Giani worked on the final report, which was handed over to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram by Justice Liberhan and Giani. A further 11 years later, on 30 June 2009.^[3] Giani remained the Commission's Counsel for over a year and a half, till the Commission was wound up with the submission of the report.

In the parliamentary debate in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, Members of Parliament Pinaki Mishra and Sushma Swaraj stated that they believed that the report had in fact been written by Giani rather than Chief Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan. In the upper house of parliament, Member of Parliament Arun Jaitley similarly claimed ^[4] that

Admittedly, it was Shri Giani who has analyzed the evidence, come to conclusions, edited the report, modified the language, added and modified the ideas. The judge seems only to have done the rest, if anything remained. The Liberhan – Giani report is the first Example of ‘Judgment Outsourcing’.

• Harpreet Singh Giani joins 33 Chancery Lane
• Professional bio Archived 22 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine