Justice Bains came from a family which had a long tradition of participating in anti-imperialist activities. His father G.S. Bains was active in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and was associated with the editing of the party paper.

In 1946, Amrit Kaur sent her son, Ajit, away from their houseful of Leftist revolutionaries at Mahilpur village in Hoshiarpur to study law in Lucknow. She worried he might be arrested by the British government before he had even started his life. The young man would become a respected Justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court, retire in 1984, and become the ‘people’s judge’ of Punjab’s countryside during