Certified by government as a danger to the public and with his immigration status still up in the air, a convicted Sikh terrorist will find out in the coming weeks whether he can practise law in Toronto.

Parminder Singh Saini, who has been fighting deportation from Canada since 1995, this month completed a "good character" hearing mandated by the Law Society of Upper Canada to determine whether he is eligible for a lawyer's licence. He says he is rehabilitated and admits his participation in a hijacking plot 25 years ago was morally and legally wrong.

The hearing panel has reserved its decision indefinitely, and the society said it could be weeks or even months before a result is handed down.

"This is a complex decision and may take some time," communications manager Jane Withey said yesterday. "The decision will be made public when it is released."

Mr. Saini, now 46, was among a group of hijackers who overtook a domestic Air India flight in 1984, purportedly in retaliation for the Indian army's assault on a holy temple in Punjab weeks earlier. They forced the plane -- en route from Srinagar, India, to New Delhi -- to land in Lahore, Pakistan.

No one was seriously injured in the incident, but witnesses said Mr. Saini, referred to as the "team leader" in court documents, fired a gun. A Pakistani judge said his goal was "to intimidate and terrorize the crew members and the passengers on board the aircraft and to cow them down."

Mr. Saini was sentenced to death for his role in the crime, but that was later commuted to life imprisonment in a Pakistani jail. He was granted full parole after 10 years and ordered

to leave the country, but instead of returning to his native India, he came to Canada in 1995 using false documents that identified him as "Balbir Singh" and settled with family in Brampton.

When immigration officials discovered the fraud later that year, Mr. Saini was detained and ordered deported. The immigration minister also certified him as a danger to the public, a designation that has not yet been lifted.

Mr. Saini has been fighting to stay in Canada ever since, a process that has been grinding its way through layers of federal bureaucracy for years. His case was bolstered in 1998 when the Pakistani president pardoned his criminal conviction, which became the basis for a 2000 Federal Court decision that overturned Mr. Saini's deportation order.

That was reversed on appeal the following year, however, with the court deciding a Pakistani pardon was not equivalent to a Canadian pardon.

"Hijacking terrorizes all nations and society as a whole," the appeal court wrote in its decision. Leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied.

Since being released from immigration detention in 1998, Mr. Saini has completed a bachelor's degree at York University and a law degree at the University of Windsor. He applied for a licence to practise law in the country in late 2006, despite his still-unresolved immigration status.

He has a couple of applications pending that argue he should be allowed to remain in the country because he is rehabilitated, and because he faces danger or risk of persecution if forced to return to his native India.

Neither Mr. Saini nor his lawyer, Frank Addario, would comment on the situation yesterday, citing the ongoing law society hearing.

Aurel Braun, an expert in international law at the University of Toronto, said while he was unfamiliar with the specific details of Mr. Saini's case, any bar association would be wise to tread carefully when presented with such a matter.

"If you have someone who has committed a horrific act -- hijacking is an absolutely horrific act -- second, if someone has lied to come into Canada under a false name, that's another strike," Mr. Braun said. "These would be red flags that would invite a very, very thorough investigation up and down this man's career, going back many years."

motoole@nationalpost.com

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