struggle. While Desai was working without the knowledge of Gandhi, Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru or any other Congress leader, Khan had kept the deal a secret from his superior, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. When a press report leaked the prospective deal in 1945, the respective parties were alarmed. While Desai presented full information to Gandhi, Jinnah and the League outrightly rejected any agreements, and Liaquat Ali Khan denied that such a pact was being negotiated. Desai's assertion that a deal had been reached was ridiculed by the League, while Congress leaders were angry at him for conducting such negotiations without informing them. Bhulabhai Desai would lead a major effort in March 1945 to get the House to defeat the unpopular war budget, but he had lost political standing in his own party owing to the fallout of the Desai-Liaquat pact. He was not given a ticket to contest elections for the Constituent Assembly of India on grounds of his ill-health, but also due to feelings in the Congress that Desai had been advancing his own power and popularity while the Congress leadership was imprisoned. This should be kept in mind that at that time many a proceedings of the Indian National Congress were shrouded in secrecy and people like Sir Chiman Lal Setalwad have time and again asserted that Gandhi had full knowledge of the Desai-Liaquat pact and was in fact the silent force behind the negotiations. It is also a matter worth note that when Desai was on his death bed, Gandhi went to meet him and did not speak a single word citing his "Maunvrata" (a fast wherein people do not speak for a designated period of time). INA soldiers trial When three captured Indian National Army (INA) officers, Shahnawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon were put on trial for treason, the Congress formed a Defence committee composed of 17 advocates including Bhulabhai Desai. The court-martial hearing began in October 1945 at the Red Fort. Bhulabhai was the leading counsel for the defence. Undeterred by poor health, Bhulabhai made an emphatic and passionate argument in defence of the charged soldiers. He worked for three months at a stretch. He cited international law in his arguments, arguing that the accused were entitled to take up arms to gain independence for their country under the order of the Provisional Government which Subhas Bose had established and which had the