Hira Lal Sibal (24 September 1914 – 29 December 2012) was an Indian lawyer, jurist and two-time Advocate General of Punjab and Haryana, known for his legal defence of cases against the noted Urdu writers, Ismat Chugtai and Saadat Hasan Manto in 1945.

[2] Sibal started his practice in 1937 at Lahore of British India[3] and moved to Shimla in 1948 after the Indian independence but later settled in Chandigarh in 1955 to practise at the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

[6] During his Lahore days, he successfully defended Malik Ghulam Nabi, who would later become a minister in the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government, in a kidnapping case[4] and was the counsel for Ismat Chugtai and Saadat Hasan Manto in the cases against them for indecent writing in 1945; the former was fined ₹90 while the latter was acquitted.

[4] The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 2006, for his contributions to Law.

[9] The youngest of the sons, Kapil Sibal, is a noted senior lawyer, a politician aligned with the Indian National Congress and a former Union Minister who held various portfolios in the UPA Government from 2009 to 2014.