The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred to March 11 the hearing on a plea filed by Beant Singh assassination convict Jagtar Singh Hawara seeking his transfer from Delhi’s Tihar Jail to a prison in Punjab.
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh adjourned the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought time.
Hawara, a member of the Babbar Khalsa, is serving life imprisonment for his role in the August 31, 1995 blast at the entrance of the Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh, in which former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh and 16 others were killed.
A trial court had sentenced him to death in March 2007. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in October 2010, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment with the direction that he shall remain in jail for the rest of his natural life. Appeals by both Hawara and the prosecution against the High Court judgment are pending before the Supreme Court.
On September 27 last year, the apex court issued notices to the Centre, the Chandigarh administration, and the governments of Delhi and Punjab on Hawara’s transfer plea.
Hawara has sought to be shifted to any prison in Punjab, contending that:
- He is serving a sentence in a case registered in Punjab and has no pending case in Delhi.
- He is a native of Fatehgarh Sahib district and should be lodged in a prison in his home state.
- His conduct in jail has been “without blemish” for the past 19 years, except for an alleged jailbreak in January 2004, after which he was re-arrested.
- Another convict in the same case, who was also involved in the jailbreak, has already been transferred from Tihar Jail to a prison in Chandigarh.
- His daughter resides in Punjab, while his wife has died and his mother is reportedly in a coma in the United States.
The plea also states that he was named in 36 cases after the assassination but has been acquitted in all except the present case.
It further argues that being treated as a “high-risk prisoner” in the past cannot be a continuing ground to deny transfer to Punjab.
The petition frames the question as whether a life convict, who has allegedly maintained good conduct in prison for nearly two decades, can seek transfer to a jail in his home state despite the gravity of the offence and his earlier escape from custody.
The matter will now be taken up for further hearing on March 11.
