Supreme Court seeks IB inputs on Jagtar Singh Hawara's plea seeking transfer from Tihar to Punjab prison
PTC News Desk: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Delhi government to seek inputs from the Intelligence Bureau on Beant Singh murder convict Jagtar Singh Hawara's plea seeking his transfer from Delhi's Tihar jail to any prison in Punjab.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices M M Sundresh and P B Varale said the matter was sensitive and observed that it could not go against the advice of the state government.
Hawara, described in court as a Babbar Khalsa associate, is serving a life sentence for his role in the 1995 assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.
The top court then remarked, "When you have an ideology..we dont know how it will emanate...Every sinner has a future..See people say if you kill one person you are a murderer and if you kill 1,000 persons you are a conqueror. So that is the difference. He (Hawara) may mellow down and be a changed person but what may trigger him after that we cannot say."
Representing the Delhi government, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told the court that Hawara had been involved in a jailbreak and that his death sentence in the murder case was later reduced to life imprisonment. She opposed his transfer to Punjab, arguing that moving him could increase the risk of another escape. She also referred to a Ministry of Home Affairs advisory regarding the transfer of high-risk prisoners.
Bhati further cited an affidavit filed by the Punjab government, stating that Hawara's transfer could affect the law and order situation in the state. She also informed the court that he had been convicted in a case involving the digging of a tunnel in Chandigarh jail.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, representing Hawara, said Beant Singh was assassinated 31 years ago, when Hawara was 21. He told the court that Hawara wanted to be transferred to a high-security prison in Punjab and was not seeking release. Gonsalves also cited Hawara's elderly mother, who is 82 and seriously ill, and claimed that Hawara had maintained a good record in prison.
On September 27 last year, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre, the Chandigarh administration, and the Delhi and Punjab governments regarding Hawara's plea. Hawara is serving life imprisonment for the August 31, 1995, blast at the entrance of the Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh, which killed Beant Singh and 16 others.
In his plea, Hawara said his conduct in prison had been good, apart from his escape from jail on January 22, 2004, after which he was arrested again. He argued that he should be shifted from Tihar Jail to a prison in Punjab because no case against him was pending in Delhi.
Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bheora, Tara and murder convict Devi Singh escaped from Chandigarh's high-security Burail Jail in January 2004 by digging a tunnel nearly 100 feet long. Hawara and Bheora were arrested within the following two years, while Tara was later arrested in Thailand. Devi Singh remains absconding and has been declared a proclaimed offender.
According to Hawara's plea, 36 cases registered against him after Beant Singh's assassination were false, and he was acquitted in all but one. The plea also stated that another convict in the same case, who was involved in the jailbreak, had been transferred from Tihar Jail to a prison in Chandigarh.
- PTC NEWS
