New Delhi, Feb 18: The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday adjourned 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, to March 11.
A bench comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh deferred the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta requested an adjournment.
Hawara, a member of the Babbar Khalsa, is serving life imprisonment in connection with the 1995 assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. The killing took place in a bomb blast outside the Chandigarh civil secretariat on August 31, 1995, which also claimed 16 lives.
Earlier, on September 27 last year, the apex court had issued notices to the Centre, the Chandigarh administration, and the governments of Delhi and Punjab on Hawara’s plea.
In his petition, Hawara has argued that he should be shifted to a Punjab prison as no cases are pending against him in Delhi. He stated that he is a resident of Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib district and is currently serving his sentence for a case registered in Punjab.
The plea further claimed that his conduct in prison has remained satisfactory over the years, except for a jailbreak in 2004, after which he was re-arrested. It also noted that several other cases registered against him have resulted in acquittals.
Hawara has contended that being labelled a “high-risk prisoner” in the past should not be grounds to deny his transfer now, especially given his conduct over the last 19 years. He has also cited personal grounds, stating that his daughter resides in Punjab, while his wife is deceased and his mother is in a coma in the United States.
The petition also pointed out that another convict in the same case, who was involved in the jailbreak, has already been shifted from Tihar Jail to a prison in Chandigarh.
Hawara was initially sentenced to death by a trial court in 2007. However, in 2010, the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, directing that he remain incarcerated for the rest of his life.
Appeals filed by both Hawara and the prosecution against the High Court’s verdict are currently pending before the Supreme Court.
