Supreme Court notice to Centre on Jagtar Singh Hawara’s plea for transfer to Punjab jail

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre and governments of Delhi and Punjab on a petition by Beant Singh assassination case convict Jagtar Singh Hawara, who has sought his transfer from Tihar Jail to any jail in Punjab.

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A Bench led by Justice BR Gavai asked them to respond to Hawara’s petition, which also sought a direction to produce in the court the entire record regarding his conduct in prison since his incarceration.

The court posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks. In an apparent reference to the January 22, 2004 jailbreak incident in which Hawara had escaped from high-security Burail jail, Justice Gavai asked senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, who represented the petitioner, “How were you able to dig such a large tunnel in the jail?”

Gonsalves said 20 years had passed since that incident and almost 30 years since the assassination. Hawara (54), who was re-arrested after a year and put back in jail, submitted that since then his conduct had been without any blemish. He contended that all co-accused involved in the jailbreak were in Punjab jails and the DG (Prisons) recommended his transfer to a jail in Punjab on October 7, 2016. He claimed that there was not a single case pending against him in Delhi.

“The petitioner had 36 false cases lodged against him after the assassination of the then Punjab CM. He has been acquitted in all, except one case. He is unable to attend the court proceedings on account of his incarceration in Delhi. He is not being produced in court and the proceedings are going on without him which is prejudicial to the petitioner…,” Hawara submitted. “Two of the co-accused in the jailbreak case, Jagtar Singh Tara and Paramjit Singh Bheora, are in the custody of Punjab,” his petition read.

The then CM Beant Singh and 16 others were killed in an explosion outside the Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995. Hawara was arrested on September 21, 1995.

A special CBI court had awarded the death sentence to Balwant Singh Rajoana and Hawara in 2007, while co-accused Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Shamsher Singh were sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching a conspiracy to assassinate the CM.