The Supreme Court asked the Delhi government to obtain Intelligence Bureau inputs on Jagtar Singh Hawara's plea to be shifted from Tihar jail to a Punjab prison. The court flagged security and law and order concerns before deciding the sensitive transfer request.
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Newdelhi,Oct 13, 2026 13:26 IST
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Delhi government to seek inputs from the Intelligence Bureau on a plea by Jagtar Singh Hawara, convicted in the Beant Singh murder case, seeking his transfer from Tihar jail to any prison in Punjab.
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and P B Varale said the issue was sensitive and observed that it was not in a position to go against the advice of the state government. Hawara, described in court as a Babbar Khalsa terrorist, is serving life imprisonment in the 1995 case linked to the killing of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.
Appearing for 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 commuted to life imprisonment. Opposing the transfer plea, she said shifting him could increase the chances of his escape and referred to a Ministry of Home Affairs advisory on the transfer of high-risk prisoners.
Bhati also referred to an affidavit filed by the Punjab government and said the law and order situation in Punjab would be affected if Hawara was transferred there. She told the court that Hawara had also been convicted in a case involving the digging of a tunnel in Chandigarh jail.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Hawara, said the then chief minister was assassinated 31 years ago when Hawara was 21. He told the court, "My mother is very old, 82 years old and in serious condition. He is seeking transfer to Punjab high security prison and not going to be released," and added that Hawara had an unblemished record in jail.
The bench 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." The court posted the matter for hearing after four weeks.
On September 27 last year, the apex court had issued notices to the Centre, the Chandigarh administration, and the Delhi and Punjab governments on Hawara's plea. He is serving imprisonment for the rest of his life in the case related to the blast at the entrance of the civil secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, in which Beant Singh and 16 others were killed.
The plea before the court said Hawara's conduct in prison had been without blemish except for the January 22, 2004 jailbreak, after which he was re-arrested. It said he should be shifted from Tihar jail to any prison in Punjab as no case was pending against him in Delhi. Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bheora, Tara and murder convict Devi Singh had escaped from Chandigarh's high-security Burail Jail in January 2004 by digging a nearly 100-foot-long tunnel. Hawara and Bheora were re-arrested within the next two years, while Tara was later arrested in Thailand. Devi Singh remains absconding and has been declared a proclaimed offender.
The petition said Hawara was serving his sentence in a case registered in Punjab, was a native of Fatehgarh Sahib district, and ought to be lodged in a prison in that state. It also said 36 false cases had been registered against him after the murder of Beant Singh and that he had been acquitted in all except one. The plea added that another person convicted in the same case and also involved in the jailbreak had been shifted from Tihar to a jail in Chandigarh. It said, "The mere fact that the petitioner was considered a high-risk prisoner years ago is not a good enough reason today to keep the prisoner in Delhi and not shift him to Punjab," and added that his daughter was in Punjab.
The petition further said, "The question that arises in this case is whether a person who has been accused of committing a murder in the context of serious social upheaval where tens of thousands of young Sikhs were extra-judicially executed by the state police on the instructions of the deceased Chief Minister Beant Singh, which offence has been characterised as exacerbated by his unsuccessful jail break attempt, but who has for the last 19 years led a life in prison which is without blemish can seek an order from this court for transfer to a jail in Punjab." Hawara was sentenced to death by a trial court in March 2007, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court in October 2010 commuted it to life imprisonment and directed that he should not be released for the rest of his life. His petition said appeals filed by him and by the prosecution against that verdict are pending in the Supreme Court. The court has now asked for Intelligence Bureau inputs before taking up his transfer plea again.
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