The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred hearing a plea by Babbar Khalsa operative Jagtar Singh Hawara, who is serving a life imprisonment for the 1995 assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, seeking a transfer from Delhi’s Tihar Jail to a prison in Punjab.
A bench comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.B. Varale posted the matter for hearing after February 2027 following a “damning” report submitted by the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
The IB inputs warned that moving Hawara to Punjab would have a severe impact on the upcoming state assembly elections, particularly amidst heightened security concerns both domestically and abroad.
Hawara had sought the transfer on humanitarian grounds, citing the advanced age of his 90-year-old mother. However, the Union government highlighted his record, including his conviction in six cases and a high-profile 2004 jailbreak from Chandigarh’s Burail Jail.
The Delhi and Punjab governments, along with the Chandigarh administration, had earlier expressed strong reservations against the transfer request.
Senior advocate S. Muralidhar, representing Hawara, suggested deferring the hearing until after the elections, maintaining that Punjab prisons are adequately secure. Hawara was convicted for the August 31, 1995, Secretariat bomb blast in Chandigarh that killed Beant Singh and 16 others. In 2010, the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment.
