Beant Singh murder case: Supreme Court defers to March 11 hearing on Hawara’s plea for transfer to Punjab jail

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) adjourned the hearing to March 11 on the plea of ​​Beant Singh murder convict Jagtar Singh Hawara to be transferred from Tihar jail in Delhi to any prison in Punjab.

Babbar Khalsa terrorist is serving life imprisonment in the case related to the murder of the former Punjab chief minister in 1995.

The bench, comprising Justices MM Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh, adjourned the case after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought adjournment.

On September 27 last year, the high court issued notices to the Centre, the Chandigarh administration and the Delhi and Punjab governments on Hawara’s request.

Hawara is serving life imprisonment in the case related to the explosion that took place at the entrance of the civil secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, killing Beant Singh and 16 others.

In the defense submitted to the high court, it was stated that Hawara’s behavior in prison was faultless, except for the claim that he escaped on January 22, 2004 and was later arrested. It was said that since there was no pending case against him in the national capital, he had to be transferred from Delhi’s Tihar Jail to any jail in Punjab.

“The plaintiff (Hawara) is currently serving life imprisonment for the rest of his life in a case registered in the state of Punjab… He is a native of Fatehgarh Sahib district of the state of Punjab and should be incarcerated in a prison in Punjab,” he said.

Allegedly, the plaintiff was acquitted of all but one of the 36 false cases filed against him after the murder. Some of the escaped convicts in the same case were also transferred from Tihar to a jail in Chandigarh.

“The fact that the petitioner was considered a high-risk prisoner many years ago is not a sufficient reason to keep the prisoner in Delhi today and not send him to Punjab,” he said, adding that his daughter was in Punjab. he said. Hawara’s wife died and his mother is in a coma in the USA

“The question that arises in this case is whether a person accused of murder in the context of a serious communal riot in which tens of thousands of young Sikhs were extrajudicially executed by the State police on the instructions of the late Chief Minister Beant Singh, an offense stated to have been further aggravated by his failed attempt to escape from prison, but who has enjoyed a perfect life in prison for the last 19 years, can seek an order from this court to transfer him to prison in Punjab,” he said in the plea.

In March 2007, Hawara was sentenced to death by a court in the case.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court in October 2010 commuted his sentence to life imprisonment with a direction that he would not leave jail for the rest of his life.

In Hawara’s petition, it was stated that his and the prosecution’s objections against the high court decision were pending in the higher court.