New Delhi, Oct 9 (IANS) The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the authorities to prepare a list of cases pending against Babbar Khalsa terrorist Jagtar Singh Hawara after he pleaded that in the absence of updated records he was unable to seek parole or furlough etc.
Hawara is serving a life sentence in the assassination case of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in August 1995.
“Let an updated list be prepared and supplied to the petitioner (Hawara) before the next date of hearing,” said Justice Anup J Bhambani while fixing December 11 for the next hearing.
The orders were passed after Delhi government senior standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra and advocate Chaitanya Gossain, appearing for the prison authorities, said that as per the information currently available, 37 cases were pending against the petitioner.
Hawara had filed the plea to seek direction to the authorities to update his case details in the prison records, alleging that their inaction was preventing him from exercising his legal rights like parole, furlough and suspension of sentence pending appeal.
“The respondents (prison authorities) are neither updating the prison records of the cases against the petitioner on the basis of documents sought to be supplied by the petitioner nor making efforts to themselves procure information about the cases against him, thereby preventing him from exercising any of the legal remedies in respect of release from prison,” the plea said.
The plea said it was the statutory duty of the Prison Department to keep updated records of all cases pending against an inmate.
Hawara was sentenced to death in the Beant Singh case on July 31, 2007 by a Punjab court. In 2010, the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted the death penalty and sentenced him to life imprisonment “till death”.
Hawara was among six persons convicted in a case relating to the 2005 Liberty and Satyam cinema blasts in the national capital.
–IANS
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