The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Punjab government to hand over the custody of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari to Uttar Pradesh Police within two weeks.
A Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R. Subhash Reddy said Punjab had denied Uttar Pradesh the custody of Ansari on trivial grounds. Ansari, an MLA from Mau constituency, is currently lodged in a Punjab jail.
The apex court said a convict or an undertrial prisoner, who disobeys the law of the land, cannot oppose his transfer from one prison to another and the courts are not to be a helpless bystander when the rule of law is being challenged with impunity.
The court, in a judgment, ordered Ansari to be lodged in District Jail, Banda, in U.P.
Justice Reddy, who authored the 56-page verdict, said it was open for the special court, constituted for MPs/MLAs at Allahabad, to continue to lodge him either in the District Jail at Banda or shift to any other prison in the State.
“There shall be a direction to the Superintendent of Jail, District Jail Banda, Uttar Pradesh to extend the necessary medical facilities to the 3rd respondent (Ansari). It is made clear that if any specialty treatment is required to the 3rd respondent, the Jail Superintendent of District Jail, Banda, Uttar Pradesh shall take necessary steps to extend such medical care also, by following the Jail Manual,” the judgment read.
The court, which held the U.P. government’s plea to be maintainable, however, refused to transfer a criminal case pending against Ansari in Punjab’s Mohali to U.P. and said the matter was at the stage of investigation.
The top court also dismissed a plea by Ansari seeking transfer of cases lodged against him in Uttar Pradesh to some other place outside the state.
The top court delivered the verdict on the plea of Uttar Pradesh government seeking a direction to the Punjab government and jail authority to immediately hand over the custody of Ansari.
Justice Reddy noted that Ansari was allegedly involved in various cases of attempt to murder, murder, cheating and conspiracy apart from offences under Gangsters Act, lodged in UP and out of them, 10 cases are at the stages of trial.
