Pappu Yadav to be shifted to Tihar

NEW DELHI: Counting various misdemeanour of RJD MP Pappu Yadav during his period of incarceration in Patna''a Beur jail, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered shifting of Ajit Sarkar murder accused to Delhi''s high security Tihar Jail within a week.
A Bench of Justices N Santosh Hegde and S B Sinha said a "clear cut case" was made out for shifting of Yadav from Beur to Tihar Jail.
The Bench warned the Bihar officials who would be transferring Yadav from Beur to Tihar not to "extend any special privileges" to him and to scrupulously follow the Jail Manual.
The CBI had suggested six jails in South where Yadav could be shifted. Jain had suggested that if Yadav had to be transferred, he should be shifted to Tihar considering he has a wife and children living in the Capital.
Jain had also argued that transferring him from Beur to Tihar would result in negating his right to fair trial as six criminal cases were pending before various trial courts. But, the Bench ordered that the Ajit Sarkar murder case and other cases would be continued taking the help of the video-conferencing facility operational at Tihar Jail and the personal presence of the accused would be dispensed with.
Only in exceptional and rare circumstances the trial courts in Bihar would seek Yadav''s personal presence. In case of his appearance before a trial court in Bihar, the Bench directed that Yadav be taken there under police escort from Tihar and detained at a nearby jail with guards from the central jail.
Anguished at manner in which Yadav flouted all norms and its directions, the Bench recalled that on November 1, 2004 he held a ''durbar'' of a large number unauthorised visitors.
The Bench said in Tihar Jail visitation rights would be extended only to his family members and those allowed under the jail rules.
The Bench also noted that after it cancelled Yadav''s bail, the Bihar Government "post-haste had constituted a Medical Board" which opined his lodging in the hospital.
It took an exception to the fact that while being admitted in the hospital, Yadav did not even spend a day in the prison ward but made the Intensive Care Unit and an adjoining room as his place for "five-star" treatment.
The Bench said it has taken judicial notice of the fact that an FIR was lodged against Yadav, while being in judicial custody at Beur jail, for conspiring to murder a person and that he had addressed a public meeting at Madhepura while in judicial custody.
Moreover, the complainant in the case, Kalyan Sarkar and his family was given security by the trial court after they received threats to their life, the Bench narrated in its judgment as one of the ground for transferring Yadav to Tihar Jail.