Prashant Bhushan urges SC to shift Shahabuddin to Tihar jail

Patna: Six days after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail in a case of murder, RJD strongman Mohd

Shahabuddin

is in for fresh trouble as senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan has moved the apex court again, seeking his transfer from the Siwan jail to the Tihar jail in Delhi.

Bhushan filed the petition on Wednesday on behalf of

Chanda Babu

whose three sons were allegedly murdered by Shahabuddin and his henchmen. The former Siwan MP has been awarded life term by a trial court in the case of twin murder of Chanda Babu’s sons, Girish and Satish.

Earlier on September 30, the apex court cancelled Shahabuddin’s bail on separate petitions of Bhushan on behalf of Chanda Babu and the Bihar government. Shahabuddin, who was sent back to the jail the same day, had been granted bail by the Patna high court on September 7 in the case of murder of Chanda Babu’s third son

Rajeev Raushan

.

“The apex court will remain closed from October 9. Our fresh petition is likely to get a case number and be heard after the court reopens on October 17,” Bhushan told TOI over the phone from Delhi on Thursday.

The petition alleges Rajeev was killed by Shahabuddin because he was an eyewitness to the killing of his two brothers. Since Chanda Babu is an eyewitness to the killing of Rajeev, “there is a serious threat to his life also”, the petition adds.

The petition points out Shahabuddin was very much in jail in Siwan when his two sons were killed in 2004. It also quotes the trial court’s judgement of December 2015, convicting him of the twin murder. The judgement said, “The prosecution has established the fact that accused Mohd Shahabuddin came from jail and committed the crime.”

The petition also refers to the killing of journalist

Rajdeo Ranjan

in May this year allegedly because he published a photograph of Shahabuddin meeting politicians in the jail. Not only witnesses, even investigating officer turned hostile in the trial court due to the “fear created by Shahabuddin”, the petition says, quoting the Bihar government’s affidavit in the bail cancellation case.

Quoting the Siwan’s DM report of July 2016 which he prepared after conducting a raid on the Siwan jail, Chanda Babu’s petition further says, “Two types of registers for meeting were produced. One register was meant for general people and the other for Shahabuddin... The facilities which Shahabuddin was enjoying inside the jail were in total violation of the Jail Manual/rules... He has been pressurizing the jail administration even when he was transferred from the Siwan jail to other jails of the state…”

“When Shahabuddin was being shifted from the Siwan jail to the Beur jail in 2015, he did not sit in the vehicle of the jail administration and forcibly sat in a private vehicle. He even visited his relative and minister Izazul Haq at the government quarter,” the petition says, quoting the apex court judgement cancelling his bail.

While maintaining that Shahabuddin has been an ‘A’-category history-sheeter (beyond reform), Chanda Babu’s petition says he committed crimes even when he was in Bihar jails. “As per the list of the cases supplied by the Siwan SP, at least 15 of the 45 cases pending against him have been registered after his arrest,” it says.

The petition also cites the example of another criminal-turned-politician Pappu Yadav who was transferred from the Beur jail to the Tihar jail on the orders of the Supreme Court in 2005.