Afzal Guru to challenge rejection of transfer plea

Parliament attack case convict Muhammad Afzal Guru has sought help of the Supreme Court’s Legal Services Committee to challenge a central home ministry order that rejected his transfer application.

Parliament attack case convict Muhammad Afzal Guru has sought help of the Supreme Court’s Legal Services Committee to challenge a central home ministry order that rejected his transfer application.

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Guru had petitioned to be moved to a central prison in Jammu and Kashmir so that his family could easily meet him.
Guru, who has been on death row for the past five years, is currently lodged at Tihar jail. Guru, said a jail source who is not authorised to talk to the media, recently wrote to the committee requesting it to draft a petition for him that would challenge the “legality of the government’s order”.

The ministry’s rejection of Guru’s transfer application was based on “security grounds”, as one of its officials had put it then.

Guru’s plea was based on an inmate's right to seek transfer to another state’s jail as provisioned in the Transfer of Prisoners Act, 1950.

The Act however makes it clear that the transfer could happen only if the government of the other state (of whose jail an inmate seeks a transfer to) approves of such a request.

Guru’s mercy petition is pending since 2006.