A plea filed by a prisoner who wanted to be transferred from the Nashik jail in 2020 was dismissed by the Bombay High Court. The court determined that the grounds supplied by the petitioner and the reasons offered by the authorities for the transfer were entirely different, thus it freed the convict to file another petition if he disagreed with the transfer decision. However, the convict has already requested transfer once more.
Mohammed Zubair Kasam Shaikh, who is serving a life sentence at the Nashik Central Prison, submitted a plea that was being heard by the justices PB Varale and NR Borkar. A prisoner named Asghar Ali Mansoori is accused of killing himself on October 7, 2020, and it is said that he ingested a suicide note (recovered following an autopsy) in which he accused the prison administration of being to blame. The Bombay High Court had received a petition from Mansoori’s family requesting an investigation. After the case’s investigation was launched, Shaikh submitted a petition asking to be transferred to a different jail.
Shaikh’s attorney, Mohammed Abdi, told the court that after being relocated, he was still being harassed and that his family members were unable to see him because of the distance. Second, the authorities harboured animosity toward him since he testified against them during the investigation into the suicide of Mansoori.
Shaikh is from Mumbai, but instead of sending him to a prison nearby, which would have been more convenient for his family, he was sent to Nagpur.
However, according to government pleader Mankhuvar Deshmukh, Shaikh was permanently moved from Nashik to Nagpur, and the jail administration clearly mentioned in the order that this relocation was a result of Shaikh’s behaviour within the facility. Deshmukh claimed that Shaikh received warnings when the jail administration discovered that he was acting inappropriately within the facility. The Jail Superintendent provided his superiors with a pertinent report. Shaikh was moved from the crowded jail in Nashik to the less crowded jail in Nagpur as a result of this report.
The panel ruled that the petition did not need to be kept pending because the transfer had taken place as Shaikh had pleaded for. The panel stated, “The petitioner is free to file a fresh petition contesting the abovementioned judgement in case he has a grievance about the transfer order.”
The court requested a sealed cover report be submitted by the judicial officer in Nashik in the other case involving the Mansoori family’s plea. After two weeks, that request will then be heard.
