SC orders switch of Mukhtar Ansari from Punjab jail to UP

Allowing a petition by Uttar Pradesh authorities, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered the switch of custody of gangster-turned-MLA Mukhtar Ansari from Punjab’s Ropar jail to Banda jail in Uttar Pradesh inside two weeks. Punjab authorities had sternly opposed the UP plea and sought its dismissal.
The Court was listening to two switch petitions, one filed by the UP authorities in search of switch of Ansari, a BSP MLA from Mau meeting constituency, from Punjab to UP and one other by the accused himself, who sought a switch of instances towards him to Delhi. The switch plea by Ansari was dismissed.

Ansari was booked for extortion (Section 386 of Indian Penal Code) and legal intimidation (Section 506 of the IPC) on the grievance of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Homeland Group engaged in actual property enterprise in Punjab and Delhi National Capital Region. In his grievance to the Mohali SSP, the CEO acknowledged that on January 9, 2019 night he answered a name from an individual who launched himself as “some Ansari from UP” and requested him to pay up Rs 10 crore if he needed to make sure the protection of his household. The complainant stated he had recorded the decision.
The police lodged an FIR by which Ansari was named because the accused together with his handle as Banda, Uttar Pradesh. The Punjab Police introduced Ansari on manufacturing warrant from a jail in Uttar Pradesh a couple of fortnight after the registration of this case. He has been lodged within the Ropar jail since then.
In October final yr, BJP MLA Alka Rai, spouse of former BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai who was shot lifeless in Ghazipur in 2005, had written to Congress common secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, accusing the Congress authorities in Punjab of serving to jailed Ansari evade courtroom appearances in UP. Ansari was named as a key conspirator in Krishnanand’s homicide case. A particular courtroom in Delhi acquitted him IN 2019.