NEW DELHI, Aug 3: The Delhi High Court today listed for hearing on August 7 a plea for virtual production of separatist leader Yasin Malik from jail in connection with the NIA’s plea seeking death penalty for him in a terror funding case.
The application by the Jail Superintendent was adjourned after a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anish Dayal, which was scheduled to hear the request, did not assemble.
The High Court had on May 29 issued warrants for production of Malik, who is presently serving life term in the case in Tihar Jail, on August 9 when the NIA’s plea for enhancement of sentence is listed for hearing.
In the application seeking modification of the order, the jail authorities said Malik was a “very high risk prisoner” and it was imperative to not physically produce him in court to maintain public order and safety.
It also said that as per an order passed by the Home Ministry, Malik cannot be “moved from Tihar Jail” and shall not be taken out of jurisdiction of the national capital.
“Respondent/Convict Yasin Malik has been lodged in Tihar Jail, New Delhi under the category of very high risk prisoners and thus, the present application is in relation to a heavy security issue. Therefore, it is imperative that the respondent/convict Yasin Malik is not physically produced before this Court in order to maintain public order and safety,” the application said.
Recently, the jailed separatist leader arrived in the Supreme Court in connection with a kidnapping case against him, prompting the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta to flag the “serious security lapse” to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla.
Malik appeared before the top court bench on July 21 for the CBI’s appeal against a September 20, 2022 order of a trial court in Jammu in the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
He was brought to the high-security apex court premises in a prison van escorted by armed security personnel without the court’s permission.
A life sentence, the NIA has asserted, is not commensurate with the crime committed by terrorists when the nation and families of soldiers have suffered loss of lives, and that the trial court’s conclusion that Malik’s crimes did not fall within the category of the “rarest of the rare cases” for grant of death penalty is “ex-facie legally flawed and completely unsustainable”.
The agency has emphasised that it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Malik spearheaded terrorist activities in the Valley and with the help of dreaded foreign terrorist organisations, had been “masterminding, planning, engineering and executing armed rebellion in the Valley in an attempt to usurp the sovereignty and integrity of a part of India”.
“Not giving capital punishment to such dreaded terrorist will result in miscarriage of justice, as, an act of terrorism is not a crime against society but it is a crime against the entire nation; in other words it’s an act of ‘external aggression’, ‘an act of war’ and an ‘affront to the sovereignty of nation’,” the plea has said.(PTI)
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