Delhi HC to hear on Aug 7 plea to virtually produce Yasin Malik in terror funding case

The Delhi High Court on Thursday listed for hearing on August 7 a plea for virtual production of separatist leader Yasin Malik from jail in connection with the NIAs plea seeking death penalty for him in a terror funding caseThe 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 assembleThe 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 NIAs plea for enhancement of sentence is listed for hearingIn 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 safetyIt 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 capitalRespondentConvict 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 respondentconvict Yasin Malik is not physically produced before this Honble Court in order to maintain public order and safety the application saidRecently 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 lapseiquest to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar BhallaMalik appeared before the top court bench on July 21 for the CBIs 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 SayeedHe was brought to the highsecurity apex court premises in a prison van escorted by armed security personnel without the courts permissionLater that week the Department of Delhi Prisons suspended four officials over Maliks physical appearance before the top court while ordering an inquiry into the lapseOn May 29 the high court had issued notice to Malik on the NIAs plea seeking death penalty for him in the terror funding case and said Let warrants of production be issued against Yasin Malik before this Court on the next date of hearing List on 09082023On May 24 2022 a trial court here had awarded life imprisonment to Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Malik after holding him guilty for various offences under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA and the IPCMalik had pleaded guilty to the charges including those under the UAPA and he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonmentAppealing against the sentence the NIA has emphasised that a terrorist cannot be awarded life sentence only because he has pleaded guilty and chosen not to go through trialWhile seeking enhancement of the sentence to death penalty the NIA has said if such dreaded terrorists are not given capital punishment on account of pleading guilty there would be complete erosion of the sentencing policy and terrorists would have a way out to avoid capital punishmentA 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 courts conclusion that Maliks crimes did not fall within the category of the rarest of the rare cases for grant of death penalty is iquestexfacie legally flawed and completely unsustainableThe 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 IndiaNot 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 its an act of external aggression an act of war and an affront to the sovereignty of nation the plea has saidThe trial court which had rejected the NIAs plea for capital punishment had said the crimes committed by Malik struck at the heart of the idea of India and were intended to forcefully secede Jammu and Kashmir from Union of IndiaIt had however noted that the case was not the rarest of rare warranting death penaltyThe maximum punishment for such an offence is death penaltyThe life term was awarded for two offences section 121 waging war against government of India of IPC and section 17 raising funds for terrorist act of the UAPAAccording to the Supreme Court life imprisonment means incarceration till the last breath unless the sentence is commuted by the authoritiesThe court had awarded Malik 10year jail term each under sections 120 B criminal conspiracy 121A conspiracy to wage war against the government of India of IPC and sections 15 terrorism 18 conspiracy for terrorism and 20 being member of terror organisation of UAPA