Ensure Proper VC Facilities For Yasin Malik's Trial: Supreme Court (image: X.com/@thehawkeyex)
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday instructed the registrar general of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to ensure proper videoconferencing (VC) facilities available at the Jammu Court while trial of Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik take place. A Bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan passed the order after considering the trial judge’s observations that the VC system was not working properly in the Jammu court.
The Court ordered that “the system should be such that there can be effective cross-examination”. The apex court has further directed Registrar General of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to submit a report after deputing an expert to examine the newly installed system. They were asked to submit the report by February 17.
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The court was hearing an appeal by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against a Jammu trial court’s order demanding Malik’s physical presence in trial proceedings. The Jammu trial court on September 20, 2022 ordered Malik who is serving a life sentence in Tihar jail, to be produced before it physically to cross-examine prosecution witnesses in the Sayeed case. In response, the investigative agency said that Malik was a threat to national security and cannot be allowed to be taken outside the Tihar jail premises. In April 2023, the top court had stayed the order.
The top court had stayed Jammu Court’s order last year. It suggested that a temporary courtroom could be set up in jail to physically cross-examine Malik instead of taking him to Jammu. Further, the apex court has been informed about the presence of fully functional courtroom is in Tihar jail, along with VC facilities.
Meanwhile, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta appearing for the CBI submitted today that Malik was refusing to appear via VC. The Supreme court then denoted about the dismal video conferencing facilities, to which Mehta said that facilities can be improved.
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Malik, former chief of the banned organisation Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is facing trials in the 1989 Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping and the 1990 Srinagar shootout cases. The kidnapping case is related to the abduction of Sayeed, daughter of then union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, on December 8, 1989 and the shootout case related to the killing of four Indian Air Force personnel on January 25, 1990 in Srinagar. Five days after abduction, Sayeed got freed when then BJP-backed V P Singh government at the Centre released five terrorists in exchange.
Malik is currently lodged in Tihar jail after being convicted in a terror-funding case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) .
