‘Everyone was shocked’: Life convict Yasin Malik appears in Supreme Court

The Supreme Court justices and the Central government were ‘shocked’ to see Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik, who is serving a life sentence in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, turn up at the Supreme Court to argue his case.

The Supreme Court Bench was taken by surprise to see the separatist leader, who is convicted in a terror-funding case, in the courtroom and asked what a life convict was doing showing up in person to the apex court.

“He could have appeared through video conferencing without compromising anything,” the two-judge bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta told the Tihar Prison authorities.

Malik appeared in the Court based on a CBI plea against an order by the Jammu court against the convict in relation to the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel and the 1989 abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.

The appearance of Yasin Malik took even Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor SV Raju by surprise, who criticised the Tihar authorities for bringing a high-security prisoner like Malik to the Supreme Court in a ‘careless and cavalier manner’. SG Mehta also noted that no prisoner can appear in person at the Supreme Court without the written permission of the Registrar of the court.

In response to the Bench’s and the Solicitor General’s remarks, the Tihar authorities said, “Next time we will ensure that he [Malik] is not physically present.”

‘Prima facie lapse’ of officers: Delhi Prisons Department on Yasin Malik fiasco

Taking cognizance of the matter, officials from the Delhi Prisons Department said that there was a ‘prima facie lapse’ on the part of the officials of Central Jail no. 7 (Tihar) which led to the incident, and has ordered an inquiry.

“Today, Yasin Malik was produced physically in the Supreme Court by the officials of Delhi’s Tihar Central Jail no. 7 and prima facie it was observed that it was a lapse on the part of concerned Jail officials,” the Prisons Department official said.

The inquiry will be conducted by Deputy Inspector General (Prisons-Headquarters) Rajiv Singh, who will then submit the report to the Director General (Prisons) within three days.

The incident also led Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to write a letter to Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, highlighting the danger of producing a high-security prisoner like Malik to the Supreme Court.

The SG wrote, “It is my firm view that this [appearance of Malik] is a serious security lapse. A person with a terrorist and secessionist background like Mr Yasin Malik who is not only a convict in a terror funding case but has known connections with terror organisations in Pakistan could have escaped, could have been forcibly taken away or could have been killed.

“Even the security of the SC also could have been put at serious risk if any untoward incident were to happen. In any view of the matter, so long as the order under Section 268 of criminal procedure code subsists, jail authorities had no power to bring him out of jail premises nor did they have any reason to do so.

“Everyone was shocked when news was received that the jail authorities are bringing Yasin Malik personally to appear before the Supreme Court as per his desire to appear as party in person.

“When I enquired from the officer who was in charge of the security of Mr Yasin Malik in the Supreme Court, the only thing he could show me was a printed notice in a general format of the Supreme Court which is sent with regard to every party to any matter in the Court. The said printed notice informs the recipients of the notice to appear before the Court either in person or through an authorised Advocate.”

The Supreme Court in April had stayed the Jammu court’s order allowing the personal presence of Yasin Malik in connection to two cases. The matter will be heard again by the apex court after four weeks.