New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Registrar General of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to ensure proper video-conferencing facilities at a Jammu special court hearing two cases against jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik and others.
A bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan further directed the Delhi High Court Registrar General to ensure proper video-conferencing facilities in Tihar jail where Malik is lodged in a separate terror financing case.
Both high court registrars were directed to file the status reports on February 18 by the bench, which posted the hearing on the CBI plea on February 21.
“We have perused the observations made by the (special) judge (of the Jammu court). At two places, he has recorded that the video-conference system in his court was not functioning properly,” the court said.
The bench therefore directed the Registrar General of Jammu and Kashmir High Court to look into what was “stated by the learned judge” and “take immediate steps for installing a proper system” to conduct the hearing through video-conferencing.
“The system should be such that there can be effective cross examination by using the system,” it added.
The top court asked the registrar general to “do the needful” and submit a report by February 18 before it after deputing an expert to examine the newly-installed VC system in Jammu court.
“We also direct the registrar in-charge of IT (information technology) of the Delhi High Court to visit the jail at Tihar to see whether (VC) facilities are good enough to enable the first respondent (Yasin Malik) to cross examine witnesses in the trial,” it said.
The bench was hearing a plea of the CBI seeking the transfer of the cases’ trials in the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of former union minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and the 1990 Srinagar shootout from Jammu to New Delhi.
At the outset, the bench was informed that except Malik, all other accused were out on bail in the two cases.
The bench suggested it may transfer the trials to Tihar Jail by setting up a special court and other accused may appear through the VC facilities.
The suggestion was opposed by the counsel of the other accused.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI, said it appeared all the accused were working in tandem to delay the trial.
An accused’s counsel, however, said, “What is the harm in having the trial there at Jammu court and have Yasin Malik appear through the VC? It will be difficult travelling all the way to Delhi.”
He said the offences alleged were old and the accused, who were in their 60s and 70s suffered from age-related ailments.
Mehta said while Malik refused to engage a lawyer, others opposed the transfer of trail.
The accused said they were old, but they should have been careful enough in younger days while committing the offences, he said.
The top court on December 18, last year, gave six accused two weeks to respond to the CBI’s plea to transfer the trial of the cases.
The plea is over the two cases — killing of four Indian Air Force personnel on January 25, 1990 in Srinagar and Rubaiya’s abduction on December 8, 1989.
Malik, chief of the banned organisation JKLF, is facing trial in both cases.
The top court was hearing a CBI plea against the September 20, 2022 order of a Jammu trial court directing Malik, serving a life term in Tihar jail, to be produced before it physically to cross-examine prosecution witnesses in the abduction case.
The CBI said Malik was a threat to national security and couldn’t be allowed to be taken outside the Tihar jail premises.
Rubaiya, who was freed five days after her abduction when the then BJP-backed V P Singh government at the Centre released five terrorists in exchange, now lives in Tamil Nadu. She is a prosecution witness for the CBI, which took over the case in early 1990s.
Malik has been lodged in Tihar jail after he was sentenced by a special NIA court in May 2023 in a terror-funding case.
