New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought NIA's stand on Jammu and Kashmir MP Rashid Engineer's plea over his bail in a terror-funding case. Justice Vikas Mahajan asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to file its response and posted the hearing on January 30.
Senior advocate N Hariharan while representing Engineer argued his bail plea was pending in the trial court for a considerable time and urged the high court to either direct its expeditious disposal or decide the matter itself. "Issue notice. Let reply/status report be filed before the next date of hearing," the high court said.
On December 24 last year, additional sessions judge Chander Jit Singh -- who had requested the district judge to transfer the case to a court designated to try lawmakers as Rashid became an MP -- dismissed Rashid's plea urging him to pronounce the verdict on his pending bail application in the NIA case. With the matter sent back to him by the district judge, the trial judge said in his decision that he could only decide the miscellaneous application and not the regular bail plea.
Hariharan said the MP was left without any redressal as the court hearing the bail plea "suddenly" took the view that it could not hear his case and the MP/MLA court did not have the jurisdiction to hear NIA cases. He argued the pendency of the bail plea was resulting in Rashid's constituency being left unrepresented during the parliamentary sessions owing to his continuing custody.
Hariharan said there was urgency in the matter as the fourth session of Parliament was scheduled to begin on January 31. "There seems to be no court which would hear my bail application. I have no redressal.. Three months have gone by and my bail application is pending. My constituency can't be unrepresented," he said.
He argued, "Twenty one witnesses get examined, that time you had the jurisdiction. I became an MP on June 5, 2024 but before that I was an MLA. When you took cognisance and when charges were framed, I was an MLA. You continue to hear me."
The NIA counsel said the agency in November wrote to the registrar general of the high court on the issue of designation of a lower court to hear the case but he was not aware of the status of the request. He suggested that the bench could call for a report from the high court's administrative side.
Hariharan said he didn't see any reason for the agency to oppose the present plea. Rashid was elected from the Baramulla constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and has been lodged in Tihar Jail since 2019 after the NIA arrested him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the 2017 terror-funding case. The ED filed a money laundering case against the accused persons on the basis of the NIA's FIR, which accused them of "conspiring to wage war against the government" and fomenting trouble in the Kashmir valley.
Cases of the NIA and the ED also involve Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba chief and 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin and others.
