New Delhi, April 4 (KNS): The Supreme Court on Friday permitted jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik to cross-examine witnesses in two cases through video conferencing from Tihar Jail.
The decision came in response to a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which sought the transfer of trials in two cases—the 1989 abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of former Union Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and the 1990 Srinagar shootout case in which four Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel were killed. The CBI had requested the trials be moved from Jammu to New Delhi.
A bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan reviewed reports from the registrar IT of the Delhi High Court and the registrar general of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on the availability of video conferencing facilities in Tihar Jail and Jammu.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelThe court noted that the Jammu sessions court was adequately equipped for virtual proceedings.
Malik, currently lodged in Tihar Jail following his sentencing in a terror-funding case in May 2023, informed the court that he did not wish to engage a lawyer for cross-examining witnesses.
Rubaiya Sayeed, who was released five days after her abduction in exchange for five terrorists by the then BJP-backed V P Singh government, now resides in Tamil Nadu. She is a prosecution witness in the case, which the CBI took over in the early 1990s.(AGENCIES)