By Sohini Ghosh
Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik on Friday informed the Delhi High Court he will defend himself in the appeal moved by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seeking the death penalty for him in a 2016 terror funding case.
While appearing before Justice Suresh Kait and Girish Kathpalia through video conference from Tihar jail, Malik pointed out that while he was allowed to be produced before the court physically, the Delhi High Court passed an order on August 4, 2023, directing that he would be presented before the court through “video-conferencing alone”, without hearing him.
Malik requested that the high court record in the order that he was not allowed to be heard when the order was passed. To this, the bench said as per procedure, he could challenge the same before the Supreme Court, but the high court itself cannot record the ex-parte nature of the earlier order.
“Ab yeh hai, main Supreme Court jaata, saaf baat bataun, woh sirf Home Ministry ki hi sunte hain… Supreme Court nahi jaana hai (If I’m candid, if I go to SC, they’ll only hear the Home Ministry… I don’t want to go to SC),” said Malik, the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF),
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
