The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave banned JKLF
chief Yasin Malik and five others two weeks to respond to the CBI's plea to
transfer the trial in two terror cases from Jammu to New Delhi.
One case relates to the killing of four Indian Air
Force personnel on January 25, 1990 in a shootout in Srinagar, the other to the
abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, then Union Home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's
daughter, on December 8, 1989.
On Wednesday, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and
Manmohan took note of the fact that six accused have not filed their replies to
the Central Bureau of Investigation's plea and asked them to do the needful in
two weeks. It listed the case for further hearing on January 20, 2025.
If trial is to be transferred then all accused have
to be heard, said the bench.
The bench was apprised that one accused Mohammed
Rafiq Pahloo has passed away and the trial against him would abate.
Besides Malik and Pahloo, 10 people have been made
party to the CBI's plea. Of them, six accused have not filed their replies to
the CBI's plea.
On November 28, the top court sought a response from
Yasin Malik and others on the CBI's plea to transfer the trial.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that
Malik need not be physically taken to Jammu court for trial in the kidnapping
case as Tihar jail has a court with video-conferencing facilities.
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 Rubaiya Sayeed case.
The CBI said Malik, the top leader of the Jammu and
Kashmir Liberation Front, was a threat to national security and cannot be
allowed to be taken outside the Tihar jail premises.
Rubaiya Sayeed, 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 lodged in Tihar jail after he was
sentenced by a special NIA court in May 2023 in a terror-funding case.