The Delhi High Court on Tuesday listed for hearing
on February 24 a plea by jailed MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh alias Engineer Rashid on
the issue of lack of a forum to decide his bail plea in a terror funding case.
Justice Vikas Mahajan deferred the hearing after he was
informed by the counsel for the high court administration that the Supreme
Court on Monday clarified that the NIA court dealing with the case could hear
the bail plea.
Rashid had moved the high court earlier, alleging he
did not have a remedy after the NIA court dealing with his bail application
left him in a limbo after his election to the Lok Sabha last year on account of
it not being a special MP/MLA court.
As an interim relief, Rashid was on Monday allowed a
two-day custody parole to attend the ongoing Parliament session on February 11
and 13.
In view of the development in the top court, Justice
Mahajan on Tuesday orally asked Rashid's lawyer to approach the NIA court for
bail.
The MP's counsel, however, urged the court to
adjourn the matter for a week.
Adjourning the matter, it asked the high court
administration's lawyer to place on record the office order which would be
passed by the authorities on the issue of designation of the court to hear
Rashid's case in view of the Supreme Court's clarification.
The Baramulla MP is facing trial in a terror funding
case with the allegations that he funded separatists and terror groups in Jammu
and Kashmir.
Rashid, who was elected from the Baramulla
constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 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 Delhi High Court registrar general had moved the
top court earlier over the issue of jurisdiction of the court which should
ideally hear Rashid's bail plea.
The clarification from the Supreme Court was
required as a 2016 judgment of the apex court designated a special MP/MLA court
to solely try cases involving MP/MLAs.
In his petition, Rashid urged the high court to
either direct the expeditious disposal of his pending bail plea by the NIA
court or decide the matter itself.
On December 24 last year, Additional Sessions Judge
Chander Jit Singh, who requested the district judge to transfer the case to a
court designated to try lawmakers, dismissed his plea asking for an order on
the 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 bail plea.