HC asks NIA stand after jailed J&K MP Rashid Engineer seeks interim bail to attend Parliament

New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the NIA’s stand on a plea by jailed Jammu and Kashmir MP Rashid Engineer for interim bail in a terror-funding case to attend Parliament.

Justice Vikas Mahajan, posting the hearing next week, said, “Let the needful be done before the next date of hearing.”

Rashid said he wished to attend the upcoming budget session of Parliament, which begins on January 31 and concludes on April 4.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the NIA, said he would seek instructions on the issue.

In the alternative, Rashid’s plea sought custody parole during the budget session.

The plea forms part of his pending petition over grant of bail in the case by the NIA.

His main petition urges the high court to either direct the expeditious disposal of his pending bail plea by the trial court or decide the matter itself.

Rashid’s lawyer had 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 cases probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

During the hearing, Luthra said the high court administration filed a plea before the Supreme Court for a clarification on the issue.

He objected the maintainability of the writ petition, saying Rashid ought to have filed an appeal instead, and he had no “right” in law to attend Parliament only because he was an MP now.

“We have to find a solution to this. MP/MLA court can’t be a special judge (for NIA). There is a statute,” the court said.

Justice Mahajan granted more time to NIA to file a response to the main petition.

Senior advocate N Hariharan, who represented the MP, reiterated his concern with respect to his constituency going unrepresented during the budget session.

“I missed the last session. My area can’t go unrepresented. I received summons from the President in prison. All I am asking is this, since the court is not getting convened, grant me interim bail,” he said.

“I have pledged allegiance to the country. I am not a flight risk,” he added.

Hariharan argued the intent of the Supreme Court’s decision on designation of special MP/MLA courts was to grant expeditious hearing to the legislators and not use it to their disadvantage.

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 as Rashid was an MP — 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.

The NIA counsel had earlier told Justice Mahajan that the probe agency in November wrote to the registrar general on the issue of designation of a trial court to hear the case but he was not aware of the status of the request.

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.