A day after the surprise presence of jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik in the Supreme Court created a flutter, the Tihar Jail administration has suspended four officers including one Deputy Superintendent, and two Assistant Superintendents, according to prison officials. Malik is currently serving a life sentence a terror funding case.
On Friday, Malik walked into the court room after being escorted by armed security personnel without the court's permission. Voicing surprise at his presence, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta that there was a procedure for high-risk convicts to be allowed into the courtroom to argue their case personally. The bench further said that it had not granted him permission or passed any order allowing him to argue his case in person.
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Yasin Malik appears in Supreme Court
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta wrote to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla over the "serious security lapse". "It is my firm view that this is serious security lapse. A person with terrorist and secessionist background like Yasin Malik who is not only a convict in terror funding case but has known connections with terror organisations in Pakistan could have escaped, could have been forcibly taken away or could have been killed," Mehta wrote.
He further pointed to an order passed by the Ministry of Home Affairs with regard to Malik under section 268 of the Criminal Code of Procedure which prevents the jail authorities to bring the said convict out of the jail premises for security reasons.
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The Delhi Prison department ordered a detailed inquiry into the incident and will submit its report in the next three days.
