Delhi HC seeks NIA’s response on Engineer Rashid’s plea seeking waiver of travel cost for attending Parliament

On Tuesday, a Delhi court granted custody parole to Rashid from July 24 to August 4 to attend the Monsoon Session of Parliament, but rejected his interim bail plea.

Rashid urged the trial court to either grant interim bail or permission to attend Parliament in custody, without payment of travel costs, as he was seeking to attend the session as part of his public duty and not for personal work.

Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh, however, imposed travel costs on him.

Challenging the trial court’s order, Senior Advocate N Hariharan told a bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Shalinder Kaur Friday that despite the custody parole, Rashid was losing each day of the relief as he had not been able to attend the session due to the huge costs. Hariharan also submitted that Rashid has been “saddled” with a cost of Rs 17 lakh to “represent the public at large.”

The bench posted the matter for further consideration on July 29, and issued notice to NIA. On the same day, the high court is also due to consider a plea by Rashid seeking regular bail after a trial court rejected the request on March 21.

In March, while allowing Rashid to attend Parliament during the Budget session, the Delhi High Court imposed the condition that the lawmaker would bear the expense for his travel to Parliament while in the court’s custody, accompanied by the police, and other arrangements.

The jail authorities had estimated a daily cost of approximately Rs 1.45 lakh for travel and related arrangements, totalling Rs 8.74 lakh for Rashid to attend six days of Parliament. At the time, he had challenged the condition that required him to bear the costs before the HC.

Subsequently, he had submitted that he is ready to deposit 50 per cent of the cost of over Rs 8.74 lakh for the police escort arrangement to attend Parliament. Recording Rashid’s submission, the Delhi HC had directed that he would be allowed to attend Parliament after depositing the amount.

Lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2019 in a case of alleged terror funding, he was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. According to NIA, he used various public platforms to “propagate the ideology of separatism and secessionism”, was closely associated with various terrorist organisations, and wanted to “legitimise” the United Jihad Council, a platform of anti-India militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir.

On May 30, 2017, NIA registered a case under Indian Penal Code Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) against Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and other “secessionist and separatist” leaders, including Rashid.

NIA claimed they “received and collected” funds through hawala channels in “connivance with active militants of…terrorist organizations Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Toiba” to fund “terrorist activities” in Jammu and Kashmir.