Yasin Malik produced in SC: Delhi jail admin suspends 4 prison officials for lapse

A jail official further said, “A detailed inquiry is being conducted by DIG Tihar to identify any other officials who may also be responsible for the serious lapse.”

Officials said Malik had to be produced before the court through video conferencing and not physically as no order in this regard had been specifically issued.

An official has said the issue arose over lack of coordination between jail staffers on producing Malik before the court and misreading of documents. “There was dereliction on part of officials… in reading instructions which were not court orders to produce Yasin physically… Others involved in the incident are also being identified and strict action will accordingly be taken,” said an officer.

Yasin’s physical appearance before the bench in connection with another terror-related case left the judges surprised as there was no specific direction to bring him from Tihar where he is jailed for life.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta took serious objection to Malik being brought from the prison and termed it a “heavy security issue”. He had added that there is an order under Section 268 of the Criminal Procedure Code operating against him.

The provision allows the state government to direct that any person or class of persons shall not be removed from the prison in which he or they may be confined or detained. The SG said that administrative measures would be put in place to ensure that it is not repeated.

Later in the day, Mehta was learnt to have written to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla highlighting the developments and terming it a “serious security lapse”.

The SG, sources had pointed out, said “…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” and that it could even have put the top court’s security to serious risk.

Referring to the Section 268 order, the senior law officer had said that so long as it subsisted, “jail authorities had no power to bring him out of jail premises nor did they have any reason to do so”.

Mehta had further said that he checked with the security officer accompanying Malik but he only had a printed notice in a general format of the SC which is sent with regard to parties in every case. “The… notice informs the recipients of the notice to appear before the Court either in person or through an authorised Advocate” and is “not either the permission of the” SC “to bring a convict facing an order under section 268 of CrP Code… out of jail nor is it requiring mandatory personal presence of the recipient of the order”.

The law officer had urged the Home Secretary to take suitable action in the matter.

After the incident, an inquiry was ordered, which was headed by Deputy Inspector General of Prisons (Headquarters) Rajiv Singh, with instructions to submit a detailed action taken report to the DG (Prisons) within three days.

Malik is currently serving a life sentence in connection with a terror funding case.