SRINAGAR: In a jolt to JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik, who was arrested by the NIA and lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday cleared way for his trial in three-decades-old cases regarding the abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed and the killing of five IAF personnel.
Justice Sanjay Kumar Gupta dismissed two petitions filed by Malik and others seeking the transfer of cases of kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Home Minister Mufti Sayeed, and killing of IAF personnel from the Jammu TADA court to the Srinagar TADA court.
He observed that in case the High Court entertains any petition against the order of the designated court established under TADA, then the very scheme and object of the Act and intendment of Parliament would completely be defeated and frustrated.
The TADA Act provides for a complete machinery to challenge an order passed by the designated court and the remedy provided by that Act must be followed, the judge said.
Justice Gupta observed that from bare perusal of contents of petitions and relief sought therein, one can definitely come to conclusion that the petitioners have sought transfer of their cases from designated court Jammu to additional court at Srinagar, which is not permissible under law.
The court vacated stay on trial.
The CBI had filed a charge sheet in Jammu in 1990 and named Malik in both cases.
However, Malik’s trial was stayed by High Court in 1995 and in 2008, he had moved a special court for shifting of a trial from Jammu to Srinagar.
Malik was named in the FIR regarding the abduction of Rubaiya Syed in December 1989. She was released after an exchange of some JKLF militants.
Malik was also wanted in the killing of five IAF personnel in a militant attack in Srinagar on January 25, 1990.