Yasin Malik's appearance in SC: 4 Tihar jail officials suspended for security lapse

New Delhi: The Tihar Jail administration suspended four officers including one deputy superintendent, and two assistant superintendents on Saturday, a day after Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik who is serving a life term made a surprise entry into the Supreme Court.

Prison officials stated the aforesaid punitive action of supension of prison officials was initiated over the security lapses that led to the incident.

Malik, who is in jail following his conviction and life sentence in a terror funding case, was brought to the high-security apex court premises in a prison van escorted by armed security personnel without the court's permission.

He walked into the courtroom to the utter surprise of all present.

Meanwhile, Delhi prisons department on Friday said there was 'prima facie lapse' on the part of some officials and ordered an inquiry. Deputy inspector general (prisons-headquarters) Rajiv Singh will conduct the inquiry to find out the lapse and fix the responsibility of erring officials and submit a report to the director general (prisons) within three days, according to an official statement.

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.

When Mehta pointed at Malik's presence in the courtroom, the bench said it had not granted him permission or passed any order allowing him to argue his case in person.

Mehta also wrote to Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla over the 'serious security lapse'.

"It is my firm view that this is a serious security lapse. A person with a terrorist and secessionist background like Yasin Malik who is not only a convict in a 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.

Mehta highlighted that there is 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.

Malik appeared in the top court when a bench headed by Justice Surya Kant was hearing an appeal filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the September 20, 2022 order of a trial court in Jammu in the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of then Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

In a statement, the Delhi prisons department said: "On Friday, Yasin Malik was produced physically in the Supreme Court by the officials of Central Jail number 7. Prima facie, the lapse was observed on the part of concerned jail officials.

"The director general (prisons) has ordered a detailed dinquiry in the matter to be conducted by deputy inspector general (headquarters) (prisons) Rajiv Singh to find out the lapse and fix the responsibility of erring officials. The report will be submitted within three days to DG prisons," it added.

(With agency inputs)