New Delhi: A division bench of the Delhi High Court comprising Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Anup Bhambhani reached a split verdict Friday on a plea filed by jailed Baramulla MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh seeking modification of an order asking him to deposit Rs 4 lakh with jail authorities to attend Parliament while in custody. While Justice Chaudhary dismissed Rashid’s plea by ruling against his custodial parole, Justice Bhambhani allowed it, calling for payment of “reasonable costs” to attend Parliament proceedings.
The order will now be placed before the Chief Justice for further directions, but has in the meantime ignited debate on the political rights of undertrials.
Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, was arrested on 9 August, 2019, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act over alleged links with terror funding networks.
During his term in Tihar jail, he had applied for custody parole to attend the Lok Sabha. Initially rejected by the additional sessions judge, his appeal was later accepted on the condition that “the expenses of the aforesaid travel and other arrangements shall be borne by the appellant”. The jail authorities subsequently raised a bill of Rs 1.44 lakh per day for security and logistics for Sheikh’s “in-custody” attendance of the Lok Sabha.
Similar orders for the next parliamentary session, with Rs 4 lakh charges for security and travel, led Rashid to plead for modification of such high costs.
His defence council, senior advocate N. Hariharan, questioned the reason behind such heavy cost for parliamentary presence.
According to the legal news portal Bar and Bench, he argued: “You are saddling me with Rs 17 lakh cost to represent the public at large? I am losing every day. I have gone there before. You have sent me earlier on two occasions. I was allowed by this court.”
Following Rashid’s appeal, a status report for day-wise break-up of charges was called for.
The proceedings ended with differing opinions. Justice Chaudhary dismissed Rashid’s plea, stating that “attending Parliament cannot be termed as an emergent situation comparable to death, marriage or serious illness in the family or to the applicant”. He also stated that “we must consider whether a ground for custody parole is really made out in this case”.
“Once it is already settled in law that a parliamentarian does not have any entitlement to attend Parliament while he is in judicial custody, to grant him custody parole for the same reason, would be indirectly doing what is barred by law,” he stated.
Justice Bhambhani, however, stated: “I am of the view that… the appellant shall only be liable to pay reasonable costs that would be incurred by the state towards his transportation from Tihar Jail to Parliament and back for every day that he avails custody parole to attend Parliament proceeding.”
The Constitution advocates for parliamentary participation, but Rashid’s case shows lack of clarity regarding the rights of convicts and undertrials. Rashid won Baramulla seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, defeating Omar Abdullah with a margin of over two lakh votes.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had also outrightly opposed any waiver of charges in Rashid’s case. There is also lack of clarity and guidelines on the definition of “custody” and “parole”, leaving the matter to states which can impose punitive costs.
Akshata Rawat is an alum of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)