The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) a final period of four weeks to file its rejoinder to the response submitted by jailed Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik in his appeal challenging the death sentence awarded to him by the trial court.
The Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja ordered that no further adjournments would be entertained, given the gravity of the matter and the prolonged incarceration of the convict. It further told the national agency that the opportunity being granted would be final.
The proceedings form part of Malik’s statutory appeal against the sentence imposed in a terror-funding case arising out of activities linked to secessionist violence in Jammu and Kashmir.
Malik has already been convicted under multiple provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, as well as the Indian Penal Code, for offences relating to conspiracy, waging war against the Government of India, and funding terrorist acts.
The petitioner sought the High Court’s intervention under Section 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, read with the established principles governing the imposition of the death penalty. He further challenged the proportionality of the sentence and invoked the “rarest of rare” doctrine crystallised by the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), as subsequently elaborated in Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983).
The case also raised broader questions concerning sentencing discretion in terrorism-related offences, particularly in light of the recent Supreme Court jurisprudence emphasising individualised sentencing, mitigating circumstances, and the requirement of a meaningful hearing on sentence, as reiterated in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) and State of Gujarat v. Kishanbhai (2014).
Once the pleadings are complete, the High Court is expected to hear the appeal on both conviction and sentence.
The outcome of the proceedings is likely to have wider ramifications for the jurisprudence surrounding capital punishment in terrorism cases prosecuted under special statutes such as the UAPA, particularly where the death sentence is imposed without a separate sentencing trial involving oral evidence.
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