New Delhi: A city court on Monday (March 3) asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to respond to a plea filed by Bramulla Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid seeking interim bail to attend the upcoming Parliament session.
Rashid has moved the court seeking interim bail to attend the upcoming Parliament session, on the ground that he was a Parliamentarian and needed to attend the Parliament session to fulfil his public duty.
Additional sessions judge Chander Jit Singh, hearing Rashid’s plea, asked the NIA to file its reply by March 5.
Rashid’s regular bail plea is also pending before the trial court.
Rashid is currently lodged in Tihar Jail in a terror funding case
Rashid, who is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in judicial custody in a terror funding case since 2019, earlier moved the Delhi High Court seeking quick disposal of his regular bail plea pending before the trial court.
Rashid submitted before the High Court that he had been left in limbo and without remedy after the NIA court, which was earlier hearing his regular bail plea, sent the matter back on the ground that it was not a special MP/MLA court to hear the matter since he was now a lawmaker.
High Court earlier granted Rashid two-day custody parole to attend Parliament session
The High Court on February 24 asked the court hearing the NIA cases to expeditiously decide Rashid’s bail plea after taking note that the high court on the administrative side had passed a direction clarifying that the NIA court would continue to hear the case.
The High Court earlier on February 10, in an interim relief, granted him two-day custody parole to attend the Parliament session with certain conditions imposed on him.
Rashid was earlier granted interim bail
A trial court earlier last year granted Rashid interim bail from September 10 to October 2 to enable him to campaign in the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir held last year. The court later extended his interim on the ground of his father’s health condition and he surrendered before the Tihar Jail authorities on October 28 last year.
