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| Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen chief's sons move Delhi HC to restore calls facility in jail | | | AGENCIES
NEW DELHI, May 9: Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin's jailed sons on Friday moved the Delhi High Court for restoring their facility to make phone calls to family members.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela noted no one appeared on behalf of the state and jail authorities and posted their plea on May 22.
Syed Ahmad Shakeel and Syed Shahid Yusuf, sons of Salahuddin, have challenged Rule 631 of the Delhi Prison Rules.
The rule stipulates those accused of offences against the state, terrorist activities, and other heinous crimes are barred from using telephonic and electronic communication facilities.
It, however, empowers the jail superintendent to take appropriate decisions in individual cases based on the prior approval of the deputy inspector general (range).
The two prisoners were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a terror funding case involving hawala transactions and are currently lodged in different Delhi jails. Their counsel said several other accused facing trial in terror cases had also moved the high court and sought restoration of their phone call facilities, allegedly curtailed by jail officials.
The high court in January said denying regular telephonic and electronic communication to prisoners facing terror, MCOCA and other heinous charges was prima facie not arbitrary.
It said Rule 631 of the Delhi Prison Rules, 2018, clearly indicated such facilities were denied to prisoners "in the interest of public safety and order" and added the guiding principles couldn't be faulted.
The counsel referred to a circular being issued by the authorities in 2022 to streamline and regulate the procedure of inmates' phone call system.
However, through a 2024 circular, the facility was restricted to only once a week instead of five calls a week permitted previously, the lawyer said, with prisoners or undertrials being provided one call a day.
The counsel submitted the petitioner too was provided the facility of five calls a week, however, the same is restricted to maximum of once a week according to the rule.
He said after April, 2024, Shakeel had no contact with the family and argued the discrimination as to the frequency of communication allowed among prisoners was arbitrary and unreasonable.
Shakeel was arrested by the NIA on August 30, 2018 from his house in Srinagar in relation to a terror funding case lodged in 2011.
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