The Delhi High Court has fixed February 14 for hearing on the National Investigation Agency (NIA)'s plea seeking death penalty for Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik in the terror funding case. The court has directed the Tihar Jail Superintendent not to produce him through video conferencing. After the accused Malik accepted his crime, the trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment.

No one appeared on behalf of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Malik during the hearing before a bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Shalinder Kaur.

The court adjourned the hearing till 14 February.

On May 29, the High Court had issued notice to Malik on the NIA's plea seeking death penalty in the terror funding case and directed him to appear on the next date.

Subsequently, the jail authorities filed an application seeking permission for his virtual presence on the grounds that he is a very high-risk prisoner and it is necessary to physically produce him in the court to maintain public order and security. The request was allowed by the High Court. The trial court had on May 24, 2022, sentenced Malik to life imprisonment after convicting him for various offenses under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and IPC.

Malik had pleaded guilty to charges including the anti-terrorism law UAPA. Appealing against the sentence, the NIA has stressed that a terrorist cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment merely because he has confessed to his crime and opted not to face trial.

Demanding enhancement of the punishment to death penalty, NIA has said that if such dreaded terrorists are not given death penalty just because they have confessed to their crime, then the punishment policy will end completely and the terrorists will be punished. There will be a way to escape the death penalty.

NIA said life sentence is not commensurate with the crime committed by terrorists when the country and families of soldiers have suffered loss of lives and the trial court has concluded that Malik's crimes do not fall in the category of rarest of rare . The issue of imposing death penalty is prima facie legally flawed and completely untenable.

The agency has stressed that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that Malik led terrorist activities in the Valley and was plotting, planning and carrying out armed insurgency in the Valley with the help of dreaded foreign terrorist organisations. , was engineering and carrying out a usurpation of the sovereignty and integrity of a part of India.