The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Monday a petition filed by Punjab’s Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh challenging his continued detention under the National Security Act (NSA), while he remains lodged in Assam’s high-security Dibrugarh Central Jail.
According to the causelist published on the apex court’s website, a Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria will take up the matter on November 10. The plea argued that restraining an elected Member of Parliament from performing his constitutional duties constituted a violation of his fundamental rights as well as the collective rights of his electorate.
Amritpal Singh, the chief of ‘Waris Punjab De’, was arrested on March 18, 2023, following a crackdown, and subsequently shifted to Dibrugarh jail under NSA provisions.
Despite being incarcerated, the 31-year-old Sikh radical won the Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha seat as an Independent candidate by a margin of 1,97,120 votes over Congress rival Kulbir Singh Zira. He was briefly granted a four-day parole to take oath in the Lok Sabha, a move cleared after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) offered no objection.
His case has drawn comparisons to other incarcerated leaders permitted to take the oath, including Engineer Rashid from Jammu and Kashmir.
The NSA detention of Amritpal and nine of his aides has remained under scrutiny, especially after the jail’s Superintendent, Nipen Das, was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Assam Prisons Act for allegedly supplying unauthorised gadgets inside the facility.
Assam Police said the devices allowed Amritpal access to the Internet, enabling him to expand his reach from inside the jail. The Dibrugarh Superintendent of Police said that the jail manual has different provisions for detainees under the NSA, but the jail Superintendent violated it by allowing gadgets to reach Amritpal Singh and other inmates.
IANS