When Mian Qayoom told JKHC he has no faith in Indian constitution

More trouble in store for ex-Prez of High Court Bar Association

SRINAGAR: Arrests, detentions and releases have been a routine in the senior Kashmir advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom’s life since 1990. But this time around, the State appears to be determined to ensure that the former President of the Srinagar-based High Court Bar Association (HCBA) meets the fate his former separatist associates are suffering in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since the year 2017-18.
While the JKLF chairman Yasin Malik is facing trial in two high profile cases of 1989-90—Rubaiya Sayeed’s kidnapping and the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) Personnel—, he has been sentenced to a life term in a case of terror funding.
All other detained Kashmiri separatists including Shabir Shah, Nayeem Khan, Bitta Karate, Zahoor Watali, as also the former MLA Engineer Rashid, who has been recently elected as Member of Lok Sabha from Baramulla, are facing trial in terror funding cases.
Only the Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi along with one female associate has been acquitted by the NIA court but the central investigating agency has quickly blocked their release with an appeal in a higher court.
Mian Qayoom’s sudden arrest by the State Investigation Agency (SIA) in Srinagar on Tuesday, ahead of the HCBA’s scheduled elections, comes as a terse message to the valley’s separatist leadership that nobody involved in terror-related offenses or funding would be spared in the third term of the BJP-led NDA government.
In a parallel development, the District Magistrate of Srinagar imposed a ban on the holding of the HCBA elections. The HCBA has been struggling for Kashmir’s separation from India under the euphemism of ‘seeking a permanent resolution to the Kashmir dispute as per the UNSC resolutions’ which has been Pakistan’s stated position over the decades.
Qayoom functioned as President of the HCBA for multiple terms and was its face all through the last over 30 years of Kashmir’s militancy and a separatist movement. He was the first who formed a conglomerate of the separatist groups by the title of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat to provide a political address to the Kashmir insurgency in 1990. Later, he got the HCBA incorporated as a constituent of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC).
Qayoom and his colleagues were on the forefront of azadi demonstrations which have been documented by the authorities over a complaint filed against Qayoom and two more former HCBA functionaries before the J&K High Court. Complainants were seeking cancellation of their licences to practice. Two sitting judges of the J&K High Court are currently holding an investigation into this complaint.
Qayoom’s release on bail this time around seems to be an uphill task for his counsels as the J&K Police have for the first time arrested him for allegedly conspiring the killing of a junior advocate Babar Qadri. According to sources, the SIA has managed to get one of the former office bearers of HCBA as an approver, making Qayoom’s bail virtually impossible. Advocate Qadri was shot dead by unidentified terrorists at his Srinagar residence in September 2020.
If highly placed authoritative sources are to be believed, the State is going to press for concluding this enquiry with the purpose of cancelling the licences of Mian Qayoom and some senior lawyers who have been prominently associated with the separatist movement.
According to these sources, the government is also framing a detailed charge sheet against Qayoom who has allegedly grabbed 159 kanals of the land of a temple in Srinagar with the help of a retired Major of the Indian Army.
A separate case is being framed against Qayoom on the complaints of a petrol pump magnate in Srinagar, sources said.
Interestingly, none of the top lawyers of the country, who defended Qayoom in a detention case of 2019 at the Supreme Court of India, has come forward in his defence so far. They included senior advocates Dushyant Dave and Vrinda Grover.
In August 2020, Qayoom was released after a year-long detention.
A voluminous dossier prepared by the J&K Police and filed before the J&K High Court inter alia refers to an incident when in January 2010, Qayoom stated before the then judge Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir that he had no faith in the Indian Constitution.
Qayoom was replying to questions while being cross examined in a case relating to contempt of the High Court orders by the Kotbalwal Jail Superintendent Mirza Saleem Beg, before Justice Muhammad Yaqoob Mir.
The HCBA had filed the contempt petition against KotBhalwal Jail Superintendent “for violating HC orders dated January 1 by disallowing a four-member Bar team to meet the jail inmates on 7 January 2010”.
Qayoom deposed as one of the six witnesses and was confronted by the opposite counsels, Advocate Sheikh Shakeel and Advocate Syed Tasaduq Khwaja.
“Do you believe yourself to be a citizen of India?” Qayoom was asked by advocate Shakeel. “No, I’m not a citizen of India. I’m a resident of Jammu and Kashmir”, Qayoom replied.
“Do you have faith in the Constitution of India?”, advocate Shakeel asked him. “No I’ve no faith in the Indian constitution. You’ve yourself eroded the Indian constitution in J&K,” Qayoom replied audaciously.
He also ignored suggestions to reconsider his statement adding that he was not afraid of the consequences. “I’m not afraid. If they put me behind bars for this, let them do it. Let it come on record”, he told Justice Mir. However, nobody from the State that time pressed for cancellation of Qayoom’s licence as an advocate.

Updated On 6/28/2024 3:52:56 AM