A Delhi court on Tuesday ordered the release of Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah in a money laundering case connected to alleged terror funding, Live Law reported.
Additional Sessions Judge Dheeraj Mor of Patiala House Courts noted that Shah had undergone the maximum sentence of seven years prescribed for the offence of money laundering. He noted that the separatist leader has been in jail since July 26, 2017.
“Accordingly, in view of proviso to Section 436A CrPC, he is entitled to be released in this case,” the court said. A proviso to Section 436A says that undertrial prisoners cannot be kept in jail for longer than the maximum period of imprisonment provided for the offence in question.
In June, the judge had granted statutory bail to Shah on the grounds that he had already undergone more than half of the period of the maximum punishment in jail.
However, despite the order on Tuesday, the separatist leader will remain in jail in other two cases filed against him by the National Investigation Agency and the Enforcement Directorate, reported The Hindu.
In May 2017, the National Investigative Agency registered a case against separatist leaders in the Kashmir Valley who allegedly received funding to wage “war against India”.
Shah is accused of receiving money from Pakistan as part of a conspiracy to create unrest in Kashmir. Another separatist leader, Yasin Malik, pleaded guilty in the terror funding case in May 2022, after which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Abdul Rashid Sheikh, also known as Engineer Rashid, the MP from Baramulla, is also in jail since August 2019 in the case.