Jammu & Kashmir High Court stays virtual oath taking of PDP youth leader Waheed Ur Rehman as DDC member

Jammu and Kashmir High Court has stayed administration of oath via virtual mode to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) youth leader Waheed Ur Rehman Parra who was elected District Development Council (DDC) member for Pulwama District..Parra, who is accused of supporting Hizbul Mujahideen, a banned terror outfit, and has been charged by National Investigation Agency (NIA) for the same was initially allowed to take oath through video conference by the Special NIA Court, Jammu. The NIA court by its order of December 28, 2020, had ordered Superintendent District Jail Ambphalla, Jammu to make arrangements for the oath ceremony of Parra through video conference..The High Court, on January 22, stayed that order of NIA court. ."Issue notice. Till the next date of hearing, operation of the impugned order dated December 28, 2020 shall remained stayed," the High Court said..A single-judge Bench of Justice Rajesh Oswal, however, also clarified that the union territory of J&K shall be at liberty to administer oath to Parra physically after taking permission from the concerned court. .Additional Advocate General, Aseem Sahni, appearing for J&K argued that oath cannot be administered on virtual mode to any elected representative..It was his contention that the NIA court had passed the order without appreciating the fact that an oath is always administered and subscribed "in person" and thereafter the subscriber of the oath has to sign the document of the oath which is kept as a record in the office..The Court, therefore, granted temporary stay on the judgment and posted the case for further hearing on February 17. .The NIA had arrested Parra on November 25, 2020 for allegedly supporting Hizbul Mujahideen. The arrest came days after he filed a nomination to contest the District Development Council (DDC) elections from his home constituency in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district..He was contesting elections for the first time as he remained in jail. He won the elections from the Pulwama-I constituency by 1002 votes. He got 1323 votes against the running candidate, Sajad Ahmad Raina of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who got 321 votes..[Read Order]