India's Supreme Court permits Chishti to visit Pakistan

New Delhi, May 10 (PTI) After 20 years of stay in India, 82-year-old Pakistani microbiologist Mohammed Khalil Chishti, facing life imprisonment in the country in a murder case, was today permitted by the Supreme Court to visit Pakistan for a temporary stay, subject to certain conditions. A bench of justices P Sathasivam and J Chelameswar said Chishti shall deposit his passport at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan and furnish as security Rupees 500,000 in cash within two weeks before the Supreme Court registry. The apex court directed that Chishti shall return to India by November one, as it has decided to expedite the hearing of the appeal filed by him challenging his conviction in a murder case in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. The apex court said it will hear the appeal proceedings from November 20. Initially, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Mohan Parasaran had insisted that Chishti's local contacts in India should give a surety on his behalf to secure his presence during the appeal proceedings. However, the bench refrained from imposing any such condition. The bench further clarified that Chishti's release is subject to the fulfillment of the two conditions imposed upon him. Earlier on May 4, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear Chishti's plea to visit his country and had sought the Centre's response to it. Chishti had been granted bail by the apex court on April 9. Held guilty in a 20-year-old murder case, he had been serving life term in the Ajmer jail in Rajasthan. The apex court had then granted bail to Chishti on humanitarian grounds, but asked him not to leave Ajmer till further orders. Earlier, the Centre had objected to allowing Chishti to go to Pakistan temporarily, saying he may not return to India. The ASG had submitted that there is no bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan on ensuring the return of any convict who is enlarged on bail. The apex court, however, had said it would like to consider Chishti's plea in view of the special circumstances of his case. The bench had said Chishti was an eminent scientist of global repute and is 82-years-old with no previous criminal record and the issues involved are bilateral relations between the two countries. Senior counsel U U Lalit, appearing for Chishti, had pleaded that he be granted permission to visit Pakistan as a special case since he was suffering from various geriatric problems and was confined to Ajmer for the past 20 years and had served one-and-a-half years of his sentence. Chishti had come to see his ailing mother in 1992 when he got embroiled in a brawl, and, in the ensuing melee, one of his neighbours was shot dead while his nephew got injured. Born in Ajmer to a prosperous family of caretakers of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti shrine, Chishti was studying in a part of India that went to Pakistan with the partition of the country in 1947 and he chose to stay on there. The bench, which had granted bail to Chishti, had also acceded to consider his plea to let him return to Karachi and had asked him to file a separate application for it. The same was filed later. Lalit had also pleaded that his client at least be allowed to live in Delhi. But the Rajasthan government had opposed this plea, saying that the visa issued to him only permitted his stay in Ajmer and nearby areas. The court had then asked Chishti not to leave Ajmer till further orders. PTI