Ahmedabad: A Malaysian national lodged in Sabarmati Central Jail here in a drug smuggling case has moved the Gujarat high court seeking permission to speak to his wife in Malaysia through video conferencing under the e-mulaqat facility for prisoners.Petitioner Shri Selvaraj Soloman was arrested in Jan 2024 in an NDPS case after the DRI raided Meghashri Agri Pharma Chem Pvt Ltd, a pharma company accused of producing and smuggling ketamine out of India. Soloman is alleged to have been sent by a Kuala Lumpur-based company to supervise production and quality of the narcotic substance at the firm.Soloman has been denied bail twice by the trial court and once by the high court. He later approached jail authorities seeking permission to speak to his wife, an OCI cardholder residing in Malaysia, through the e-mulaqat scheme. The request was rejected on the ground that the e-mulaqat facility is meant only for communication with relatives within India and that there is no provision to connect inmates with persons located abroad.Following the rejection, Soloman filed a petition in the high court seeking directions to jail authorities to extend the facility to enable a video call with his wife in Malaysia. His counsel submitted that personal meetings with family members are difficult as they live overseas and said the plea raises a peculiar hardship requiring the court’s intervention. The HC has issued notice to the jail authorities and sought their response. The matter is scheduled for further hearing on April 28.
