New Delhi, Jan. 29 -- The Delhi high court on Wednesday dismissed a petition by jailed Jammu and Kashmir MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh challenging a trial court order framing charges against him in a terror-funding case, ruling the appeal is not maintainable under the NIA Act. A bench of justices Prathiba M Singh and Madhu Jain rejected the plea after National Investigation Agency (NIA) counsel Siddharth Luthra argued that an appeal against a charge-framing order is not maintainable under Section 21 (appeal) of the NIA Act. Luthra drew the court's attention to a recent ruling by a coordinate bench to affirm this position. "The counsel for the NIA has the decision of the coordinate bench. The bench has therefore held that an order framing a charge would not be an interlocutory order and not a final judgement and hence an appeal would not be maintainable. In view thereof, the present appeal is not maintainable and hence dismissed as not being maintainable. In view of the facts that the appeal itself is not maintainable, this court has not gone into the merits of the case," the court said in its order. To be sure, the coordinate bench on December 23 ruled that an order framing charges is an interlocutory order and not a judgement, and hence cannot form the subject matter of an appeal under the NIA Act. Luthra also submitted that the appeal was filed after a delay of more than 1,100 days. Sheikh was arrested in 2019 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The NIA charge sheet claimed that the accused, including Sheikh, had used illicit funds to fuel unrest and separatism in Jammu and Kashmir....