Supreme Court refuses urgent hearing on plea seeking increased security as Doctors call off the strike

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June 18, 2019

The medicos strike is over. Mamata Banarjee gave them the assurance of more security at Government Hospitals. Their main aim remained unfulfilled. They wanted Supreme Court to hear about increasing the security for doctors. Supreme Court postponed the hearing and said that it would be scheduled after the Summer Vacation.

A vacation bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant said it cannot pass an order without looking into all the aspects of the case. “We can’t protect doctors at the cost of other citizens. We have to look at the larger picture. We are not against the protection given to doctors,” it was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Supreme Court to hear plea for security to doctors only after vacation. Says the strike by doctors in West Bengal and elsewhere has been called off and there is no urgency to hear it now. The vacation bench had agreed to list the matter for Tuesday after the counsel appearing for the petitioner, advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, sought an urgent hearing. The plea was filed last Friday in the wake of protests by doctors in West Bengal against the alleged assault on their colleagues by the family of a patient who had died.

Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association also filed an impleadment application seeking the court’s intervention, saying protection needs to be provided to doctors across the country. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee gave the ultimatum to either “stop-or-perish”. The mob finally agreed for a meeting at her prescribed location but it should be open. The doctors in her state called off the protest as she agreed to their most of the demands.

Doctors ready to meet at Didi’s venue but only in presence of Media

Lok Sabha Results might get delayed due to VVPAT

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Sugat Srivastava

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May 15, 2019

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The most awaited event of the year is getting delayed. But, not much, just 4 hours or a day at max. The delay is all because of the Apex Court order to increase voter-verified paper audit trail or VVPAT count to five – instead of one – in every assembly segment for general election 2019. The VVPAT system, which is being used for the first time in a general election, enables Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs to record each vote by generating a slip.

Sudeep Jain, Deputy Election Commissioner, who is in charge of the VVPATs, told NDTV, “On an average, counting of votes using one VVPAT takes about an hour. Earlier we were counting one VVPAT, now we are adding four more, which would mean an additional four hours. So the results will be out by the evening or latest by May 24 morning.”

“EVMs and VVPATs are perfect and we have no doubt they are tamper-proof,” he added.

Twenty-one opposition parties had asked for counting of at least 25 percent EVM paper trail machines, but during a hearing on April 8, the Election Commission had rejected the petition saying the results of the Lok Sabha election could be delayed by five days if 50 percent of voter-verifiable paper trail or VVPAT machines in every assembly segment were counted.

The Election Commission at present matches VVPAT slips of 4,125 EVMs under the “one EVM per assembly segment” guideline. Following the court order, the Election Commission will have to count the VVPAT slips of five times as many machines in each constituency, or that of 20,625 EVMs.

Supreme Court asked BJP Activist to seek apology from Didi over morphed pic

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Sugat Srivastava

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May 14, 2019

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Supreme Court has asked BJP leader Priyanka Sharma to seek apology from Mamata Banerjee. She shared a picture on Facebook in which Mamata’s face was photoshopped on the form of actor Priyanka Chopra at the MET Gala in New York. She got arrested for this.

“Is there any difficulty in apologizing? We are asking her to apologize for herself. Freedom of speech ends where it affects others’ rights,” the Supreme Court said. The court also issued a notice to West Bengal Police over the way the party activist was taken into custody.

Ms. Sharma’s lawyer argued that “if one is asked to apologize for memes, will citizens come and apologize for a caricature”. Lawyer Neeraj Kishan Kaul said Priyanka Sharma did not create the morphed picture and she is being made to apologize only because of her association with the BJP. He said the order will have a “chilling effect on freedom of expression”. The court is being passed on the specific circumstances of the case.

Priyanka Sharma was arrested last Friday after she shared a photo in which Mamata Banerjee’s face has been photo-shopped on the form of actor Priyanka Chopra. In the original picture, the actor was photographed at the MET Gala in New York.

Ms. Sharma was picked up by the police from her home and was sent to two weeks’ judicial custody. The charges cited on the complaint by a Trinamool Congress leader include “defamation and offensive messages”.

The arrest was an extreme measure taken by Banerjee. This is not a good quality of a leader in a democracy. The BJP is somehow tasting its own medicine of intolerance towards jokes, and caricatures.

Supreme court gives 5 days for government to respond to Rafale review pleas

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Sugat Srivastava

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April 30, 2019

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Rafale jet deal has become the Achilles heal for the BJP government. No respite for government in the coming future as the court refused it’s plea to respond in a month. Instead, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) gave them time till Saturday to respond.

The Bench, headed by CJI Gogoi, also directed the government to respond by affidavit to a separate application for initiating perjury proceedings against those in the government who had allegedly “suppressed” vital documents and circumstances of the Rafale jets’ purchase from the court.

The court, earlier upheld the jets’ deal on December 14 by saying that it had limited jurisdiction over defence deals. In another judgment on April 10, the court rejected the government protests to maintainability of the review petitions against the December 14 order.

The brief hearing on Tuesday on the review petitions began with Attorney General K.K. Venugopal informing the court that the government had circulated a letter to all the parties concerned for a deferment of the hearing.

Mr. Venugopal said a fresh response was required from the government as there were new documents annexed in the review petitions. “Give us some time… Your April 10 judgment allowed these documents. There was no formal notice issued to the Union of India,” he submitted.

“If your grievance is that no notice was issued, we will issue notice,” the CJI responded.

At this point, advocate Prashant Bhushan, one of the review petitioners, pointed out that the application filed by them, including former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, to initiate perjury proceedings against government officials who submitted “false information” in the Rafale case was also listed and the court should issue formal notice on that too. The court asked them to issue another petition for perjury.

The case of Rafale deal is quite stringent. The government had claimed that the review pleas were based on secret Rafale documents unauthorisedly removed from the Ministry of Defence and leaked to the media. Mr. Venugopal had argued that “stolen” documents came under the protection of the Official Secrets Act (OSA). They were not admissible in evidence in a court of law. Claiming privilege, the government wanted the court to ignore the documents, even if they were found to be germane to the Rafale case, and dismiss the review petitions at a preliminary stage.

Rahul Gandhi regrets over his remarks on Rafale in the Court

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Sugat Srivastava

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April 22, 2019

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Rahul Gandhi accepted his mistake about manipulating the Supreme Court’s statement on the Rafale deal. He expressed regret to the Supreme Court for his comments on its order on the Rafale fighter jet deal, accepting that he made them in “the heat of political campaigning” and the court “never said these words”.

Last week, the Supreme Court accused Rahul Gandhi of misquoting it on its Rafale order. He was given a week to explain before the ruling BJP’s contempt case against him was taken up on Tuesday.

“We make it clear the statement attributed to this court in the address made by the respondent (Rahul Gandhi) to the media and public have been incorrectly attributed to this court. We make it clear this court never made such observation. We only decided on the admissibility of documents,” three judges led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said last week.

The issue rose up because of Rahul Gandhi’s comments which he made weeks ago in response to the Supreme Court ruling that classified documents accessed by the media can be used as evidence to consider requests to review a verdict clearing the Rafale jet deal.

“I want to thank the Supreme Court. The entire country is saying that Chowkidar chor hai (Chowkidar has committed theft). It is a day of celebration that the Supreme Court has talked about justice,” the Congress president had said in his constituency Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.

Due to this statement, the BJP accused him of putting words in the mouth of the top court and sued him for contempt.

Election Commission bans biopic on PM Narendra Modi

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Sugat Srivastava

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April 10, 2019

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Finally, election commission gave indication of its presence. Election Commission banned the biopic on Narendra Modi just before it’s scheduled release on 11th April. Election Commission also banned NaMo TV as it found (finally!) that it ‘subserves the purpose of a political party’. Thus, it cannot be displayed on electronic media.

The first phase of Lok Sabha elections starts Thursday, 11 April.

The Vivek Oberoi-starrer biopic, which was scheduled to be released on 11 April. It had received a ‘Universal’ certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) merely hours before the EC ban.

Earlier, the Supreme Court on Tuesday, 9 April, had dismissed a petition filed by a Congress activist. It aimed at seeking stay on the release of the biopic, and said the Election Commission would be an “appropriate” place to seek the redressal.

The film, titled “PM Narendra Modi” and directed by Omung Kumar, had been facing criticism from the Opposition parties, who claimed that the biopic could give undue advantage to the BJP in the polls.

Supreme Court warns Ranbaxy Promoters of Jail-time for not clearing dues of Japanese firm

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Sugat Srivastava

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April 5, 2019

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Ranbaxy promoters, Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, might get jail-time. They are accused of not clearing the dues worth Rs. 4000 crores, the fine directed by Singapore Tribunal, to the Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it will now straightaway hear the contempt petition against the Singh brothers for non-payment of the arbitral award amount to Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo. Apex Court might send them to jail if the violation of its orders is established. The Japanese firm’s contempt plea against the Singh brothers seeks recovery of Rs 4,000 crore from them as directed by the Singapore tribunal.

The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, has now fixed the contempt petition of the Japanese firms against the former Ranbaxy promoters for hearing on April 11.

“You may be owning half of the world but there is no concrete plan as to how the arbitral amount would be realised. You said that somebody owed you Rs 6,000 crore. But this is neither here nor there,” the bench said.

Daiichi had bought Ranbaxy in 2008. Later, it had moved the Singapore arbitration tribunal accusing that the Singh brothers had concealed information that Ranbaxy was facing a probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, while selling its shares.

Government blames public servants for stolen Rafale Documents

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Sugat Srivastava

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March 7, 2019

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Rafale Documents are missing. This news itself is a shock. Progression of shocks led to the blaming of public servants for the steal. The opposition is not losing the golden opportunity to attack the government on ‘carelessness’. Government has also imposed Official Secrets Act on the newspaper The Hindu.

Attorney General KK Venugopal said papers regarding the pricing of the Rafales were stolen from ministry files and given to The Hindu newspaper for publishing. He also argued that a report by the newspaper could not be taken up as evidence against the government. Justice KM Joseph injected some sense into the debate and said that even stolen evidence could be looked into provided it was authentic and relevant.

KK Venugopal also said a review petition and an affidavit filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan contained extracts from the stolen documents, and these should be dismissed. He also demanded imposing the Official Secrets Act. But Prashant Bhushan said there was no infringement, explaining that the information on file notings was open under the Right To Information. Venugopal countered the point by reading out the RTI Act and said it exempted defence documents from disclosure.

Rafale deal has already been the political flash point. On one hand, the Congress has relentlessly accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of crony capitalism and corruption, pointing — among other things — to the choice of Reliance Defence as an offset partner of the jetmaker, Dassault Aviation.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says India felt the absence of Rafale fighters as tensions with Pakistan escalated last week.

Supreme court has already cleared the deal but a review petition has been filed by Prashant Bhushan and his associates. On this, Attorney General Venugopal told the court on Wednesday that judicial review of the Rafale case would affect future defence purchases.

Venugopal said the court shouldn’t get into the Rafale issue, as any observation by it would be used by the Opposition to destabilise the government.

The million dollar question is that how can the government lose such important documents? Was it their carelessness or they deliberately hiding it? Whatever be the reason, now the government has started blaming public servants for the leak. The ultimate point is that such documents do exist which can topple the ‘clean deal’ claim of the government. Let’s see how the story unfolds.

Supreme Court Extends Deadline for NRC List of Assam

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Sugat Srivastava

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November 1, 2018

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Supreme Court on Thursday extended the deadline for filing of claims and objections for inclusion of names in Assam NRC to 15 December. The Apex Court also allowed claimants to produce five more documents for the same.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi rejected the concerns of forgery and photoshop. State coordinator Prateek Hajela had raised these concerns initially in his report to the court. Many stakeholders, including Assam government, had demanded inclusion of all 15 documents in their affidavits.

The Hajela requested the court to exclude the 1951 NRC, voter lists up to March 24, 1971, citizenship certificates, refugee registration certificates and ration cards issued prior to March 24, 1971.

Supreme Court, earlier, approved these documents:

land documents;
permanent residential certificate issued from outside the state;
passport;
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) insurance policy;
any licence or certificate issued by any government authority;
document showing service or employment under government or Public Sector Undertakings;
bank or post office accounts;
birth certificates issued by the competent authority;
educational certificate issued by Boards or Universities;
records or processes pertaining to court, provided they are part of a processing in a judicial or revenue court.

The Background

On 1st January 2018, the first draft of the updated NRC was released. In this list, 1.9 crore names out of total applicant pool of 3.29 crores were listed. Seven months later, in its final draft, 40.07 lakhs were left out and remaining 2.89 crores were found eligible for citizenship. (Click to Read More)

Earlier a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman set a date for filing claims and objections beginning September 25 for 60 days.

फर्जी वोटर लिस्ट: सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने नहीं मानी वोटर लिस्ट में गड़बडी

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Newbuzzindia Desk

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October 12, 2018

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वोटर लिस्ट में फर्जी वोटर होने का आरोप लगा रही कांग्रेस पार्टी को सुप्रीम कोर्ट से बड़ा झटाक लगा है। सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने कमलनाथ की याचिका खारिज कर दी है। कमलनाथ के अलावा राजस्थान प्रदेश कांग्रेस कमेटी के अध्यक्ष सचिन पायलट ने भी एक याचिका दायर की थी।

सुप्रीम कोर्ट जाने से पहले ही चुनाव आयोग ने कांग्रेस की शिकायत पर ही वोटर लिस्ट का पुनरीक्षण किया था। इस पुनरीक्षण में चौबीस लाख से अधिक ऐसे वोटरों के नाम हटाए गए थे जिनकी मृत्यु हो गई थी अथवा अन्य क्षेत्र में जाकर रहने लगे थे।

चुनाव आयोग का तर्क था कि नए स्थान पर वोटर लिस्ट में अपना नाम तो जुड़वा लेते हैं लेकिन, पुराने स्थान की लिस्ट से नाम नहीं कटवाते हैं। कांग्रेस ऐसे ही वोटरों का फर्जी बता रही थी। जबकि चुनाव आयोग लिस्ट में दोहराव मान रही थी। सुप्रीम कोर्ट में याचिका खरिज हो जाने के बाद अब कांग्रेस के लिए वोटर लिस्ट में संशोधन के सारे रास्ते बंद हो गए हैं।

Tag: supreme court

The Background