Ayodhya: Former BJP MLA from the Gosaiganj constituency of Ayodhya Indra Pratap Tiwari who has been convicted in a fake mark sheet case, surrendered before the MP-MLA court here on Friday.
Tiwari was currently out on bail.
The surrender has come after the Allahabad High Court dismissed his appeal on March 17 against a trial court order that led to his conviction.
Talking to PTI, Dinesh Tiwari, Council for the MLA, said, “Indra Pratap Tiwari surrendered on Friday in the court of Special Judge MP-MLA Additional District Judge Ashok Dubey. The court took the former MLA in custody and sent him to jail.”
Dismissing Tiwari’s appeal, the Lucknow bench of the court, earlier this month, noted that the former legislator should be taken into custody forthwith to serve out the sentence awarded to him by a sessions court in Ayodhya.
In its order, the court took note of the fact that Tiwari had a criminal history of 35 cases. Besides the former MLA, the two other appellants were Kripa Nidhan Tiwari and Phool Chand Yadav.
“From the evidence led by the prosecution, the offences under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC are fully made out and proved against the appellants and the trial court rightly convicted and sentenced the appellants for the aforesaid offences,” the HC order read.
In separate appeals, the three had challenged the 2021 judgment of a special MP-MLA court in Ayodhya, sentencing Tiwari to five years in jail.
After his conviction in the case, Tiwari was disqualified.
The appellants were put on trial for the offences committed while getting themselves admitted to Saket Mahavidyalaya in Ayodhya on the basis of fake mark sheets.
A complaint was filed by the then principal of the college, Yaduvansh Ram Tripathi, on February 14, 1992, and February 16, 1992, with the senior superintendent of police (SSP), Faizabad. Subsequently, a chargesheet was filed in the case.
The MP-MLA court convicted the trio of the charges against him on October 18, 2021.
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday dismissed a bail plea of former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in the excise policy case lodged by the CBI.
Special Judge M K Nagpal dismissed Sisodia’s plea.
On March 24, the Delhi court had reserved its order.
The agency on February 26 had arrested Sisodia in connection with alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22.
Lahore: A high court in Pakistan on Thursday struck down a colonial-era sedition law that criminalised criticism of the federal and provincial governments, terming it inconsistent with the Constitution.
Justice Shahid Karim of the Lahore High Court (LHC) annulled Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) dealing with sedition, the Dawn newspaper reported.
Justice Karim pronounced the verdict in response to identical petitions seeking to annul the sedition law, the paper said.
One of the petitions, filed by a citizen named Haroon Farooq, which was identical to all other pleas urged the court to declare Section 124-A of the PPC as “ultra-vires in terms of Article 8 of the Constitution being inconsistent with and in derogation of fundamental rights provided under Article 9, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 19, 19A of the Constitution”.
The law states: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Federal or Provincial Government established by law shall be punished with imprisonment for life to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.”
It was argued in the petition that the sedition act was enacted in 1860 which is a sign of British colonial rule, Geo News reported.
The petition added that this law was used for slaves under which a case can be registered at anyone’s request.
It was stated in the petition that the Constitution of Pakistan gives every citizen the right to freedom of expression but still, Section 124-A is imposed for making speeches against the rulers.
According to the petition, the law has been recklessly used in Pakistan as a tool of exploitation to curb the right to free speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution.
The petition said the law was serving as “a notorious tool for the suppression of dissent, free speech and criticism in free and independent Pakistan”.
Over the past few years, the petition argued, various politicians, journalists and activists had been booked under Section 124-A.
Israeli parliament (Knesset) on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, passed a bill that would allow police officers to storm and search Palestinian homes for illegal weapons without the need for court orders.
The law’s goal is to fight crime in the Arab community, and it will allow police to search Arab buildings without a court order.
According to Haaretz, the provisional rule will be in effect for one year. The law was proposed by lawmakers from the coalition and opposition parties, including the six members from the opposition Yisrael Beiteinu.
The law allows Israeli police to enter and search premises without a court order, although permission from an officer of the rank of superintendent or higher must be obtained.
This operation will be documented according to standard police procedures.
The law also provides for prison terms of up to 10 years as well as fines for those caught with illegal weapons or key parts of weapons.
The penalty is for anyone found guilty of “manufacturing, importing or exporting illegal weapons”. The weapon will also be confiscated.
In this context, lawyer and jurist Moaz Abu Arshaid stresses that “racism lies in the way this law is implemented.”
Abu Arshaid explained, in an interview with Al-Araby from occupied Jerusalem, that “in the past, Israeli soldiers were allowed to search homes by a judge’s decision, and in rare cases, it was allowed to enter the house, provided that there was a fleeing person inside.”
According to lawyer Abu Arsheed, the new law will apply to everyone under the title “Combating Crime in Arab Society.”
The lawyer also explains that what is dangerous in this law is that it enables the police to enter a person’s home without him being accused or connected to any file.
The move follows a similar law proposed in 2021 by former Israeli Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar that only passed the first Knesset vote.
London: Leading UK-based Indian-origin consultant cardiologist Aseem Malhotra is among a group of international experts backing an approach to the High Court of South Africa, calling for an urgent judicial review of Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine products which he fears may be “harmful”.
Lawyers representing the human rights group Freedom Alliance of South Africa (FASA) say the show cause notice was filed on Monday at the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, Pretoria, along with real-world data analysis, which is claimed to show an association with increasing death from both COVID and non-COVID causes in the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.
FASA has approached the court to review and set aside the authorisation of Pfizer’s vaccine products on the basis that the authorisation was “unlawful”.
If successful, this could result in the removal of COVID mRNA vaccines from the South African market and also have global implications.
“Having critically appraised the literature and the Pfizer trial data, the evidence is unequivocal,” Malhotra said.
“For the overwhelming majority of people, the Pfizer COVID mRNA vaccine is significantly more harmful than beneficial and likely should never have been approved to be administered to a single human being,” said Malhotra, who himself took two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and is now backing the show cause notice.
“It is alarming to me that the local regulators are encouraging the vaccination of young children in the circumstances. The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine products should, in my opinion, be halted pending a full investigation into how we got this so very wrong. That is, without question, the responsible and ethical move,” he said.
The FASA case, among the first of its kind, is being handled by advocate Erin-Dianne Richards, briefed by Daniel Eloff of Hurter Spies Incorporated in South Africa and is supported by leading medical and scientific professionals from around the world.
Malhotra, among the supporters, believes the case is “factually, medically and scientifically sound”.
Dr Herman Edeling, a specialist neurosurgeon with over 40 years of experience, notes in the founding affidavit that the mRNA vaccine administered as Comirnaty in South Africa should “never have been branded as safe’ and effective’”.
“The applicants in this application call on Pfizer to explain their conduct; they call on the South African regulators and government to hold Pfizer to account and to act in the best interests of the South African public, and they humbly request this Honourable Court to come to their aid in achieving these calls in the interests of the health of the South African public,” said Edeling.
While the notice of the motion was recorded by the South African court registrar on Monday, FASA hopes to announce a date of hearing in due course.
Pfizer’s media office has been approached for a response and it is yet to comment on this development.
Garland ordered deputy U.S. marshals to the homes of Supreme Court justices last May, after protests broke out there following a bombshell POLITICO report that a majority of the high court had voted privately to overturn the federal right to abortion established a half-century ago in Roe v. Wade.
To continue the protective details, the Marshals Service is seeking $21 million to pay for 42 additional deputy marshals in the next fiscal year, Garland said during his testimony on the Justice Department’s budget.
The attorney general noted that, last June, Congress passed legislation to expand the Supreme Court Police’s authority to provide security for the families of justices. But he politely observed that Congress didn’t provide money to cover the expansion.
The Supreme Court’s own budget request seeks an additional $5.9 million to beef up security.
Last June, local police arrested a California man outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s suburban Maryland home in the middle of the night after the man said he’d traveled there to kill the justice. The suspect, Nicholas Roske, allegedly told police he was angry about Supreme Court decisions on abortion and guns. Roske was later charged in federal court with seeking to assassinate Kavanaugh and has pleaded not guilty.
Republican lawmakers recently stepped up their complaints that the marshals have not acted aggressively enough to curtail noisy protests outside the homes of some conservative justices. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, Garland was pressed on why the marshals haven’t sought to arrest demonstrators under a federal statute prohibiting protests aimed at influencing federal court decisions.
“We are trying to protect the lives of justices. That is our principal priority,” Garland said on March 1. “Decisions have to be made on the ground about what is the best way to protect those lives.”
At the budget hearing Tuesday, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) displayed enlargements of training materials for the marshals’ protection mission showing that the deputies were strongly discouraged from making arrests unless they were essential to protecting the justices or their families. A spokesperson for Britt said her office obtained them from a whistleblower “concerned about the attorney general’s misleading testimony before the Judiciary Committee.”
“Avoid, unless absolutely necessary, criminal enforcement action involving the protest or protestors, particularly on public space,” one bullet point from the training presentation said.
While Justice Department officials have repeatedly declined to comment on whether they consider the anti-protest statute constitutional, the training materials suggest that DOJ lawyers concluded that enforcing the statute against ordinary protests aimed at the justices could run afoul of the First Amendment.
“The ‘intent of influencing any judge’ language thus logically goes to threats and intimidation, not 1st [Amendment] protected protest activities,” the training materials say, calling any arrests a “last resort to present physical harm to the Justices and/or their families.”
Britt said the slides undercut Garland’s earlier claim that the marshals “have full authority to arrest people under any federal statute, including that federal statute.”
“Were you at any point before your testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee aware of these training materials?” the Alabama senator asked.
Garland said he wasn’t and he rebuffed a suggestion by Britt that he “amend” his statements earlier this month.
“There’s nothing for me to amend because, as I said, I’ve never seen those slides before,” the attorney general replied.
“It’s clear the marshals were given a different directive and I would ask you to look into that, please,” Britt responded.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“Wisconsinites are very familiar with hearing ‘this is the most important election of our lifetime,’” said Sarah Godlewski, a Democrat who was recently appointed to be the Wisconsin secretary of state after running for the Senate last year. But, she emphasized, this race is actually incredibly “consequential” for the longer-term political control of the state.
A liberal takeover of the supreme court could even be a factor in the race for control of the U.S. House in 2024.
A win by Democrat-backed Janet Protasiewicz — which could shift control of the court from a one-seat advantage for conservatives to a 4-3 liberal majority — could have a domino effect in the state. She is facing former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, the conservative candidate backed by the state GOP in the technically non-partisan race.
Most immediately, the court will likely decide the fate of abortion rights in Wisconsin; that and crime have been the focus of much of the debate surrounding the race. But there’s another hugely consequential matter the court could take up: a challenge to the state’s congressional district and legislative lines. And an adverse ruling for Republicans would pose a direct threat to the delegation’s GOP-heavy makeup.
Currently, Republicans have a near-ironclad hold on the state legislature, a fact that has hamstrung Democratic Gov. Tony Evers throughout his two terms. The GOP is a few seats shy of a supermajority in the state Assembly, and a special election for a red-leaning state Senate seat on Tuesday will determine if the GOP hits the two-thirds mark in the state Senate again.
The state’s congressional delegation, meanwhile, is 6-2 Republican — four safe Republican seats, two deep blue Democratic districts and a pair of red-leaning but potentially competitive districts that the GOP carried in the midterms.
But that GOP dominance is built upon conservative-friendly state and congressional district maps — lines that Democrats are itching to challenge in court.
Wisconsin’s congressional and legislative lines went through lengthy court fights following the 2020 census, after the GOP-controlled legislature and Evers could not reach an agreement on the maps. After a series of rulings from both the state and U.S. Supreme Courts, the state landed on its current legislative and congressional lines.
The U.S. House map ultimately selected by the state Supreme Court was one proposed by Evers — but it was still one that heavily favored Republicans because the court previously ruled the maps must be based on the last decade’s lines.
A win for Protasiewicz could reopen those decisions. Broadly, operatives on both sides believe a redrawn map could endanger the seats of Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden, the two Republicans who represent the red-leaning seats. And the district of Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) could be redrawn to become more competitive.
More than $37 million has already been spent on the race as of late last week, according to WisPolitics.com — easily the record for spending on a state Supreme Court race anywhere in the country. But even with the stakes riding on the election, those involved say the contest is still running into the same attention gap that off-year elections face.
“For people that aren’t paying attention, it seems hard to believe that there’s a spring election that has cataclysmic importance,” said Ben Wikler, the chair of the state Democratic Party. “And breaking through that natural skepticism to convey that fact is maybe the central challenge in this organizing push.”
Operatives on both sides believe the race between the two candidates is close, though there have been no nonpartisan public polls.
In the only debate between Protasiewicz and Kelly that took place last week, Protasiewicz criticized the maps, saying they were unfair. “I don’t think anybody thinks those maps are fair. Anybody,” she said during the debate. “The question is am I able to fairly make a decision on a case. Of course I would.”
Some Republicans have attacked these comments, saying she is projecting how she would rule in cases. “I think that it really goes beyond the partisan makeup of the legislature or what the congressional delegation is going to be,” state Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August, a Republican, said in an interview. “It really goes to ‘are we going to start to allow Supreme Court justices to just make unilateral decisions?’”
But even setting aside the outcome of Tuesday’s election, there is significant uncertainty over what role the Wisconsin Supreme Court will play in redistricting in the future. There is a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court that risks cutting state supreme courts out of that role in most federal election questions.
Perhaps even more consequential than any would-be redistricting case is the potential for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule on the outcome of a future election — including the 2024 presidential race. In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, the state Supreme Court tossed then-President Donald Trump’s challenge to the outcome in the state. At the time, Justice Brian Hagedorn — a conservative who still serves on the court and has been a swing vote in other big cases — joined the liberal minority on the case.
The most glaring near-term issue the court will grapple with, however, is abortion rights. The state currently has an 1840s law on the books banning abortion in almost all circumstances. A challenge to that law is expected to eventually land in front of the state Supreme Court, but abortion providers in the state have, in the interim, stopped performing the procedure.
Earlier this month, Republican Assembly leaders put forward a proposal to allow for the procedure in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, along with clarifying a “health of the mother” exception. But Republican Senate leaders promised to not take it up, and Evers said he would veto it. Soon after, the governor introduced his own proposal to repeal the 1849 law, but it will not pass the legislature.
Protasiewicz and her allies are hoping the issue will propel her to victory, as it did for many Democrats last fall who outperformed expectations in the midterms. But the race has attracted significant attention from both pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion groups, who say their supporters have been fired up by the contest.
Gracie Skogman, the legislative and PAC director of Wisconsin Right to Life, said there has been an “unprecedented” response from anti-abortion advocates. “I have been truly shocked to see the amount of people who are willing to be involved in this election. That was very unexpected for us,” she added.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Rampur: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Tuesday appeared before a special court here and recorded his statement in connection with a case dispute with his neighbour.
According to the prosecution, the dispute had taken place in 2019.
The court has fixed April 1 as the next date of hearing.
Government advocate Pratap Singh Maurya said Mohammad Ahmed, the neighbour of Azam Khan, had got a case registered against the SP leader for forcibly entering his house, and attempting to kill him.
Four people including Azam Khan have been named as accused in this case.
Prayagraj: A police cavalcade carrying gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad left for the Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat Tuesday evening, hours after he was sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment in a 2006 kidnapping case by a court in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, a senior official said.
Ahmad was brought from the Sabarmati Central Jail by road for the hearing in the MP-MLA court here. He was kept at the Naini Central Jail in Prayagraj before the hearing.
“As per the orders of the honourable court, Atiq Ahmad has left for Sabarmati Central Jail,” Naini Jail Senior Superintendent Shashikant told PTI.
When asked about Ahmad’s brother Khalid Azim alias Ashraf, who was acquitted in the case, Shashikant said he has “left for Bareilly”.
Ashraf, lodged in the Bareilly District Jail since July 2020, was brought to the Naini Central Jail on Monday evening amid tight security arrangements for his production in the court.
A former Samajwadi Party MP from Phulpur, Ahmad was shifted to Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat in June 2019 following a Supreme Court order after he was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal from a prison in Uttar Pradesh.
Tuesday’s conviction of Ahmad was his first in over 100 cases registered against him over the years.
Special MP-MLA court judge Dinesh Chandra Shukla held Ahmad, Saulat Hanif, a lawyer, and Dinesh Pasi guilty under IPC Section 364-A (kidnapping or abduction in order to murder) for kidnapping Umesh Pal in 2006.
“The court has awarded the three rigorous life imprisonment and Rs 1 lakh fine to each,” Government counsel Gulab Chandra Agrahari said.
The amount will be given to the family of Umesh Pal, a witness in the 2006 BSP MLA Raju Pal murder case who was gunned down last month. Ahmad and his brother Ashraf are also accused in the murder case.
SRINAGAR: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday directed the Chief Justice (CJ) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) High Court to investigate complaints related to the alleged recruitment of administrative staff through unauthorized means at the J&K High Court, Subordinate Courts, State Judicial Academy, Legal Services Authority, and the e-Court Mission Mode Project.
During a hearing on a petition filed by J&K Peoples Forum, a bench consisting of CJI D Y Chandrachud, Justice P S Narasimha, and Justice J B Pardiwala was informed that the petition alleged that the appointment of administrative staff at the J&K High Court, Subordinate Courts, State Judicial Academy, Legal Services Authority, and the e-Court Mission Mode Project were not carried out in accordance with due selection procedures. The petition specifically claimed that the relatives of existing staff members, as well as present and former judges of the High Court, were appointed through unofficial channels.
The bench said: “We will ask the Chief Justice of the High Court to look into the grievance of the petition. Time for filing counter affidavit has been extended. Counter shall be filed by the Registrar of J&K High Court after specifically taking instructions and directions from the CJ of J&K High Court.”
The petition filed challenges appointments made from 2007 onwards that were either temporary or made through advertisements, citing them as “suspicious.” Additionally, the petition presents a list that indicates the current staff members and High Court judges who allegedly provided preferential treatment to their relatives and acquaintances during the recruitment process.
It states: “There are instances where amendments have been made in the existing rules just to facilitate backdoor appointments and or or facilitating the appointment of kin of functionaries against higher cadres who otherwise were eligible only for lower cadres and that that too if selected after a regular legal recruitment process.”
According to the petition, the appointments were made without a transparent selection process. It claims that there was no public notice or advertisement issued, and the selection of appointees was arbitrary. The petition emphasizes that there were several highly qualified candidates who could have been selected if a fair and just selection process was followed.
The petition contended that a large number of daily wagers employed in various courts for over a decade had not been regularised, with only those who had close connections with High Court officers being considered for regularisation.
Furthermore, the petition demanded that the Supreme Court quash these backdoor appointments and direct the respondents to refrain from making any more such appointments. Additionally, the petition implored the apex court to direct a credible agency to conduct an inquiry into the allegations of backdoor appointments of administrative staff in the High Court against both the officials involved in the process of making such appointments and those who have benefited from them.
The petition has been filed through AoR, Raj Kishore Choudhary. (Live Law)
