Tag: plea

Karnataka bribe case: SC seeks BJP MLA’s response on Lokayukta plea

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the reply from BJP MLA Madal Virupakshappa on a plea of the Karnataka Lokayukta challenging anticipatory bail granted to him by the high court. The MLA is accused in the Karnataka Soaps and Detergents (KSDL) contract scam.
A bench comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia issued the notice to the BJP legislator. On March 14, the apex court had agreed to take up the Lokayukta’s plea against the Karnataka High Court order in the case.
Earlier this month, the Lokayukta police arrested BJP MLA’s son Prashanth Madal, who is the chief accounts officer of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, while allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs 40 lakh on behalf of his father at the KSDL office. Virupakashappa resigned as the chairperson of KSDL following his son’s arrest.
The high court granted the anticipatory bail to the MLA after hearing his petition and directed him to appear before the investigating officer in the case within 48 hours of receiving the order copy. The high court also directed Virupakshappa not to tamper with the evidence while on bail.
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#Karnataka #bribe #case #seeks #BJP #MLAs #response #Lokayukta #plea
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 27, 2023
‘Don’t interfere’: SC dismisses UP govt’s plea against job to kin of Hathras victim

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed Uttar Pradesh government’s plea against high court direction to consider giving a job to a family member of the victim in Hathras case and also the relocation of the family, saying “the state should not come up in such matters”.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala told Garima Prasad, additional advocate general (AAG) of Uttar Pradesh, “State should not come up in such matters… Prasad submitted that the state government is ready to relocate the family but they wanted a job either in Noida or Delhi.”
She further added that whether the elder married brother of the victim could be regarded as a ‘dependent’, was a question of law to be considered.
Declining to entertain the state government’s plea, the Chief Justice said, “these are facilities provided to the family. We should not interfere. State should not come up in these matters…”
After the order was pronounced, the AAG urged the apex court to keep the question of law open, the bench said that the order has specified that it is passed in the special facts and circumstances of the case.
In July last year, the high court passed directions in a matter connected with Hathras case, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was alleged to have been raped and murdered in September 2020 in Hathras.
The high court said the state authorities must abide by the promise, which was made to the family in September 2020, to give employment to one member and also directed the authorities to consider relocation of the family outside Hathras but within Uttar Pradesh.
The high court’s order came on a PIL registered suo motu as Right to Decent and Dignified Last Rites/Cremation in 2020 after victim’s last rites were performed in haste after midnight allegedly in the absence of the consent of the family.

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#Dont #interfere #dismisses #govts #plea #job #kin #Hathras #victim
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 27, 2023
Delhi excise policy scam: SC to hear Kavitha’s plea against ED summons

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a plea by K Kavitha, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, seeking protection from arrest and challenging the summons by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case arising out of the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi is scheduled to hear the plea by Kavitha.
On March 15, the top court agreed to hear her plea seeking protection from arrest and challenging the summons issued by the ED.
On March 11, the 44-year-old BRS leader was deposed before the ED to record her statement and was summoned again on March 16 for questioning.
She was last quizzed for about 10 hours on March 21, which was her third day of deposition before the Enforcement Directorate.
The BRS leader has denied all allegations against her.
According to official sources, Kavitha, during her questioning by the ED, was confronted with the statements made by Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandran Pillai, who has been arrested in the case, apart from those of a few others allegedly involved in the case.
Kavitha’s statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Pillai was arrested by the ED earlier. He has moved a city court accusing the ED of forging his statements.
The ED had said Pillai “represented the south group”, an alleged liquor cartel linked to Kavitha and others that paid kickbacks amounting to about Rs 100 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party to gain a larger share of the market in the national capital under the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy for 2020-21.
The “south group”, according to the ED, comprises Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Pharma), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (YSR Congress MP from Ongole in Andhra Pradesh), his son Raghav Magunta, Kavitha, and others.
The ED had also alleged in Pillai’s remand papers that he “represented the benami investments” of Kavitha, who has also been questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the case.
The ED has so far arrested 12 people in the case, including former Delhi deputy chief minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia.
It has recorded the statement of Butchi Babu, a chartered accountant allegedly linked to Kavitha, where he said “there was a political understanding between K Kavitha and the chief minister (Arvind Kejriwal) and the deputy chief minister (Sisodia). In that process, K Kavitha also met Vijay Nair on March 19-20, 2021.”
Nair was arrested in the case by both ED and CBI. Butchi Babu has been arrested by CBI.
According to Butchi Babu’s statement, Nair was “trying to impress Kavitha with what he could do in the (excise) policy”.
“Vijay Nair was acting on behalf of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia,” the statement recorded by the ED said.
It is alleged that the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licenses to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the AAP.
The policy was subsequently scrapped and the Delhi lieutenant governor recommended a CBI probe, following which the ED registered the case under the PMLA.
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#Delhi #excise #policy #scam #hear #Kavithas #plea #summons
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 26, 2023
Truman’s Secret Plea to Eisenhower: Take My Job

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“She would give many disgruntled liberals who cannot stomach Mr. Wallace’s Moscow axis and still distrust Republicans an excuse to rally to the Truman banner,” she added, referring to Wallace’s friendliness to the Soviet Union.
But Luce said that Democrats, “being men first and Democrats second,” probably lacked “the courage, vision, or intelligence to adopt it.” (Luce, a playwright and former managing editor of Vanity Fair, and the wife of one of the nation’s most influential publishers, Henry R. Luce, was way ahead of her time. It would be 36 years before Democrats made Geraldine Ferraro the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major political party — and another 36 years before Kamala Harris would be the first woman elected to the post.)
There was reason to be skeptical of Luce’s motives behind the free strategic advice. Just the week before, in a speech at the Republican convention, “the GOP’s glamorous Clare Boothe Luce,” as the Washington Post called her, mocked Truman and called her party’s victory in the presidential election a lock.
“Why is everyone so certain?” she asked on June 21, the opening day of the convention. “For three reasons: our people want a competent president; our people want a truthful president; our people want a constitution-minded president.” She mocked Truman as “the unfortunate man in the White House,” adding, “Frankly, he is a gone goose.” Luce called the Democrats less a party than a “mishmash of die-hard warring factions” — white supremacist “lynch-loving bourbons” on the right, and the “Moscow wing” on the left.
In the weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention, meanwhile, party members continued to agitate for a change at the top of the ticket. Jeremiah T. Mahoney, a delegate from New York, argued in a letter to his state party chairman that Truman’s nomination would cost other Democrats down-ballot.
Mahoney, a nationally prominent attorney and former judge, wrote that “our dear President Truman, of whom we are all so fond, cannot possibly be re-elected,” and urged the party to continue recruiting Eisenhower to take his place at the top of the ticket. Even though Ike had repeatedly stated that he wouldn’t accept the nomination, Mahoney predicted that if the party nominated him, the general would accept out of “duty” to the country.
By the time the two parties gathered for their conventions that summer in Philadelphia, Republicans still seemed like the one on the ascent. In 1946, they had won both houses of Congress, the first time the GOP achieved that feat since before the Great Depression.
To take on Truman, Republicans nominated New York Gov. Thomas Dewey for president and California Gov. Earl Warren as his running mate: “a dream ticket of two hugely popular governors,” as Truman biographer Alonzo L. Hamby called them.

Democrats, meanwhile, were bracing for a nightmare. Earlier that year, Truman’s bold civil rights proposal — including a federal anti-lynching law, home rule for Washington, D.C., and his announcement that he would desegregate the military — had splintered the party into the “mishmash of die-hard warring factions” Luce had maligned.
On the eve of the party’s convention, many Democrats fretted that Truman was a fatally weak incumbent. It was a continuation of how the political establishment had underrated him his entire career. When Truman became FDR’s running mate in 1944, for example, Time magazine mocked him as “the mousy little man from Missouri.” The taunts didn’t let up after he became president. Another popular one: “To err is Truman.”
“Truman seemed very much alone, cheering himself on in a hopeless cause — an election very few thought he had a chance of winning,” wrote Jeffrey Frank in The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953.
A July 1 White House news conference, less than two weeks before the Democratic convention, seemed to epitomize Truman’s falling political stock, when a reporter told him about Luce’s advice that he name Eleanor Roosevelt to his ticket and asked if she would be an acceptable running mate.
“Why, of course, of course,” Truman replied. Then he brought down the house with this postscript: “What do you expect me to say to that?”
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#Trumans #Secret #Plea #Eisenhower #Job
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 26, 2023
Delhi excise policy case: Court to hear Sisodia’s bail plea in money laundering case on April 5

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New Delhi: A court on Saturday adjourned till April 5 the hearing on the bail plea of AAP leader Manish Sisodia, who has been arrested by the ED in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in implementing the now-scrapped excise policy in Delhi.
Special Judge MK Nagpal adjourned the hearing after Sisodia’s counsel sought more time to prepare a detailed response to ED’s submission on the bail plea.
Sisodia moved the bail plea on Tuesday and the court sought the Enforcement Directorate’s response by March 25.
On Wednesday, after seven days of questioning by the ED, the court sent him to 14-day judicial custody.
On Friday, the court reserved its order on a separate bail plea moved by Sisodia in the excise policy case lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Special Judge Nagapal said the court will pronounce its order on the bail plea in the CBI case on March 31.
The ED arrested the former Delhi deputy chief minister on March 9 at Tihar jail, where he was lodged in connection with the case being probed by the CBI.
The CBI arrested him on February 26.

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#Delhi #excise #policy #case #Court #hear #Sisodias #bail #plea #money #laundering #case #April
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 25, 2023
Plea in SC challenges automatic disqualification of lawmakers upon conviction

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Delhi: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the “automatic disqualification” of lawmakers upon their conviction and being sentenced to a jail term for two years or more according to section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act.
The plea, filed by a Kerala-based social activist, said the immediate reason for approaching the apex court was a recent development related to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as a member of Parliament from the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, after he was convicted by a court in Gujarat’s Surat in a 2019 criminal defamation case.
The petitioner, Aabha Muralidharan, has sought a declaration that the automatic disqualification under section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 is ultra vires the Constitution for being “arbitrary” and “illegal”.
The petition has claimed that an automatic disqualification of people’s representatives of elected legislative bodies restrains them from “freely discharging their duties cast upon them by the voters of their respective constituencies, which is against the principles of democracy”.
“The present scenario provides a blanket disqualification, irrespective of the nature, gravity and seriousness of the offences, allegedly against the concerned member, and provides for an ‘automatic’ disqualification, which is against the principles of natural justice since various convictions are reversed at the appellate stage and under such circumstances, the valuable time of a member, who is discharging his duties towards the public at large, shall be rendered futile,” the plea, filed through advocate Deepak Prakash, said.
Regarding Gandhi’s disqualification, the plea said the conviction has been challenged, but in light of the operations of the present disqualification rules under the 1951 Act, the stage of appeal, the nature of the offences, the gravity of the offences and the impact of the same over the society and the country are not being considered, and in a blanket manner, an automatic disqualification has been ordered.
It said members of Parliament are the voice of people and they uphold the right to freedom of speech and expression of millions of their supporters who have elected them.
“All that the petitioner and the petition wish to establish is that the right under Article 19(1)(a) enjoyed by a member of Parliament is an extension of the voice of millions of his supporters,” it said.

The plea said the provision ignores the first schedule of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on “classification of offences”, which can be categorised under two headings — cognisable and non-cognisable and bailable and non-bailable.
The plea said the grounds for disqualification ought to be specific with the nature of offences as specified under the CrPC and not in a “blanket form”, as is currently in force according to section 8(3) of the 1951 Act.
It said the apex court had, in the case of Lily Thomas versus Union of India, declared as ultra vires the Constitution section 8(4) of the 1951 Act, which said the disqualification of a lawmaker on conviction shall not take effect until three months have elapsed from the date or, if within that period an appeal or application for revision is brought in respect of the conviction or sentence, until that appeal or application is disposed of by a court.
The plea alleged that the Lily Thomas verdict is being “blatantly misused for wreaking personal vengeance by political parties”.
The petition said if the offence of defamation under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which attracts a maximum punishment of two years in jail, is not removed singularly from the sweeping effect of the Lily Thomas judgment, it will have a “chilling effect on the right of representation of the citizens”.
The plea has arrayed the Centre, the Election Commission, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat and the Lok Sabha Secretariat as party respondents.
It has sought a declaration that there is no automatic disqualification under section 8(3) of the 1951 Act and in cases of automatic disqualification under the provision, the same be declared ultra vires the Constitution.
It has also sought a declaration that the mandate under section 499 (defamation) of the IPC or any other offence prescribing a maximum punishment of two years in jail will not automatically disqualify any incumbent member of a legislative body since it “violates the freedom of speech and expression of an elected common man’s representative”.
Former Congress chief Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha on Friday, a day after he was convicted by the Surat court.
Announcing his disqualification, the Lok Sabha Secretariat in a notification said it would be effective from March 23, the day of Gandhi’s conviction.
“Consequent upon his conviction by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat … Rahul Gandhi, Member of Lok Sabha representing the Wayanad Parliamentary Constituency of Kerala, stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction i.e. 23 March, 2023,” the notification read.
The Surat court sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail on Thursday in a defamation case filed on a complaint from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Purnesh Modi.
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#Plea #challenges #automatic #disqualification #lawmakers #conviction
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 25, 2023
Bilkis Bano case: SC constitutes new bench to hear plea against remission to convicts

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on March 27 a batch of pleas challenging the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case that also involves the killing of seven members of her family during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
A bench of justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna will hear the pleas filed by several political and civil rights activists, and a writ petition filed by Bano.
On March 22, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud directed the matter for urgent listing and agreed to constitute a new bench to hear the batch of pleas.
On January 4, a bench comprising justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi took up the petition filed by Bano and the other pleas. However, Justice Trivedi recused from hearing the case without citing any reason.
Bano had moved the apex court on November 30 last year challenging the “premature” release of 11 lifers by the state government, saying it has “shaken the conscience of society”.
Besides the plea challenging the release of the convicts, the gang-rape survivor had also filed a separate petition seeking a review of the apex court’s May 13, 2022, order on a plea by a convict. The review plea was later dismissed in December last year.
All 11 convicts were granted remission by the Gujarat government and released on August 15 last year.
The victim, in her pending writ petition, has said the state government passed a “mechanical order” completely ignoring the requirement of law as laid down by the Supreme Court.

“The en-masse premature release of the convicts in the much talked about case of Bilkis Bano has shaken the conscience of the society and resulted in a number of agitations across the country,” she has said.
Referring to past verdicts, the plea said en-masse remissions are not permissible and, moreover, such a relief cannot be sought or granted as a matter of right without examining the case of each convict individually based on their peculiar facts and role played by them in the crime.
“The present writ petition challenging the decision of the state/central government granting remission to all the 11 convicts and releasing them prematurely in one of the most gruesome crimes of extreme inhuman violence and brutality,” it said.
The plea, which gave minute details of the crime, said Bano and her grown-up daughters were “shell-shocked with this sudden development”.
“When the nation was celebrating its 76th Independence Day, all the convicts were released prematurely and were garlanded and felicitated in full public glare and sweets were circulated,” it said.
The top court is seized of PILs filed by CPI(M) leader Subhashini Ali, Revati Laul, an independent journalist, Roop Rekha Verma, who is a former vice chancellor of the Lucknow University, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra against the release of the convicts.
Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped while fleeing the riots that broke out after the Godhra train burning incident. Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven family members killed.
The investigation in the case was handed over to the CBI and the trial was transferred to a Maharashtra court by the Supreme Court.
A special CBI court in Mumbai had on January 21, 2008 sentenced the 11 to life imprisonment on charges of gang-rape of Bano and murder of seven members of her family.
Their conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court.
The 11 men convicted in the case walked out of the Godhra sub-jail on August 15, last year, after the Gujarat government allowed their release under its remission policy. They had completed more than 15 years in jail.
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#Bilkis #Bano #case #constitutes #bench #hear #plea #remission #convicts
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 24, 2023
‘Misuse of ED, CBI against Oppn’, SC to hear plea by 14 parties on April 5

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New Delhi: Fourteen political parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, AAP, NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), on Friday moved the Supreme Court against the alleged misuse of investigative agencies in arresting opposition leaders and sought guidelines on arrest.
The parties sought guidelines to fulfil and realise the guarantee of personal liberty entrenched in Article 21 of the Constitution, for all citizens, including those targeted for exercising their right to political dissent and for performing their duties as the political opposition.
The political parties forming the petitioners are: Congress, DMK, RJD, BRS, Trinamool Congress, AAP, NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), JMM, JD(U), CPI(M), CPI, Samajwadi Party, J&K National Conference, together representing 45.19 per cent of the votes cast in the last Assembly polls, and 42.5 per cent of the votes cast in the 2019 general elections, and holding power in 11 states/union territories.
Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud for early hearing.
The top court agreed to hear the matter on April 5.
The counsel clarified that they are not attempting to affect the ongoing investigations.
The plea said that 14 opposition political parties have filed a petition, in light of the alarming rise in the use of coercive criminal processes against their leaders and other citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent and disagree with the central government.
The plea submitted that investigating agencies such as CBI and ED are being increasingly deployed in a selective and targeted manner with a view to completely crush political dissent and upend the fundamental premises of a representative democracy.

The petition has been drawn and filed by advocate Shadan Farasat and settled by Singhvi.
According to the plea, only 23 convictions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) have been secured as of now, even as the number of cases registered by the ED under the PMLA have risen exponentially (from 209 in 2013-14 F.Y. to 981 in 2020-21, and 1,180 in 2021-22).
“Between 2004-14, of the 72 political leaders investigated by the CBI, 43 (under 60 per cent) were from the Opposition of the time. Now, this same figure has risen to over 95 per cent. The same pattern is reflected in ED’s investigations as well, with the proportion of Opposition leaders from the total number of politicians investigated rising from 54 per cent (before 2014) to 95 per cent (after 2014),” it further added.
The petitioners have sought from the apex court certain prospectively applicable guidelines governing the arrest, remand, and bail of persons in offences (which may or may not be punishable with imprisonment for above seven years) not involving serious bodily harm (thereby obviously excluding homicide, rape, terrorism etc.).
“As for arrest and remand, the petitioners seek that the triple test (whether a person is a flight risk, or whether there is a reasonable apprehension of the tampering of evidence or of the influencing/intimidation of witnesses) be used by police officers/ED officials and courts alike for arrest of persons in any cognizable offences except those involving serious bodily violence. Where these conditions are not satisfied, alternatives like interrogation at fixed hours or at most house arrest be used to meet the demands of investigation.
“As for bail, the petitioners seek that the principle of ‘bail as rule, jail as exception’ be followed by all courts throughout, especially in cases where non-violent offences are alleged, and that bail be denied only where the aforementioned triple-test is met,” the plea added.
It further contended that where special laws such as PMLA with stringent bail conditions are concerned, the petitioners seek that such bail provisions be harmonised with Article 21 of the Constitution.
“As such, therefore, where it appears that the trial is unlikely to complete within six months, the accused be released on bail even under special laws unless the conditions in the triple-test are not fulfilled.”
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#Misuse #CBI #Oppn #hear #plea #parties #April
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 24, 2023
Assault on journo case: Salman Khan’s plea to be heard on Mar 30

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Mumbai: The Bombay High Court will on March 30 give its ruling on Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s plea challenging the process (summons) issued to him by a lower court in a case related to his alleged misbehaviour with a journalist in 2019.
The HC, after hearing submissions of both sides, on Thursday reserved its order for March 30.
Journalist Ashok Pandey had alleged that in April 2019, Khan and his bodyguard Nawaz Shaikh had abused and assaulted him. He had filed a private complaint before the magistrate’s court in suburban Andheri, seeking criminal action against the duo.
The magistrate’s court, presiding over the complaint, had issued summons to the 57-year-old superstar last year after noting that a police report submitted in the matter stated that offences under Indian Penal Code sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) are made out against the accused persons.
Later, Khan had approached the HC challenging the process (summons) issued to him by the lower court. The ‘Dabangg’ actor, in his plea, had sought the HC to quash the lower court order.
Pandey had alleged the actor had snatched his mobile phone while cycling on a Mumbai street when some mediapersons started clicking his photos.
The filmstar had allegedly entered into an argument with him and also issued threat, the journalist had claimed in the complaint.

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#Assault #journo #case #Salman #Khans #plea #heard #Mar
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 23, 2023
Jamia violence: Delhi HC reserves order on police’s plea

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New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved its judgment on police’s plea against the trial courts order discharging 11 accused, including Sharjeel Imam, in the Jamia violence case.
A week before, the court had adjourned the hearing for Thursday.
A copy of the detailed order is awaited.
Earlier, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma was informed by Delhi Police’s junior counsel that the senior is not well and that he seeks adjournment.
The court had recorded which respondents have filed the written statements in the matter and asked the rest to do so in four days.
In view of Delhi Police challenging the Saket court’s order dated February 4, discharging 11 accused in a 2019 Jamia violence case, the High Court had earlier said that there will be no influnence on the further investigation or trial of the remaining accused due to the trial court’s order.
“Since further investigation will be carried out, observations made against the investigating agency will not affect either further investigation or trial of any accused,” Justice Sharma had said while she also issued notice on the Police’s revision petition.
Incidents of violence at Jamia Millia Islamia in December 2019, erupted after a clash between the police and people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

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#Jamia #violence #Delhi #reserves #order #polices #plea
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 23, 2023