Archives for December 2021

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the resumption of bullock cart race in Maharashtra, which has been prohibited in the state since 2017.

The apex court observed that validity of the amended provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the rules framed by Maharashtra, which provided for bullock cart race in the state, would operate during the pendency of the petitions as the entire matter has been referred to a constitution bench.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar noted that no interim relief was granted earlier by the top court on the petitions challenging the validity of similar state amendment of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka where such races are going on.

Same dispensation must apply to the amended provisions as applicable to the state of Maharashtra, which are similar to the amendment carried out in the other two states, said the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar.

The apex court was hearing an application filed by the Maharashtra government which had sought that ban on bullock cart race in the state should be lifted as the same is going on in states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The Maharashtra government had said that there is a prohibition on bullock cart race in the state as the Bombay High Court, in its interim order, had refused to lift the ban in 2017, while there is no stay on the Acts concerned of the other two states.

In its order, the bench observed that the pleas challenging the validity of the state amendment of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in this regard were fully heard by the apex court earlier and the issue was later referred to a constitution bench, but no interim relief was granted by the court.

The validity of the amended provision of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the rules framed thereunder by the state of Maharashtra would operate during the pendency of the writ petition, as the entire matter has been referred to the constitution bench, including to consider the question as to whether the similar amended Act of the state of Tamil Nadu overcomes the defects pointed out in the two judgements of this court, the bench said.

The top court said that this matter be heard along with the petitions pertaining to the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

It said that prayer for interim reliefs in the petition stand answered and need not be renewed before the top court unless there is change in circumstance.

It will be open to the parties to request the Chief Justice for listing of the main matters referred to the constitution bench, it said.

During the hearing, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Maharashtra, told the bench that in 2017 Maharashtra had come with amendments to permit bullock cart race.

He said the rules were challenged in the high court which had stayed the operation of the rules by which the state wanted to hold bullock cart race under strict regulations.

Rohatgi said similar amendments were done in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and when the matter came to the apex court, no bar was put on such race in those two states.

He said Maharashtra should be allowed to conduct bullock cart races in accordance with the 2017 rules.

While arguing the matter on Wednesday, Rohatgi had referred to an earlier order of the apex court, which had referred the pleas related to ‘Jallikattu’ to a five-judge constitution bench which would decide if the bull-taming sport fell under cultural rights or perpetuated cruelty to animals.

Jallikattu, also known as ‘eruthazhuvuthal’, is a bull-taming sport played in Tamil Nadu as part of the Pongal harvest festival.

One of the advocates appearing in the matter had earlier told the apex court that bullock cart race was banned in Maharashtra on the grounds of cruelty to the animal.

Dehradun: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched his party’s election campaign in Uttarakhand on an emotional note, saying like many families in the state, his family too made sacrifices for the country.

That is my relationship with the state, he said during a rally at Parade Ground here on the 50th anniversary of India’s victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War.

“The way thousands of families in Uttarakhand lose their kin battling for the country’s honour, My family too has made sacrifices. This is my relationship with Uttarakhand,” he said.

Referring to his grandmother and former PM Indira Gandhi, he said she took “32 bullets for country” but her name was not even mention at a government event on the 1971 War anniversary in New Delhi.

But families who made no sacrifice for the nation cannot feel this, he said.

The Congress leader added that India won the 1971 War because it was “united” then.

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday told the legislative council that no death due to lack of oxygen was reported in the state during the second wave of COVID-19, a claim rejected by the opposition.

The government said the death certificates made no mention of ‘death due to lack of oxygen’ in any of the 22,915 patients that died due to the pandemic.

Replying to Congress member Deepak Singh during the Question Hour, Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh said, “No death has been reported in the state due to lack of oxygen during the second wave.”

Raising a supplementary question, Deepak asked whether the government had details on similar cases that were flagged by its own ministers.

“Many ministers wrote letters saying deaths are taking place due to lack of oxygen in the state. Apart from this, many MPs had also made such complaints. Many incidents of deaths due to lack of oxygen had come to light. Is there any information with the government about these deaths in the entire state. Has the government not seen the dead bodies flowing in the Ganges and people suffering due to lack of oxygen?”

Giving clarification, Pratap said a doctor issues death certificate in case a hospitalised patient dies. He said there was no mention of ‘death due to lack of oxygen’ anywhere in the 22,915 death certificates that were issued by the doctors for COVID-19 victims in the state.

The minister said several deaths during the pandemic were due to various other diseases, including terminal ones, and that the government had arranged oxygen from other states when there was a shortage.

Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Udayveer Singh had earlier said, “The Uttar Pradesh government took action against Paras Hospital in Agra because the video of a doctor there had gone viral… half of the patients there were given oxygen and the other half died. Oxygen supply was stopped on the instructions of the district magistrate.”

He sought to know when the government itself has taken action in the case, how it could make a “false statement” in the House.

In response, the minister said the district magistrate and police commissioner’s investigation report mentioned about a ‘mock drill’ in the hospital and it was during this time that the oxygen supply had allegedly been stopped.

Udayveer objected to the minister’s reply saying the “truth will not change” if the government writes “extinct” instead of “death” in the certificate.

Deepak also argued whether the letters written by the ministers on lack of oxygen, too, were false.

Leader of the House Dinesh Sharma said the health minister had answered the questions asked.

He said the members of the opposition should acknowledge that major casualties were avoided due to the “promptness” of the Uttar Pradesh government in ensuring medicines and treatment.

Earlier, the House proceedings were adjourned for 15 minutes with the SP members raising the demand for dismissal of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence which had left eight people, including four farmers, dead in October.

SP’s Naresh Uttam asked why Mishra had not been dismissed. This was, however, disallowed by Chairman Manvendra Singh.

The SP members barged into the well of the House carrying placards leading to a brief adjournment.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury

New Delhi: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday urged President Ram Nath Kovind to remove Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh (J&K&L) High Court’s Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal for allegedly speaking “against the Indian Constitution”.

While addressing a programme organised by an organisation affiliated to the RSS on December 5 at Jammu, Mithal spoke “against the Constitution of India”, Yechury claimed in his letter to Kovind.

“It has been widely reported in the media that Mithal addressed a seminar organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad and said the following, ‘Inclusion of the terms secular and socialist in the Preamble of the Constitution had narrowed India’s spiritual image’,” Yechury said.

“Mithal is further reported to have said, ‘Sometimes, we bring amendments due to our adamancy’,” he noted.

Utterances against the country’s Constitution by a high court chief justice, that too from a platform which preaches a particular ideology, is an unpardonable offence which is in violation of the oath taken by him to carry out his constitutional functions, the CPI(M) leader asserted.

“Mithal’s conduct (is) unbecoming of the constitutional office of the chief justice that he is holding (and it) warrants his immediate removal from the said office,” he stated.

“As the custodian of the Constitution, as the head of the State and as the appointing authority of Mithal, I request your good self to immediately set in motion the process for his removal from office to uphold the sanctity of the Constitution and independence of judiciary,” Yechury said.

New Delhi: The government has decided to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, bringing it at par with that of men.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday had cleared a proposal to bring in uniformity in the marriageable age of men and women, sources said on Thursday.

The government is likely to bring a bill in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament to amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, they said.

The proposed bill may also seek to make consequential changes to various personal laws relating to marriage of various communities to ensure a uniform marriage age, the sources said.

As of now, the legal age of women to get married is 18 while that for men is 21 years.

The decision came a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the government was deliberating on what should be the minimum age for marriage of women.

The decision is based on the recommendation of a four-member task force led by former Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitly.

Speaking about the recommendation, Jaitly said there were two main reasons that were focussed on.

“If we talk about gender equity and gender empowerment in every field, then we can’t leave marriage out because this is a very odd message that girl can be fit to be married at 18 that cuts away her opportunity to go to college and the man has the opportunity to prepare himself for life and earning up to 21. But these days when girls are capable of doing so much and the main reason why they are married off is because they are not an income earning member of the family but why do we allow them that feeling,” she told PTI.

“We should give them an opportunity to earn and be equal to a man and she can’t become equal at 18 when man has 21 years to do that. Secondly, we took opinions from lots of people but the main people who were most attentive were stakeholders themselves. We conducted assessment calls with young people – universities, colleges and in rural areas where they are still at school or getting out of school and the unanimous opinion of stakeholders was the marriageable age to be 22 or 23. Across all religions everyone had the same opinion which was a very heartening thing,” she said.

Jaitly said the task force submitted its recommendations to the PMO, Women and Child Development Ministry and NITI Aayog last December.

The other members in the panel include Dr V K Paul, member (health) Niti Aayog, secretaries of higher education, school education, health, women and child development, legislative department apart from academicians Najma Akhtar, Vasudha Kamat and Dipti Shah.

New Delhi(PTI): Army Chief Gen M M Naravane has assumed the charge as the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee that comprises the three service chiefs, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday.

The post fell vacant following the death of Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat in the IAF helicopter crash on December 8.

Gen Naravane has been given the charge as the chairman of the committee as he is the senior-most among the three service chiefs, the people cited above said.

IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari and Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar had taken over their respective positions on September 30 and November 30.

Before the creation of the post of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), the senior-most among the three service chiefs used to be the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

The Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) met on Tuesday and condoled the death of Gen Rawat, his wife Madhulika and 11 armed forces personnel.

Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor of the crash, succumbed to injuries on Wednesday at a military hospital in Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, Gen Naravane held a telephonic conversation with Lt Gen Fahd bin Abdullah Al-Mutair, the Commander of Royal Saudi Armed Forces.

The Army said they discussed issues of bilateral defence cooperation.

New Delhi: Employees of public sector banks (PSBs) on Thursday went on two-day strike against the move to privatise public sector banks impacting normal banking operation across the country.

Many branches across different parts of the country were shut as the United Forum of Bank Union (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions including All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) had given two day strike call.

As a result, services such as deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance and loan approvals might be affected due to the strike. But ATMs are expected to function as usual.

Public sector lenders, including State Bank of India, had informed customers that services in their branches might be affected due to the strike.

However, the private sector, especially new generation private sector lenders, like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, are working as usual.

The strike is against the government’s decision to privatise public sector banks which have been playing a vital role in nation building, (AIBEA) general secretary C H Venkatachalam told PTI.

AIBOC General Secretary Soumya Dutta said that about 7 lakh across the country are participating in the two-day strike.

It is unfortunate that the working in over 1 lakh branches of the banks and regional rural banks has been impacted due to the strike due to the government’s attitude, Dutta said.

“All banking services are impacted from cash withdrawals to deposits, business transactions, loan process, cheque clearing, account opening and business transactions, he said.

In the Union Budget presented in February, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the privatisation of two public sector banks (PSBs) as part of its disinvestment plan.

To facilitate privatisation, the government has listed the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, for introduction and passage during the current session of Parliament.

The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake in the lender to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the past four years.