Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat says the issue whether simultaneous polls will help cut costs will need a systematic study before it can be established.

However, he feels that apprehensions aired by some political parties over one-nation, one-poll were borne out of a “status quoist” attitude and that simultaneous polls did not pose any threat to the federal freedom.

“Actually, not much exercise (study) has been done on this. The issue has many dimensions,” Rawat said in an interview with IANS when asked if simultaneous elections will actually save costs.

“Initially, it will require more money to procure so many machines (voting and paper audit trail machines). It will require more warehouses to store these machines,” he said.

He said once the required Constitutional amendments are in place for simultaneous elections, the government will have to provide the logistics.

“The logistics include the EVMs, CAPFs (central armed police forces), vehicles, polling personnel… Because wherever we go, the parties tell us to deploy central police forces. They say they don’t have faith in the state police,” he said.

The CEC said that tentatively, the Election Commission would need around 30 lakh EVMs (electronic voting machines) and VVPATs (voter verifiable paper audit trail) if polls to the Lok Sabha and all the state Assemblies were held together.

“I can’t tell the exact number (of machines needed). But tentatively we will need 30 lakh machines. Right now, we are managing with around 20 lakh machines. We use 10 lakh machines for Lok Sabha and two-three lakh for the states going to the polls along with parliamentary polls. The remaining machines are kept in reserve. But if you are holding it all at the same time, it means 20 lakh machines, plus the reserve ones,” Rawat said.

The cost of EVMs has been tentatively fixed at about Rs 17,000 per unit. So procuring 10 lakh more machines would cost the exchequer a whopping Rs 1,700 crore. An EVM has a stipulated life of 15 years, after which it has to be discarded.

“So in the case of simultaneous polls, these machines would be used only thrice in their lifetime, assuming that elections are held just once every five years.”

Rawat said that apart from this initial cost, there would be savings in the form of deployment of central armed police forces, transportation and campaign cost.

“But if you consider other things, CAPF will be utilised only once, so will be the polling personnel… So one has to work out all these expenses; how much you are saving there,” the CEC said.

On the regional parties’ apprehensions of being wiped out if polls in their states were held with that of the Lok Sabha, Rawat said it was a baseless fear.

“I call this the fear of the unknown. We have had simultaneous elections in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967. There were regional parties, they were also gaining seats. Another thing is that when five states went to the polls in 2014 along with Lok Sabha, BJD won in Odisha, TRS in Telangana and TDP in Andhra. So I just call it the fear of the unknown,” Rawat said.

“Generally, we resist change. We are always happy with the status quo,” he added.

(IANS)

A court here on Tuesday issued summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 11 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs as accused in an alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal accepted the charge sheet and asked all 13 to appear before the court on October 25.

The Delhi Police in August chargesheeted Kejriwal, Sisodia, Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar and Dinesh Mohania.

The accused have been chargesheeted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for voluntarily causing hurt and obstructing a public servant to deter him/her from doing duty, wrongful confinement and assault.

They have also been accused of insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy, punishment of abetment and unlawful assembly among others.

The AAP has called the case a “midnight conspiracy to defame the Delhi Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and 11 MLAs in a false and laughable case”.

The Delhi Chief Secretary in February had alleged that he was beaten up by AAP MLAs in the presence of Kejriwal at the Chief Minister’s residence on the night of February 19 where he had been called for a late-night meeting.

The case was filed the next morning and Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal were arrested and sent to judicial custody. Later, they were released on bail.

(IANS)

The Supreme Court on Friday restored the powers of the police to act on complaints of dowry harassment under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud struck down the family welfare committee that was set-up by an earlier direction of the top court to scrutinise the complaints of dowry harassment before the police could act on them.

Striking down its July 27, 2017 order, the apex court said: “We think it appropriate to direct the investigating officer to be careful in dealing with the complaints of dowry harassment.”

The court also directed the Director General of Police in the states to ensure that investigating officers probing offences under Section 498A should be imparted rigorous training with regard to the principles stated by the top court relating to the arrest made in such cases.

(IANS)

The Supreme Court on Friday awarded Rs 50 lakh compensation to former ISRO scientist S. Nambi Narayanan who was falsely implicated in an espionage case and had to suffer jail term and ignominy.

Awarding the compensation, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud also directed the setting up of a Committee to inquire into the role of erring officials who Nambi Narayanan said had implicated him in the alleged Indian Space Research Organisation spy case.

The Committee would be headed by a retired judge and have a representative each from the Centre and the Kerala government.

The court verdict has come on a plea by Nambi Narayanan seeking probe into his framing in the false case by the Kerala Police and other agencies.

Nambi Narayanan had moved the top court challenging a Kerala High Court judgment that had upheld the state government’s decision not to take action against the officials who had falsely implicated the scientist in the case in the mid-90s.

(IANS)

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered all states to amend their rules under the Motor Vehicles Act whereby uninsured motor vehicles involved in accidents, both fatal and non-fatal, will be auctioned and the proceeds deposited with the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) to pay compensation to victims.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud directed the states to amend their rules within 12 weeks.

At present, this rule is there only in Delhi.

The court was hearing a plea by an accident victim’s wife who contended that the Motor Vehicles Act made third-party insurance mandatory for vehicles and it was an offence to drive an uninsured vehicle.

Advocate Radhika Gautam, appearing for petitioner Usha Devi, said that the mandate behind the law was that the family of those killed or injured in accidents should not be made to litigate for years to get compensation from the owner/driver of the involved vehicle.

The Act intended that the kin of those killed or injured could approach MACT for speedy adjudication of claims and direction to insurance companies to pay up, the plea said.

Devi’s husband was killed in a road accident in January 2015 while her son was injured. She moved the MACT to seek compensation, but the tribunal found that the rogue vehicle was uninsured.

Devi then moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court and sought to make the State a party to her claims proceedings, but it rejected her plea. She approached the apex court against the High Court order.

(IANS)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Chief Secretaries of all the states, including Registrars General (RGs) of the High Courts, to furnish details of the criminal cases pending against the MPs and MLAs.

It also asked whether the cases have been transferred to the Special Courts set up in pursuance to its December 2017 order to try them.

A bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Navin Sinha and Justice K.M. Joseph also sought information whether Special Courts set-up in pursuance of its order were functional.

It wanted to know whether in view of the volume of cases pending, there was need of additional special courts to try lawmakers facing criminal cases.

The court made it clear that if required it would monitor the compliance of its orders passed from time to time.

The court order binding the Chief Secretaries and RGs came as it was apparently not satisfied with the information furnished by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in its affidavit filed on September 11.

The affidavit said that a total of 1,233 criminal cases were transferred to the Special Courts. Of these, 136 have been disposed of and remaining 1,097 were pending.

Appearing for petitioner Ashwini Upadhyaya, counsel Sajan Povvaya urged the court to see if Special Courts were actually working as he cited the example of Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) courts that have been set-up by the states but were not functional as there were no presiding judges.

(IANS)

Michelle Bachelet, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on Friday applauded the Indian Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalise homosexuality by repealing a 2013 verdict which had criminalised gay sex.

“This is a great day for India and for all those who believe in the universality of human rights,” Efe news quoted Bachelet as saying in a statement.

“With this landmark decision, the Indian Supreme Court has taken a big step forward for freedom and equality. I hope that other courts elsewhere in the world will look to India’s example and be encouraged to move in the same direction.

“Throughout the world such laws have led to a litany of abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people including arbitrary arrests, violence, bullying in schools, denial of access to health and harassment at work.

“Such discriminatory laws have no place in the 21st century, and I’m delighted the Indian Supreme Court has recognised that,” she added.

In a historic verdict, a five-judge Constitution Bench on Thursday declared Section 377 of IPC, the penal provision which criminalised gay sex, as “manifestly arbitrary”.

The court said it was no longer an offence for LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer/questioning) community to engage in consensual sex between two adults in private.

The Delhi High Court in July 2009 legalised homosexual acts between consenting adults.

But in December 2013, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court ruling saying that it was for the legislature to look into the desirability of deleting Section 377.

(IANS)

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Tamil Nadu Governor to consider the mercy petition of A.G. Perarivalan, who is serving a life term in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Perarivalan’s counsel told a bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Naveen Sinha and Justice K.M. Joseph that a decision was yet to be taken on his mercy petition pending for over two years.

He submitted the plea to the Governor on December 30, 2015, saying he had undergone more than 24 years of solitary/single confinement.

Perarivalan, among the seven convicts in the case, had sought remission/pardon from the Governor under Article 161 of the Constitution.

After the court asked the Centre to take a call on Tamil Nadu’s proposal to release the convicts, the central government said on August 10 in its report submitted in the court that it did not agree, holding that setting them free will set a “dangerous precedent”.

“Releasing the killers of a former Prime Minister will set a very dangerous precedent. The case has been decided by various forums of judiciary and executive and the prisoners do not deserve to be set free,” the Centre contended.

Releasing them will lead to “international ramifications” by other such criminals in future, it added.

The now-vanquished Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka was blamed for the Congress leader’s assassination by a suicide bomber at an election rally near Chennai on May 21, 1991.

(IANS)

Hours after the CBI conducted raids at his home and properties across the state, Tamil Nadu Health Minister Vijayabaskar has hit out at ‘political enemies’ for orchestrating a scandal.

In a statement to the media, the Minister said, “Amma’s government banned gutkha and paan masala on May 23, 2013. Since then the government has been trying to implement the ban in the most stringent ways. I have not met Madhav Rao, related to gutkha and paan masala directly or indirectly. People are trying to defame me and trying to get me out of politics due to enmity by filing false cases against me.”

Denying the accusations levelled against him, the Minister said, “Even now I am telling, I am not guilty and hence I am not scared. I humbly assure you all that I will face this accusation legally and politically and will overcome it.”

Stating that he was cooperating with the authorities, he added, “In the above case based on a complaint filed by DMK, the Madras HC transferred it to CBI. As a law abiding citizen, I am ready to cooperate to lead the case to its natural conclusion.”

“As a testimony to the Tamil saying ‘only the fruit bearing trees get hit by stones’, it is very common for a person like me, who has worked for the betterment of our state by making the state Health Dept one of the best in the country, to be accused of such things by political enemies. Just because one is accused, he does not become a criminal. Whenever similar setbacks happened in my political life, I have always overcome those and continued to thrive in politics and serve the people,” he said.

On Wednesday, the CBI also conducted raids at the properties of TN Director General of Police TK Rajendran, ex-DGP S George, and former Milk and Dairy Development Minister BV Ramanaa, among others.

Background

In April last year, Vijayabaskar’s residence in Chennai and several other properties belonging to him and his relatives across Tamil Nadu were raided by the Income Tax Department. With the raids coming ahead of the RK Nagar bye-elections, which were originally scheduled for April last year, the ruling AIADMK had called it political vendetta.

In July 8, 2017, raids were conducted at the godown, offices and residences of a pan masala and gutkha manufacturer in Tamil Nadu, who was facing charges of evading tax to the tune of Rs 250 crore. The manufacture, storage and sale of the carcinogenic chewable forms of tobacco, including gutkha and pan masala had been banned by the state government in 2013.

However, IT officials later told TNM that the raids on Vijayabaskar were in connection with the gutkha scam and his alleged links with mining baron Sekhar Reddy.

A source in the IT Department had told TNM that the Health Minister’s name figures in a diary seized by sleuths during raids on a gutkha manufacturer.

“Since he was the Health Minister, they had to keep him in good books. While the exact amount he received on a yearly basis is not certain, it can be said with confidence that he was being paid for his cooperation for this unlawful activity,” the IT official had told TNM last year.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the AAP government to respond to a plea for action against illegal pathology labs and diagnostic centres here.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao listed the matter for September 17.

Bijon Kumar Misra, who filed the public interest litigation, pleaded for appropriate steps by the government to ensure that the labs and diagnostic centres maintained quality as the patients’ line of treatment depended solely on their reports.

The petitioner sought the urgent implementation of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act of 2010 in the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

The petitioner claimed that only 10 per cent of the labs and diagnostic centres operating in Delhi were accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, an autonomous body of the Quality Council of India.

(IANS)