Archives for 2024

Bhubaneswar: The landfall process of the severe cyclonic storm Dana was complete on Friday morning and the system took at least eight and half hours to enter the landmass, IMD said.

The IMD in its hourly bulletin said: “The landfall process has been completed.”

The landfall of ‘Dana’ started at about 12.05 pm on Thursday night and it took around eight and half hours to end the process. The landfall process was completed at around 8.30 am on Friday, an IMD scientist said.

The severe cyclone storm which hit the landmass at a wind speed of 110 kmph has weakened and has become a cyclonic storm. The cyclone lay centered at about 50 km north-north west of Dhamra and 30 km of north east of Bhadrak town.

“The maximum sustained wind speed around the centre of the cyclone is about 80 kmph to 90 kmph gusting to 100 kmph,” the IMD said.

The cyclone is likely to move northwestwards across north Odisha and weaken gradually into a deep depression during next six hours, the IMD said, adding that the system is under continuous surveillance of the Doppler weather radar at Paradip.

Budaun (UP): A five-year-old girl succumbed to fever at a government medical college here, with her family alleging that the doctors and the staff were playing cricket.

A three-member committee has been formed to investigate the matter.

According to Professor Arun Kumar, the principal of the government medical college, the deceased girl, Sofia, was brought to the hospital by her father, Nazim, on Wednesday afternoon.

“Nazim has alleged that there was no paediatrician available and that the staff directed them to several rooms where no doctors or staff were present,” said the principal.

Nazim further claims that after leaving the medical college, he saw doctors and staff playing a cricket match. Despite pleading for help, no medical attention was provided to his daughter, who passed away shortly after.

Dr. Kumar acknowledged the tragic incident and assured that a committee of three doctors had been formed to investigate the allegations. He stated that further action would be taken based on the committee’s findings.

Regarding the allegations of doctors playing cricket instead of treating patients, Dr Kumar clarified that the doctors involved in the outpatient department were not part of the cricket match. He suggested that those on leave might have been participating in the game.

The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had accepted Aadhaar card for determining the age of a road accident victim to grant compensation.

A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan, therefore, said the age of the deceased had to be determined from the date of birth mentioned in the school leaving certificate under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

“We find that the Unique Identification Authority of India, by way of its circular number 8 of 2023, has stated, in reference to an office memorandum issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated December 20, 2018, that an Aadhaar Card, while can be used to establish identity, is not per se proof of date of birth,” noted the bench.

When it came to determining the age, the top court accepted the contention of the claimant-appellants before it and upheld the judgment of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) which calculated the deceased’s age on the basis of his school leaving certificate.

The top court was hearing an appeal filed by kin of a man who died in a road accident in 2015.

MACT, Rohtak awarded a compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh which was reduced to Rs 9.22 lakh by the high court after noting the MACT had wrongly applied the age multiplier while determining the compensation.

The high court had relied on the deceased’s Aadhaar card to calculate his age as 47 years.

The family contended the high court erred in determining the deceased’s age on the basis of the Aadhaar card as his age, if calculated as per his school leave certificate, was 45 years at the time of death.

ustice Sanjiv Khanna(L), CJI D Y Chandrachud

New Delhi: Justice Sanjiv Khanna was on Thursday appointed the 51st Chief Justice of India.

He will take oath on November 11, a day after incumbent Justice D Y Chandrachud demits office on attaining the age of 65.

Justice Chandrachud took over as the CJI on November 8, 2022.

Justice Khanna will have a tenure of a little over six months as CJI and would demit office on May 13, 2025.

“In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, Hon’ble President, after consultation with Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Judge of the Supreme Court of India as Chief Justice of India with effect from 11th November, 2024,” Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal posted on X.

Justice Khanna was appointed an additional judge of the Delhi High Court in 2005 and was made a permanent judge in 2006. On January 18, 2019, he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court.

Born on May 14, 1960, he studied law at the Campus Law Centre of Delhi University.

Some of the notable judgments of Justice Khanna in the Supreme Court include upholding the use of electronic voting machines in elections, saying the devices were secure and eliminated booth capturing and bogus voting.

He was also part of the five-judge bench that declared the electoral bond scheme, meant for funding of political parties, as unconstitutional.

Justice Khanna was a part of the five-judge bench, which upheld the Centre’s 2019 decision abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution which granted a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Justice Khanna, who is the senior-most judge after the outgoing CJI, and the executive chairman of the National Legal Service Authority (NALSA), had granted interim bail to the then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, an accused in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam cases, for campaigning in Lok Sabha elections.

He is the nephew of former apex court judge H R Khanna, who was part of the landmark verdict propounding the basic structure doctrine in Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

The retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65 years, while high court judges demit office at the age of 62 years.

The Centre recently asked CJI Chandrachud to name his successor.

According to the memorandum of procedure (MoP) — a set of documents guiding appointment, elevation and transfer of high court and Supreme Court judges — the law minister writes to the CJI to name his or her successor.

Law Minister Meghwal had written to CJI Chandrachud asking him to name his successor.

The MoP says the senior-most judge of the apex court is considered fit to hold the office of the CJI and the views of the outgoing head of the judiciary have to be sought “at an appropriate time”.

The MoP, however, does not specify the time limit for the initiation of the process of recommending the name of the successor CJI.

Ghaziabad: An Urdu teacher visiting a housing society here for private tuition was allegedly forced out of the complex by a group of men who heckled him and reportedly asked him to chant “Jai Shri Ram”, police said on Thursday.

The key accused in the case, identified as Manoj Kumar who lives in the society located in the Crossings Republik township, has been arrested, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Wave City), Lipi Nagaich, said.

According to the police, Mohammad Alamgir, who regularly visits the society to teach a student at a flat on the 16th floor, was intercepted by Kumar and other residents on Tuesday.

They allegedly raised “Jai Shri Ram” slogans and asked Alamgir to do the same. When he refused, Kumar became aggressive and blocked his entry into the elevator, the ACP said.

The situation escalated as more residents joined the confrontation, repeatedly pressuring Alamgir to chant “Jai Shri Ram”.

A security guard and some other residents intervened to pacify the situation but the group allegedly continued to intimidate Alamgir and eventually forced him to leave the society, the officer said.

Alamgir later lodged a police complaint detailing his ordeal without explicitly mentioning that he was forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram”, which he told the police verbally, Nagaich said, adding that Kumar has been booked under sections 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Koppal: Koppal District and Sessions Court has pronounced its verdict on 101 accused whom it had found guilty in the case of atrocity against Dalits at Marakumbi village in 2014, on Thursday. The convicts had also burnt the huts of Dalits and had physically assaulted their victims.

The court has sentenced 98 out of the 101 convicts to life term imprisonment and has levied a fine Rs 5000 on each of them. As three of the convicts belonged to the SC/ST category, the atrocity act hasn’t been applied to them. These convicts have been sentenced to 5 years of jail and Rs 2000 fine.

Judge C Chandrashekhar of the Koppal District and Sessions Court had pronounced the guilty verdict on Monday, nine years after the incident. He had reserved the judgement on punishment to Thursday.

The case concerns with the practice of untouchability where Dalits were barred entry to barber shops and restaurants in Marakumbi village of Gangavathi in 2015. This had resulted in a clash between two communities. Police had visited the village to register a case regarding this and an investigation was in progress. Enraged by the complaint filed, upper caste people had attacked the Dalit colony at night and set huts on fire.

117 people of the village had been booked for the crime. Some of the accused died before the case came to a closure. 101 of the accused had been found guilty by the court. However, the police had arrested only 100 and one accused had escaped them. The police have finally succeeded in nabbing him.

 Taking hoax bomb-threat messages and calls seriously, the government has started identifying those behind the menace and asked social media platforms like Meta and X to share data on such messages, sources said.

The government has also asked top multinational technology conglomerates to cooperate with it in helping identifying those behind such hoax calls, saying this involves public good.

Top sources said the government has traced some people who were behind hoax bomb-threat calls targeting airlines and that action is being taken accordingly. The government sources did not provide any further details on where these hoax calls and messages came from and who were behind those.

“The government has told social media companies Meta and X to share data pertaining to such hoax calls and messages made on their platforms targeting several airlines and asked them to cooperate,” a senior official said.

“They will have to cooperate and provide data since this involves public good at large,” he said, when asked whether the social media companies are cooperating with the government or not on the issue.

Several hoax messages and calls targeting a number of airlines were received in the recent past.

An unidentified caller on Wednesday threatened to blow up the Dumna airport at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, which turned out to be a hoax, a police officer said.

On Tuesday alone, around 50 flights, including 13 each of IndiGo and Air India, received bomb threats. Akasa Air got the threats for more than 12 flights and 11 Vistara flights also received the threats, the sources said.

Around 30 flights of IndiGo, Air India and Vistara got bomb threats on Monday night, they added.

In nine days, more than 170 flights operated by Indian carriers received bomb threats, mostly through social media, that also forced the diversion of some international flights.