Swaraj India on Monday welcomed the Supreme Court decision removing the blanket ban on peaceful protests in central Delhi including Jantar Mantar.

The party’s Delhi state President Anupam said that the blanket ban imposed since last 10 months had made it difficult for common citizens, groups and organizations to make themselves heard to the government.

“It is a must for any democracy to have spaces in the capital city for collective expression of citizen’s demands, suggestions, and grievances. Jantar Mantar has over the decades acted as a safety valve of our democracy where suffering citizens and organizations from all over the country have come and expressed themselves. Denial of this right was a blatantly undemocratic act,” he said.

“During the course of hearing in the court, our senior leader Prashant Bhushan, arguing the case, had pointed out that this blanket ban was undemocratic and violative of fundamental rights of citizens. The matter was being heard on a petition filed by Jan Sangathan, Majdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan. Court has asked the Delhi Police Commissioner to frame rules regarding to this effect within two months,” he said.

A bill to amend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, allowing an allottee of a real estate project to be treated as a financial creditor was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday, amid allegations from opposition parties that some changes were intended to “help just one industry”.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018 was introduced by interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal and seeks to replace an ordinance brought by the government earlier this year.

Taking part in the debate, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) member Bhartruhari Mahtab said he is opposed to the move to amend Section 33 of the Code to provide a reduced threshold from 75 per cent of voting share for obtaining the approval of the Committee of Creditors for making an application to the adjudicating authority to pass a liquidation order.

“That is the reason why I say that this is nothing but a fixed match. Bad loan resolution is becoming deep-rooted nexus between the bankers, auditors and promoters, which is undermining serious recovery,” he said.

He was supported by some other opposition members as well.

Citing the resolution process of a textile company, Mahtab said two companies had jointly submitted before the Committee of Creditors (CoC) of the textile firm to acquire the company last April but the CoC failed to gather enough votes to act on the resolution plan.

“And here the crux of the problem lies. The proposal got 70 per cent of the votes when 75 per cent were needed. The government stepped in and an ordinance amending the IBC lowered the minimum vote needed for passing a resolution plan to 66 per cent from 75 per cent,” he said.

Mahtab said the government “should stand up and do away with this type of crony capitalism”.

Rejecting the allegations, Goyal said these are “baseless” and the amendments will have prospective effect.

He said that when the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was introduced, the country’s banking sector was going through a serious crisis “because of indiscriminate and absolutely baseless lending” that happened during the period 2008 to 2014.

The Minister said the banking system gave money to promoters who had no business to get loans in the first place.

He said the cases being referred to “were also loans, which were given during that period and then subsequently restructured … because of which the banking system was in dire straits.”

Goyal said the laws to recover loans were weak and banks were unable to take back money from “big people”, so notices were sent to others.

“No property of factory of big people were seized… The entire responsibility is of Congress,” he said.

He said the amendments had been brought on the recommendations of a committee.

In yet another manifestation of India’s growing engagements with Africa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that India will soon open a High Commission in the East African nation of Rwanda.

Stating that India and Rwanda were looking forward to further elevate their ties, Modi, while addressing the media in Rwandan capital Kigali following delegation-level talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, said: “We will soon open a High Commission in Rwanda.”

India’s current High Commissioner to Rwanda has a residence in Uganda.

New Delhi elevated its ties with Rwanda to that of a Strategic Partnership as it sees that country as an important gateway to eastern Africa.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted that following a one-on-one meeting, Modi and Kagame held delegation level-talks “to strengthen partnership in trade and investment, capacity building, development partnership and people-to-people ties”.

Modi reached Kigali on Monday evening in the first leg of his three-nation tour of Africa that will also take him to Uganda and South Africa.

This is the first ever Prime Ministerial visit from India to Rwanda.

In his address, Modi appreciated the steps for peace that have been adopted in Rwanda following the mass genocide in that country in 1994.

Around 500,000 to one million people were killed in the mass genocide against the Tutsi people by the majority Hutu government of tha time.

“For us, it is a matter pride that India is a trusted development partner of Rwanda,” Modi said.

“We have been helping Rwanda in capacity building, infrastructure development and ICT,” he said.

Following the bilateral talks, the two sides several agreements, including in the areas of defence, agriculture and dairy production.

On his part, Kagame, in his address to the media, said that both sides discussed a range of bilateral, regional and global issues.

He also thanked India for its development aid cooperation with Rwanda.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to file a detailed affidavit giving “all particulars” of the steps being taken for setting up a search committee for suggesting probable names for the appointment of Lokpal.

Describing the affidavit filed by the Centre which was read out to the court as “insufficient”, a bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice R. Bhanumathi and Justice Navin Sinha directed the Department of Personnel and Training to file a fresh affidavit with full particulars in four weeks time.

At the outset of the hearing, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the court the meeting of the selection committee held decided to set-up the search committee and in the next meeting, they would suggest names for the search committee.

Venugopal said that the process would take time as people to be included in the search committee have to be expert in law, finances, fighting corruption and other areas.

He also said that after finalizing the names for the search committee they will be vetted by the Intelligence Bureau and it is a time-consuming process.

He told the court that 50 percent members of the search committee will have to be from the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes.

Accusing the Centre for dragging its feet in not carrying out the legislative mandate to appoint anti-corruption watchdog Lokpal, counsel Prashant Bhushan appearing for NGO Common Cause, told the court that in last four and half years the selection committee has only senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi in the category of eminent jurist.

He said only option available to the court is either initiate contempt proceedings against the people who are engaged in delaying the entire exercise or take recourse to Article 142 of the Constitution and in the exercise of its powers appoint a search committee and then appoint a Lokpal from the names suggested by the search committee.

The Election Commission has dismissed the allegations made by Congress about large-scale entries of “invalid and false” voters in the electoral roll of Madhya Pradesh as “unsubstantiated”.

In a communication to the party to Monday, the EC said: “In view of the reports of the extensive door-to-door field verifications and facts.. your allegations of large-scale duplicate, repeat, invalid, and false electors in the electoral roll are not substantiated.”

The Congress had alleged large-scale irregularities in the state electoral roll in a complaint on June 3.

“The Commission immediately sent teams of officials to four assembly constituencies namely, Narela, Bhojpur, Hoshangabad and Seoni-Malwa ACs to enquire into the allegations made in your complaint,” said the EC in its letter.

“With regard to the allegation of abnormal increase of electors against population, there is an increase in electors from 3,68,48,021 in 2008 to 4,60,29,289 in 2013 and from 4,60,29,289 in 2013 to 4,97,97,657 as on July 2, 2018 i.e. an increase of 37,68,368 (8.1 per cent).

“This increase has been progressive on annual basis and is reasonable in view of the awareness among the electorates as well as various SVEEP measures adopted by the commission. This resulted in enrolment of a large number of first-time electors as well as left out electors,” it added.

The EC stated that the officials physically verified 26,76,231 electors in the 91 assembly constituencies in the state.

It said 22,918,10 voters were found to be present, while 3,307,11 voters were either deleted already or not found enrolled in the respective constituencies.

In 31,059 cases, the electors were found absent and 12,987 electors were found dead, EC stated.

“Only names of 9,644 electors were found in the repeated entry category against which appropriate action has already been initiated.”

The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday inficts costs of ₹5 lakh on H.B. Diwakar, an individual from the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) in Tiptur town of Tumakuru area for filling a PIL petition of questioning development of the APMC’s new managerial square, by stifling the fact that he was on ofe the members present at a meeting when a resolution was passed endorsing the construction works in April 2016.

Likewise, the court in future won’t engage any petition, if documented as PIL by Mr. Diwakar in the court. In any case, this restriction won’t influence his right to document petitions of personal nature. A Division Bench containing Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice R. Devdas additionally imposed of ₹1 lakh each on the rest of the 10 applicants, who are either traders or farmers related with the Tipatur APMC, for filling the petition by covering facts.

The reality aboutthe support of Mr. Diwakar in the meeting came to the notice of the court when counsel for the APMC alluded his name in the copy of the resolution.

The Reserve Bank today said it will soon issue new Rs 100 notes in lavender colour having motif of Rani ki vav a stepwell located on the banks of Saraswati river in Gujarat’s Patan.

“All Rs 100 banknotes issued earlier will also continue to be legal tender,” the central bank said while announcing the issue of the new Rs 100 notes. The base colour of the note is Lavender.

The note has other designs, geometric patterns aligning with the overall colour scheme, both at the obverse and reverse.

Dimension of the banknote will be 66 mm x 142 mm, making it smaller than the current Rs 100 notes. The size of the current Rs 100 notes is 157 mm x 73 mm

“As is normal, when a new design of banknote is introduced, printing and supply of these notes for distribution to public through the banking channel will gradually increase,” said the RBI, which issues currency in the country.

The new Rs 100 note follows, new notes in denomination of Rs 10, Rs 50 and Rs 500. Besides, the central bank introduced a Rs 200 note in addition to currency note in denomination of Rs 2,000 after the demonetisation on November 8, 2016.

The Supreme Court on Friday reiterated that the Chief Justice alone was the “master of roster” and have powers to allocate cases to different benches.

It also cautioned against any “tinkering” as it could hurt the independence of the judiciary.

“Although the Constitution is silent on the role of the Chief Justice as ‘master of roster’ but it is based on healthy practice to maintain the discipline and decorum of the court,” said Justice A.K.Sikri.

Justice Ashok Bhushan in a concurring but separate judgement said that it is difficult to accept the interpretation that the CJI means entire collegium. Such an interpretation would make day to day functioning difficult.”

Both Justice Sikri and Justice Bhushan rejected the plea that the Supreme Court should adopt some of the practices prevailing in the top courts of other countries.

They said that there could not be a “mechanical imitation” or import of practices prevailing in the courts overseas but admitted that there was scope for improvement which they said was always happening.

The court said this while disposing of a petition by senior counsel Shanti Bhushan contending that the Chief Justice should exercise his power to allocate the cases in consultation with the four other judges in the collegium.

He had contended that the collective opinion of the collegium was much safer than the opinion of the Chief Justice alone.

 
The first session of Karnataka’s newly-elected 15th assembly began here on Monday with Governor Vajubhai Vala addressing the joint session of the legislature in Hindi.

During the 10-day-long session, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who also holds the Finance portfolio, will present a full-fledged budget of the new coalition government for fiscal 2018-19 on July 5.

On the Governor’s choice of language, an official told IANS that as he “is comfortable reading his speech in Hindi, he has been addressing in the assembly in the language since he assumed office in September 2014”.

The official language of the southern state is Kannada.

The legislators, however, were given Kannada and English versions of Vala’s address as he began to read in Hindi.

However, for some legislators from central and northern regions who are acquainted with Hindi, a copy of Vala’s address was also made available to them in the same language, while many of the remaining lawmakers preferred to go through the Kannada version, said the official.

Though the new assembly met twice during May for the floor test of the 3-day BJP government first on May 19 and the coalition government of the JD-S and Congress on May 25, they were adjourned on the same respective day.

The Kerala Police chief on Friday ordered a Crime Branch probe into the sexual exploitation of a woman by five priests of the Kottayam-headquartered Malankara Orthodox Church.

Director General of Police Loknath Behra directed the Crime Branch wing to probe into the allegations made by the victim’s husband, who belongs to the same church.

An online portal had first reported the story last week, following which tremendous pressure from several quarters, especially the social media, mounted on the Church, which was forced to announce an internal probe.

The husband has said one of the priest who first exploited his wife was blackmailing her. When she sought help from another priest, he too, threatened her and shared her contact with another fellow priest and in the end she came under the duress from at least five priests.

Although the church hierarchy preferred the matter be dealt with surreptitiously, trouble started when the National Commission for Women (NCW) took suo motu cognisance and wrote to Behra directing him to investigate the matter.

Later, former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan also wrote to Behra saying it was unfair that the Church was conducting the probe, as it would not be a “fair and free” investigation.

Instead the police should probe such a case, Achuthanandan said.

The Additional Director General of Police heading the Crime Branch was asked to constitute a special team to carry out the probe.

The victim, however, has not yet registered a complaint with any police station. Besides the husband has also handed over all documents of exploitation to the church authorities.

The Crime Branch will first conduct a preliminary probe on the veracity of the various news reports and will then probe whether the allegations are true, an informed source said.