Chandigarh: In a shocking turn of events in the Junaid Khan lynching case, the judge of the trial court hearing the case has sought action against Additional Advocate General Naveen Kaushik for allegedly helping persons charged with killing the 15-year-old.

In an interim order on October 25, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Faridabad, Y S Rathore accused Kaushik of assisting the defense counsel representing Naresh Kumar, one among those accused in the violence which eventually resulted in the death of 16-year-old Junaid Khan last June.

“This act of Mr Naveen Kaushik, Additional Advocate General Haryana amounts to professional misconduct and is against legal ethics and highly unbecoming of an Advocate, particularly because he is a Law Officer in the office of Advocate General, Haryana,” Judge Rathore said on October 25.

The judge noted that the case is a sensitive one with communal overtones. As such, if the AAG appears along with the defense counsel, “it will send a wrong signal and will also create a feeling of insecurity amongst the victim party and will adversely affect the aim of the court to conduct free and fair trial.”

The judge has directed that the issue be brought to the notice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court so that appropriate action may be taken in the matter.

According to an Indian Express report, Advocate General of Haryana Baldev Raj Mahajan has said that action would be taken if it is found that Kaushik had made an appearance as alleged.

Junaid, his brother and two cousins were attacked on a Mathura-bound train in June by a mob, which also hurled communal slurs against them. The 15-year-old later died of stabbing injuries. The trial court had recently framed charges against Naresh Kumar among others.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said that compulsory Aadhaar is a threat to the country’s security and expressed hope that the Supreme Court will strike it down when its larger Constitution bench takes up the matter.

The firebrand BJP leader took to Twitter and tweeted that he will soon write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi detailing how compulsory Aadhaar poses a big threat to the country’s security.

Swamy said this a day after the Supreme Court referred a batch of petitions challenging the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of various services and social welfare schemes to a five-judge Constitution bench.

The order was passed by the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud while responding to a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Aadhaar law on charges of being intrusive and violating the right to privacy.

The top court also pulled up the West Bengal government for directly approaching it against the central government’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits under social welfare schemes.

The bench said that hearing on the petitions challenging the government’s move would take place in the last week of November.

The court said this after Attorney General KKVenugopal told the bench that the government had filed a detailed affidavit refuting all the allegations on expanding the area under Aadhaar linkage.

Asking the court not to issue any further interim orders, Venugopal said the government was ready to argue and the court, if deemed fit, could set up a Constitution bench to decide on the various Aadhaar petitions.

He said the government had already issued more than 100 orders and notifications to address the glitches in the implementation of Aadhaar.

The government counsel also told the court that fake reports were being spread about Aadhaar linking, including how the unique ID was being made compulsory for CBSE students to appear in Class 10 and 12 exams.

As court said that the challenge to Aadhaar law would be heard by the five-judge Constitution bench, the issue of extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other schemes for those who don’t have the unique identification number is now on the backburner.

The issue is not there, as the court is hearing the matter in the last week of November, the Attorney General said.

The existing deadline is up to December 31.

In the last hearing of the matter on October 25, the Centre had indicated that the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other schemes for those who don’t have the unique identification number and are willing to go for it may be extended till March 31.

The validity of Aadhaar law that has been challenged by a number of people, including former Karnataka High Court Judge KS Puttaswamy, first Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha and researcher Kalyani Sen Menon.

Aadhaar is being challenged in the court amid apprehensions that it violated right to privacy – which a nine-judge bench had already declared as a fundamental right – with the use of biometric details like fingerprints and iris scans.

(Agencies)

Ahmedabad: The city police has detained a passenger of a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight which was forced to make an emergency landing at the Ahmedabad airport today after a note stating that there were hijackers and a bomb on board was found in the washroom, a police officer said.

The passenger, identified as Birju Salla, a jeweller hailing from Rajula town in Gujarat’s Amreli district, was taken into custody based on suspicion after the plane landed here, he said.

Salla, who now lives in Mumbai, had in the past too done such a mischief with the airline out of some grudge, the police official said.

Earlier, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said the person responsible for the security threat on the Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight had been identified and should be immediately put on the no-fly list.

“Salla was detained by police after preliminary investigation. He was on board the flight which made an emergency landing this morning. It was revealed that Salla had put the threat letter in the plane’s washroom. We will take necessary action against him,” the official said.

“This is the second time when Salla did such a mischief with Jet Airways. A few months ago, he tried to harass the airline using some other trick. It seems that Salla has some grudge against the airline,” he said.

He was being questioned by senior police officials at an undisclosed location.

Flight 9W 339, which had taken off from Mumbai at 2.55 am with 115 passengers and seven crew members, landed without incident at Ahmedabad around 3.45 am. The Boeing 737-900 plane was parked at a remote bay and all 122 safely deplaned, a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

The printed note, in Urdu and English, said the flight had 12 hijackers on board and a bomb in the cargo area and should be flown straight to PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir).

Giving details of what had happened, Ahmedabad Airport Director Manoj Gangal said the flight was allowed to make an emergency landing on the pilot’s request.

The bomb disposal squad and the local police conducted a thorough search but found no explosive substance, said Sardarnagar police station inspector H B Zala.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: A Delhi court today allowed the CBI’s plea seeking advancing of hearing on its application on polygraph test on nine students in connection with JNU student Najeeb Ahmed who has been missing for over a year now.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal posted the matter for November 10 and sought the response of nine students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on the central probe agency’s application.

Najeeb, a first-year MSc Biotechnology student, has been missing from the Mahi Mandavi hostel in JNU since October 16, 2016.

The CBI, in its plea, had sought early hearing on its application seeking consent of nine students for a lie detection test regarding the disappearance of Najeeb in October last year.

The CBI had on October 16 approached the court seeking early hearing of its plea seeking consent of the suspect students for a polygraph test.

The application was moved by the agency on the direction of the Delhi High Court for an early hearing of the plea, which has been adjourned to January 24, 2018.

27-year-old Najeeb went missing after a scuffle at his JNU hostel allegedly with ABVP activists. The RSS students wing has denied any involvement in his disappearance.

A Delhi court had on May 3 quashed a police order summoning nine JNU students for recording their consent or denial for lie-detector test in the case after it noted a defect in the notice sent by the investigating officer to the students.

On May 16, the high court handed over probe of the case to the CBI.

The nine students, who are suspects in the case, had approached a magisterial court challenging the notice sent to them by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police seeking their presence before the magistrate for recording of their statement.

The notice was sent after the Delhi High Court had asked the police to explore other avenues of probe as all other leads had not yielded any result.

(Agencies)

Meerut: A 100-year-old woman died on Monday after being unwell and allegedly being raped by a drunk youth in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh.

Police said that the victim, who was unwell, lived in Jaani village with her brother. The police told that the youth was drunk when he allegedly raped the 100-year-old woman.

The youth has been identified as Ankit Punia. He was trying to escape when her cries were heard by her brother and neighbours who overpowered Punia and handed him over to police.

Police officials said since the woman had died, relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) would be added in the case against the youth. Punia claimed he was innocent and had not committed any crime.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: A constitution bench would be set up to hear a clutch of petitions challenging the Centre’s decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing various services and government welfare schemes, the Supreme Court today said.

A bench, comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, said the larger bench would commence hearing on these petitions in the last week of November this year.

Earlier today, the apex court questioned the West Bengal government for filing a plea challenging the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of various social welfare schemes while asking how a state can challenge the mandate of Parliament.

It also asked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to file the plea as an individual.

Recently, a nine-judge Constitution bench had held that the Right ot Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had raised the issue that the scheme was violative of privacy rights.

Senior advocates Gopal Subramanium and Shyam Divan, appearing for those opposing the Aadhaar scheme, had sought urgent hearing on the petitions.

The Centre had on October 25 told the apex court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to avail the benefits of the government schemes has been extended till March 31 next year for those who do not have the 12-digit biometric identification number and were willing to have it.

The petitioners had termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as illegal and unconstitutional and strongly objected to the CBSE’s move to make it mandatory for students to appear for exams.

Divan, appearing for some of the petitioners, had earlier contended that final hearing in the main Aadhaar matter, which is pending before the apex court, was necessary as the government “cannot compel” citizens to link their Aadhaar with either bank accounts or mobile numbers.

(PTI)