SECT CHIEF’S BODY CAN STAY IN FREEZER: HC
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday allowed Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (DJJS) to preserve the body of its head Ashutosh Maharaj at dera premises.
The clinically dead sect head is lying in a deep freezer since January 28, 2014, at the DJJS headquarters in Nurmahal, Jalandhar.
The high court division bench of justice Mahesh Grover set aside the single-judge bench order whereby state was asked to conduct last rites within 15 days, in December 2014.
The court while pronouncing the judgment said that it chooses to refrain from interfering in religious matters.
The court dismissed plea of one Dalip Kumar Jha who had demanded that he be handed over the body. The court observed that he can approach a civil court with his plea of DNA test.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to come up with a law or a procedure for the appointment of members of the poll panel or it would be forced to step in, setting up another possible showdown with the government.
The Centre opposed court’s intervention, saying it was for Parliament to frame a law.
The court’s tough talk came a day after the government named Achal Kumar Joti as the next chief election commissioner (CEC) succeeding Nasim Zaidi.
Calling for transparency in appointment of poll watchdogs, the court said, “If parliament doesn’t make a law to appoint CEC then the court must step into the breach.”
A bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and justice DY Chandrachud said Article 324 of the Constitution provided that the appointments of the CEC and the election commissioners be made as per the enabling law, but the law had not been enacted.
“The expectation is that Parliament will make the law. The law has not been made then can the court lay down the procedures,” the bench told solicitor general Ranjit Kumar, representing the Centre.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation by one Anoop Paranwal through lawyer Prashant Bhushan asking for a fair and transparent procedure for EC appointments.
Exactly one month ago, five farmers died in police firing in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur, bringing to national focus an agricultural distress sweeping India’s food-bowl states.
Top leaders rushed to Mandsaur and the government scrambled to put together a relief plan to guarantee better crop prices that had crashed following a bumper yield.
But on the ground, little has changed. More than 40 farmers have killed themselves in the state since June 6, wilting under the burden of mounting loans, poor return on investment and exploitative moneylenders.
“I was humiliated…I was insulted as if I was a criminal, not a farmer,” a young onion farmer, Rajendra Mewada, told HT.
A glut in supply has gutted prices and farmers are forced to either sell their produce at half the rate and incur losses, or see their crops get spoilt by the rain.
A maze of bureaucratic tangles has also made them angry. ››P7
HC ALSO DIRECTED THAT MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF THE BODY BE CONDUCTED FROM TIME TO TIME WHICH WOULD BE FACILITATED BY DJJS