JUSTICE KARNAN SUMMONS CJI, 6 SC JUDGES TO HIS HOUSE

In an order India never witnessed before, Justice C S Karnan of the Calcutta high court on Thursday asked Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and six other judges of the apex court to appear before him at his New Town residence by April 24 for violating his rights as a Dalit and humiliating him in public.

Karnan called the media to his residence on Thursday afternoon and passed the suo motu order “in the interest of the nation to protect the general public…..” Karnan’s order called the seven SC judges “national offenders” and said they had shown caste prejudice against him and insulted him on March 31 by asking about his mental health.

“Hence all the seven judges are offenders under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act,” said the nine-page signed order.

“The Hon’ble judges will appear before me at my Rosedale Residential Court and give me their views on the quantum of punishment for the violation…..,” said the order.

Thursday’s incident added to the drama that unfolded ever since Karnan hit the headlines for accusing several judges of the Madras high court, where he earlier served, and a SC judge of corruption, nepotism and caste discrimination. The Supreme Court barred him from joining duty. Karnan, however, repeatedly rejected SC’S summons in the contempt case and alleged in public that he was being targeted because he was a Dalit.

On March 31, Karnan appeared before the SC and dared the seven-member bench to send him to jail, saying he would not personally appear on the next date. His comment came after the court said it would not allow him to join duty. On April 10, however, Karnan went to the Calcutta HC but left for home after spending a few hours. He could not hear any case. In Thursday’s order, Karnan directed the director, Airports Authority, New Delhi, not to permit any of the seven Supreme Court judges to travel abroad and ordered the judges to “surrender” their passports to the director general of Delhi

Sayyed also said the agency should have moved the magistrate’s court for appropriate action against Naik because he failed to answer their summons.

However, counsel for ED Hiten Venegaokar said, “Naik has failed to respond to the agency. He has till date not revealed his location and also not given his permanent address.”

The court has hence allowed the plea of the agency observing that there exists an extradition treaty between the UAE and India and he can be brought back. “Naik failed to appear before the IO and has given evasive replies. For thorough investigation in such offences, the presence of the accused is necessary,” said special PMLA judge PR Bhavake.

But India’s track record in getting an accused back for trial has not been satisfactory considering the poor standards of investigations by agencies, and the difference in law in other countries.

Retired judge BN Srikrishna was of the opinion that extradition primarily depends on the diplomatic relationship between the countries, and the conditions agreed upon.

But also pointed out that the prosecuting agency has to necessarily satisfy competent authorities with credible reasons of him or her being extradited which has to be supported by evidence against him. “Evidence which we feel are tangible enough is not necessarily accepted in other countries,” justice Srikrishna said, and added, “Extradition is a political process and it has to pass through several stages. Many of the countries turn down India’s request owing to provisions of capital punishment. In many of the cases, the requests are turned down for political and economic offences.”

Senior counsel with the Bombay high court, Ashok Mundargi, echoed these sentiments.

“Investigation done by the Indian agencies is not up to the mark to match the demands from European countries.

There have been several instances were India lost in extradition proceedings, most popular being the case of Iqbal Memon alias Iqbal Mirchi, a close aide Dawood Ibrahim and the case of music composer Nadeem Akhtar Saifi in the Gulshan Kumar murder case.

In one of the cases, India had to pay the compensation to the accused for legal procedures ”

The children consume milk worth Rs 100, more than 30 rotis, and more than a kilo of vegetables every day. They also need biscuits, wafers and other snacks every half an hour to prevent them from becoming cranky.

“Earlier they would cry and howl if they didn’t get food. But two years ago they were admitted to Ahmedabad civil hospital for 20 days. The food and the injections they received caused them to despise their hospital stay. Now they don’t cry for food, fearing they will be sent back to the hospital, but they are still hungry all the time,” Ramesh added.

Dr Akshay Mandviya from Mandviya Children’s Hospital was the first to treat the siblings. She suspects that they have a genetic disorder known as Prader-willi Syndrome (PWS), a complex condition affects many parts of the body and causes Type-2 diabetes and obesity.

“We really don’t have the resources to diagnose the children but they used to come to us with other ailments such as pneumonia or fever. They could be treated if there was something wrong with their hormone levels but if it’s a genetic problem, nothing much can be done,” said Dr Mandviya. He added that after local media highlighted the plight of the family, Ahmedabad Civil Hospital offered to treat them.

However, Dr K M Maheria, head of paediatrics at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, said even they couldn’t diagnose the problem. “We don’t have an endocrinologist but we did put the children on a diet. We saw a slight weight reduction but we couldn’t provide any specific treatment,” said Dr Maheria. He added that he has spoken to Dr Lakdawala about the children’s condition.

Ramesh said that taking the children to a hospital when there was nothing medically wrong with them didn’t make sense. “I thought it was better to focus on working and earning enough to feed them. They need a diet of fruit juices and salads but we can’t afford it,” he said. Two years ago, he had said he would sell a kidney to feed his children.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya had, on November 12, 2016, written to Satyabrata Kumar, joint director of ED, seeking an investigation into companies run by

Rane, a former Shiv Sena chief minister, who crossed over to the Congress in 2005 following a tiff with the Sena leadership, is not happy in the Congress now. For the past few weeks, he and his son Nilesh have been publicly criticising the state Congress leadership. Sources said Rane has been in touch with the BJP leadership. The BJP is keen to get him on-board because it will give the party the strength it needs to counter the Shiv Sena in the Konkan, where the BJP has no standing at present. Konkan has been the Sena’s bastion for the past three decades and Rane is influential in the region.

“Rane would give us extra muscle to deal with the Shiv Sena in Konkan. We have not been able to dominate the coastal region and with Rane coming on board, we can win two assembly seats and have chances to win Ratnagiri-sindhudurg Lok Sabha seat, which was held by his son earlier and now by the Sena. Further, he can taken on Uddhav in the same language the Sena uses against our leaders,’ said a senior BJP leader who did not want to be named. “However, the problem is, we will end up antagonising the Sena as Rane is Uddhav Thackeray’s enemy number one. Should we do that when Uddhav is mending fences with us is a call the party leadership will take,”added the leader.

Rane on Thursday said he was unhappy with the Congress, even after his meeting with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. “Our meeting lasted for half-anhour, but none of my complaints were resolved,” he said. He, however, refused to say if he would stay with the party or join the BJP or another party. Sources in the Congress said Rane wanted to be made state unit president in the run-up to the 2019 elections, which the party leadership is not keen on.

Rane’s elder son and former party MP Nilesh Rane — who quit as Congress’s state general secretary last month — had launched a campaign for the removal of state Congress president Ashok Chavan following the party’s debacle in the recent polls.

A former chief minister from the Konkan, Rane started as a shakha pramukh (local office head) in the Sena and climbed up the ladder. The late Sena chief Bal Thackeray made him chief minister in 1999 during the SENABJP government tenure. However, following Uddhav Thackeray’s emergence, Rane defected to the Congress in 2005 with a minister in successive Congress governments till 2014. However, he was unhappy because he had not been offered the post of chief minister. He lost the 2014 assembly elections while contesting from Kudal in Konkan.

The senior Congress leader is currently under the scanner of the ED following allegations by BJP MP Somaiya. When asked about Rane’s plans to join the BJP, Somaiya said, “I don’t know anything.”

There was no reaction from the Congress on Thursday. Congress state president Ashok Chavan chose not to comment on the issue.

“She met the accused at Gateway of India. He then took a cab for Bandra on the pretext of taking her for a coffee to a posh 5-star hotel, where his room was booked,” said the officer.

The police said after going to his room, the accused initially offered her water. The woman claims she began to feel dizzy after drinking the water and was raped in a semi-conscious state, the police said.

After she regained consciousness, she went back to Alibaug and narrated the incident to her husband.

“The woman’s husband called and confronted the businessman. The accused, who was suppose to stay for one more night, left the hotel on the same day and his phone has been switched off since then,” said the officer.

The woman then went to the police station along with her husband and registered a rape case.

The police have booked him under relevant sections of rape and spiking her drink.

The solicitor general had on March 31 told the court that a students’ body seeking NEET examination in Urdu language has accused the Centre of being communal.

The submission was made while referring to the affidavit filed by Students Islamic Organisation of India through its national secretary Thouseef Ahamad.

The Centre had told the court it was not feasible to introduce Urdu as a medium in the current academic year.

At present, NEET is being conducted in 10 languages — Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi Oriya Bengali Assamese

Every year, more than 10 million students write the class 12 finals, conducted by over 40 education boards across the country.

Also on the meeting’s agenda, it is learnt, is a proposal to introduce a uniform difficulty level of question papers across boards, and use of technology to check cheating.

Junior HRD minister Upendra Kushwaha defended the moderation policy last year, saying it helped bring marks parity.

“As far as CBSE is concerned, it adopts moderation policy to bring uniformity in evaluation process … and to maintain parity of pass percentage of candidates across years and to compensate the candidates for difficulties experienced in solving the question in specified time,” he said in written reply in the Lok Sabha.

He was a responding to a question on the CBSE’S policy on granting extra marks in the class 12 final exams.

The minister said state boards follow their own evaluation system and the Centre has no role in the process.

“All our requests for consular access have been denied. The so-called legal process done by Pakistan was opaque,” he said.

The MEA spokesperson said the neighbouring country had once said it would give consular access provided India investigate the charges against him.

Pakistan has turned down 13 requests for consular access to Jadhav, who India maintains is an “innocent Indian, kidnapped by Pakistan:

“That itself (the precondition) is a proof that they didn’t have enough evidence.”

Baglay said India was engaged in efforts to bring back Jadhav, adding he would not like to speculate on the steps being taken.

In Islamabad, Pakistan’s military said no compromise will be made.

Pakistani Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was briefed about the case’s progress at the 201st conference of the corps commanders at the general headquarters, the media arm of the Pakistan Army said.

The BSP has alleged that largescale EVM tampering aided the BJP in its Uttar Pradesh victory working in this field are important and not of what political parties say,” a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar told the senior counsel appearing before him.

Congress leader P Chidambaram argued for both the BSP and Rehman. But, the bench also held a view that EVMS were a remedy to several ills that earlier plagued the voting system.

He said a 2013 SC verdict made it mandatory for the poll panel to install the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT).

Despite the poll panel writing to the government ten times since June last, including the Chief Election Commissioner sending a letter to the Prime Minister, the government had failed to release funds for the paper trail machines.

“They need ₹3,000 crore for having this system,” he told the court.

Paper trail was indispensable requirement to restore the confidence of a voter who gets assured that he pressed the button on the EVM for the right candidate and party, Chidambaram argued.

On court’s objection to the BSP’S prayer that the forthcoming elections should be deferred in the wake of no paper trail machines, Chidambaram withdrew the plea. “We would not like to get drawn in political controversies,” the bench told the senior counsel.

The BSP and Rahman got support from the Congress and the Trinamool Congress who informed the bench that they wanted to be a party in the case, which the court allowed.

The next hearing was fixed for May 8.

The row over EVMS was back in the headlines after allegations in MP’S Ater – where the BJP won the assembly by-election — that a device registered votes only for the saffron party during a media demonstration.

The government and the EC has dismissed the charges. The poll panel has even challenged anyone to hack a device, after Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said he needed 72 hours to prove EVMS could be tampered with.

On behalf of the Congress Kapil Sibal said that no country use EVMS. “But, this system was introduced when your party was in power,” the bench replied, saying it would not decide the issue on the basis of what which country was following.

“We would purely go on the basis of law and technical data,” the court said to which Sibal replied: “Experience has shown to us that technology can be

And, though the ruling Trinamool Congress retained the Kanthi Dakshin seat, the BJP came second, pointing to its growing presence in West Bengal.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer opened his daily news briefing speaking about the use of the bomb and said, “We tar geted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target U.S. mil itary advisers and Afghan forces in the area.”

Last week, a U.S. soldier was killed in the same district as the bomb was dropped while con ducting operations against Islamic State.

“The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operationa space, which we did,” Spicer said.

He said the bomb was used at around 7 p.m. local time and described the device as “a large powerful and accurately deliv ered weapon.” The United States took “all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage,” he said

U.S. officials say intelligence suggests Islamic State is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighboring Kunar prov ince. Estimates of its strength in Afghanistan vary. U.S. officials have said they believe the move ment has only 700 fighters but Afghan officials estimate it has about 1,500.

Islamic State’s offshoot in Afghanistan is suspected of car rying out several attacks on minority Shi’ite Muslim targets

The Afghan Taliban, which is trying to overthrow the U.s.-backed government in Kabul, are fiercely opposed to Islamic State and the two group have clashed as they seek to expand territory and influence