Delhi HC seeks govt reply on PIL to use Aadhaar details of missing persons
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Friday sought the Centre’s reply on a plea seeking directions for “utilising biometric or Aadhaar” details of missing children, aged persons and the mentally challenged in order to trace and reunite them with their families.
A bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar issued notice to the ministry of home affairs on a plea of advocate Amit Sahni.
In his petition, Sahni had contended that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had not replied to a representation requesting it to ensure that a uniform process is followed to scan the biometrics of a missing person who has lost track of his/ her identity.
The petition said that a procedure should be set in place to run the traced person’s biometrics through the Aadhaar database in order to reunite them with their families.
“There is no greater vacuum, no greater void than the helplessness felt by parents whose children have gone missing and the significance of timely recovering of the missing child can only be understood if one empathies with feelings of the missing child or that of a mother, who is unable to locate her child irrespective of the circumstances under which a child goes missing,” the plea said. NEW DELHI: The Delhi sentence review board on Thursday agreed to release 25 prisoners, who have either completed their prison term or were up for early release owing to their ‘good conduct’ in prison. The cases will now be snt to the L-G for his final approval.
The board, however, deferred the cases of Manu Sharma, convicted for the murder of model Jessica Laal and former Congress leader Sushil Sharma.
Sushil Sharma was convicted for the murder of his wife Naina Sahni in what became to be infamously NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over the vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC) and State Information Commissions (SIC), the Supreme Court asked the Centre and states to submit a time schedule for filling up the positions in the quasi-judicial bodies within a month.
“We will ensure that the posts are filled up,” a bench of Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan told advocate Prashant Bhushan, lawyer for the petitioner Anjali Bharadwaj, who said four posts in CIC were vacant and four more, including that of the Chief Information Commissioner, will join the list in December. It ordered that the government affidavit in the matter should state the steps it proposes to take to fill up the vacancies and also suggest a specific timeline for completing process.
The Centre was also asked to known as the Delhi Tandoor murder case.
Manu Sharma has been in prison for over 15 years while Sushil Sharma has been in jail for 23 years.
An official present in Thursday’s meeting said, “All the seven department representatives present in the meeting agreed that Manu Sharma and Sushil Sharma can be released but home minister Satyendar Jain said he wanted to study their case papers again and then make a decision next month. Hence, their cases were not decided.”
Senior government officials said that of the 25 prisoners who explain why the posts in CIC have remained vacant even as the advertisement to hire more members was issued in 2016. The bench noted that government must also respond to Bharadwaj’s contention to make the hiring norms transparent.
Similar directions were issued to seven states after the bench was told that in most of them information commissioners were yet to be appointed.
In her plea, Bhardwaj stated that over 23,500 appeals and complaints were pending with the CIC. She also said SCI of Andhra Pradesh was “completely nonfunctional” as not a single information commissioner has been appointed to the panel. She said the West Bengal SIC was functioning with only two commissioners and was hearing appeals and complaints filed 10 years ago. are likely to be released, five are elderly, one terminally ill and another who is physically disabled.
Most of these prisoners are those who are lodged in the prison’s semi-open jail facility. The decision of the board will soon be sent to the Delhi’s lieutenant governor, who can either approve or deny the board’s decision.
Manu Sharma and Sushil Sharma are also believed to have displayed good conduct in prison because of which they have been shifted to the open and the semiopen jail facilities. Open-jail inmates are allowed to step out of prison gates and work outside every day but they have to spend their nights inside the jail complex. Those lodged in the semiopen jail, on the other hand, cannot step outside the prison and are assigned work within the prison complex, such as desk jobs in jail offices. Open and semi-open jail prisoners live in single room flats, unlike other prisoners who live behind bars.
The release of 25 prisoners was decided by state home minister Jain, additional secretary(home) director general (prisons) Ajay Kashyap, the government’s chief probation officer, a district judge, the joint commissioner of police(crime) and the law secretary.