5 men acquitted in assault case after woman fails to identify accused

A Delhi court has let off five men charged with assaulting female victims after a complainant in the case failed to identify the accused persons and remaining witnesses failed to appear before it during the trial.

The court acquitted the five men — Prem Raj, Bharat, Yogesh Prashad, Manoj and Bhagwan Das — saying that the prosecution has failed to prove its case.

The crime happened at southeast Delhi’s Kotla Mubarakpur at around 9.30 pm on January 24, 2014. The complainant, along with two friends, had gone to a grocery shop, where one of the accused was standing with a dog. Two other girls arrived at the shop and one of them allegedly tried to kick the dog. The man started abusing her. When the complainant and her friends tried to intervene, more people arrived and allegedly assaulted them. An FIR was registered at Kotla Mubarakpur police station against five persons.

The prosecution had cited 14 witnesses, out of which three were examined. Four persons out of the remaining witnesses remained untraceable. The court noted they were repeatedly summoned through the investigating officer, station house officer and deputy commissioner of police (legal cell) but remained unserved and hence, were dropped from list of witnesses.

Meanwhile, the complainant refused to identify any of the accused persons except Bharat, by stating that a long time has expired since the incident.

“The entire case was rooted on the testimony of the complainant and eyewitnesses. Thus, there is no other incriminating evidence against the accused persons on record. The onus to substantiate the case is upon the prosecution, which failed,” said the court.

The inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) strengthened the finance ministry’s stand that Reserve Bank of India’s forecast on price rise had errors and there was a case for cutting interest rate to help private investments.

Consumer prices rose 2.99% on year in April and 3.81% in March.

Clothing, housing, fuel and light also saw lower inflation rate in May while prices of vegetables declined by 13.44 per cent and that of pulses and products by 19.45 per cent.

Sunil Kumar Sinha, Principal Economist, India Ratings & Research, said though inflation is going to remain low and well within the comfort zone of RBI, probability of large policy rate cut is low.”At best, we can have 25 basis point rate cut in the remaining FY18. However, its timing will be data dependent,” he said.

On CPI inflation numbers, he said while pulses deflation is more structural in nature, the vegetable deflation could be cyclical and can change its course in near future due to monsoon related aspects.”While decline is food inflation is good news for policy makers and consumers, it is not very good news for farmers and especially vegetable and pulses farmers.

Prices of pulses in some harvesting areas are already lower than the MSP and thus farmers are not getting full benefit of increased production,” he said.

Two incidents of fire were reported from two different places in central Delhi on Monday. The first fire broke out in the office of the Election Commission of India around noon. The flames started from a miniature

Vishwas and others have criticised the party for excessive centralisation in the past. On April 28, Vishwas said in a TV interview that AAP should introspect rather than blame its losses on electronic voting machines.

The party has alleged that voting machines used in the states that went to polls in February this year may have been rigged.

In Punjab, the only state other than Delhi where the party has elected representatives, Gurpreet Singh Waraich quit last month after being summarily replaced as party chief.

Many in AAP now admit that trying to run the Punjab state unit from Delhi was among the factors that cost it the election.

Some AAP leaders were livid over Vishwas’s latest comments. “You should ask him if his speech was provided to him by a rival party,” said one senior member of the party. This politician, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, disclosed that the AAP is in talks with other parties in Rajasthan and the process may be jeopardised by Vishwas’s comments.

Vishwas himself was not available for comment on Sunday and Monday. On Sunday, his office said the AAP leader was “in a poor connectivity zone in Bareilly”. On Monday, Vishwas responded to a phone call by asking for an SMS to be sent, but did not reply to the message.

The Aam Aadmi Party too did not offer a reaction to Vishwas’s comments.

Playing down Vishwas’s comments, a Delhi state legislator said that Vishwas addressed the volunteers “in his signature style”. “Given the recent tension between KV and the party,” he admitted, “the timing could have been better.”

The CBSE had on June 9 sought an immediate stay on the Madras high court’s interim order that came on a bunch of pleas that alleged the question paper was not uniform and there was a vast difference between the ones in English and in Tamil.

Similar pleas were filed in other high courts. The petitioners demanded the test, which was held on May 7, be conducted afresh with “uniform question papers”.

The question papers in regional languages and English were different but the difficulty level was identical, the CBSE told the court.

NEET is conducted for admissions to under-graduate medical (MBBS) and dental (BDS) courses as well as post-graduate (MD/MS) programmes in government and private colleges.

NEET replaced a web of tests conducted by states and various medical colleges, which often used to clash, required students to criss-cross the country and were expensive. A few colleges still hold their own tests as they circuit breaker box but was controlled within 10 minutes before it could spread and cause damage to life and property. Nobody was injured in the fire.

In another incident, a fire broke out in a storeroom outside

Earlier this month, 17 parties met to find a candidate who can ensure “secular supervision” from the country’s highest office. They could meet again.

The BJP is 100,000 votes short of a majority, meaning it will not only have to retain the support of its allies but also rope in fence-sitters such as the AIADMK of Tamil Nadu, Naveen Patnaik’s BJD from Odisha and Telangana’s ruling TRS to put its nominee in the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

The RSS’ reported support for Joshi might run into a legal wall. The 83-year-old is facing trial for his alleged role in the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 that triggered some of India’s worst Hindu-Muslim riots.

The candidature of Swaraj is also being backed by some RSS leaders, sources said.

“She is very popular; her proactive role in helping people has won her accolades. There is a section that feels that the BJP should opt for a woman as the President and she fits the bill,” one of the sources said.

Jharkhand governor and tribal leader Draupadi Murmu is another name doing the rounds, but an RSS source said she would be better suited for as vice president.

Analysts say the negotiations are likely to be tough as fence-sitters could try to use the opportunity to flex their muscle or extract sops. The Shiv Sena, the BJP’s largest ally, has already left the party uneasy by asking that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat be made the President.

Bhagwat, though, has ruled out his candidature in the contest, which is decided by proportional representation vote by parliament members and state lawmakers.

Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said the BJP should try to persuade Bhagwat to change his mind.

“If he has not shown interest in the post, the BJP-appointed committee should first speak to him and convince him to change his mind. Then the panel can speak to other NDA allies,” Raut said.

“It’s for the first time such a meeting is happening with top industry leaders. Lot of these sectors were not the part of discussion earlier,” he said.

“New sectors such as e-com, start-ups, shared economy, cyber security, digital payments etc will grow faster than the traditional sectors — IT and telecom. New sectors may not become that big but they will outpace the growth of traditional sectors. Therefore, these new sectors will create more jobs,” Kumar said.

While the IT sector is growing at 8%, the job growth has slowed to 5%, prompting the need to look beyond this industry for employment opportunities. The government wants to cash in on the growth of the new sectors and boost its growth. Western Court in Janpath, on Monday afternoon. Officials said the fire broke out in a pile of old furniture and other scrap items stacked up in the storeroom for disposal, due to short circuit. No one was injured. HTC