HC questions officials on cremation at night

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Monday questioned officials of the Uttar Pradesh government on why the Hathras victim’s body was cremated at night.

The court also recorded the statements of five family members of the 19-year-old Dalit woman, senior officials of the state government and fixed November 2 as the next date of hearing.

A division bench of Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Rajan Roy passed the order after the hearing, which continued for around two hours.

“The court took serious note of the Hathras administration’s conduct of cremating the girl’s body at night,” said Seema Khushwaha, lawyer of the victim’s family.

Additional advocate general Vinod Kumar Shahi appeared before the court on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government and submitted the government’s

“The court has fixed November 2 as the next date of hearing in the case. A police officer of the level of additional director general will appear before the court at the next hearing

VINOD KUMAR SHAHI ,

reply.

“The court has fixed November 2 as the next date of hearing in the case. A police officer of the level of additional director general of police of the state government will appear before the court at the next hearing,” Shahi said.

“The court has exempted the family (kin of the deceased girl) from appearance at the next hearing,” Shahi added.

The Uttar Pradesh government submitted the affidavit which it had submitted in the Supreme Court related with the Hathras incident.

In addition, the state government submitted another set of affidavits carrying details of intelligence inputs about the deteriorating law and order scenario arising out of the Hathras gang rape incident.

On the high court’s question about the victim’s body having been cremated late at night, the state government apprised it about intelligence reports indicating that there would have been law and order problems had the cremation taken place in the morning.

Lawyer Seema Khushwaha, appearing on behalf of the victim’s family, apprised the court that the family had demanded to keep the CBI’s inquiry report confidential, to transfer the case out of Uttar Pradesh and sought security for themselves until the case concluded.

Paul Milgrom & Robert Wilson

Two American economists won the Nobel Prize on Monday for improving the theory of how auctions work and inventing new and better auction formats that are now woven into many parts of the economy, including one that revolutionised the telecoms industry.

The discoveries of Paul R Milgrom and Robert B Wilson “have benefitted sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world”, the Nobel Committee said, noting that the auction formats developed by the winners have been used to sell radio frequencies, electricity, fishing quotas and airport landing slots.

Both economists are based at Stanford University, which said their work is credited with shaping the entire modern telecommunications industry after they developed a new format for the US Federal Communications Commission’s radio spectrum auctions in 1994. That format has since been copied and adapted for dozens of auctions involving hundreds of billion dollars worldwide.

Milgrom said he received news of their win “in a strange way”. “I got a knock at my door from Bob Wilson,” he said. “He was my PhD adviser, and he lives right across the street from me.”

additional advocate general