Mevani, 9 others get 3-month jail term
The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved orders on the petition filed by gangster Abu Salem seeking enforcement of the solemn assurance given by India in 2002 while extraditing him from Portugal — that he will not be sentenced to a jail term beyond 25 years. Salem has been given two life terms by trial courts for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts and the 1995 murder of businessman Pradeep Jain. The home secretary last month filed an affidavit before the top court stating India was bound by the assurance it had given to the Portugal court in December 2002 but suggested Salem’s plea was premature as the question of his release will arise in November 2030, when he completes 25 years of his sentence. On Thursday, additional solicitor general KM Nataraj reiterated this position. Also on Thursday, Delhi high court allowed Salem to withdraw his plea seeking to declare his detention in India illegal. others on Thursday were sentenced to three months in jail for holding a rally in 2017 without the requisite permission. A magisterial court in Mehsana issued the order against Mevani and several members of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, holding them guilty of unlawful assembly. All the ten convicts have been sentenced to three months imprisonment and a fine of ₹1,000 each. After delivering the verdict, the court accepted Mevani’s plea for a stay on the order and granted bail to all the convicts till they file an appeal in the higher court against the judgment. The case pertains to an ‘Azaadi Kooch’ rally held on July
12, 2017, to mark one year of the public flogging of some members of the Dalit community by “cow protectors” in Gujarat in 2016.
“Converting our hard-earned democracy into a police state is simply unthinkable,” Barpeta sessions court judge, justice Aparesh Chakrabarty, said while granting bail to Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, who was picked up at midnight from Gujarat by the Assam Police. This is not an isolated case. Within days of a new Aap-government taking over in Punjab, the Punjab Police filed a series of FIRS against Arvind
Kejriwal’s critics, including friend-turned-foe Kumar Vishwas. In West Bengal, CM Mamata Banerjee is accused of using state police to “fix” her opponents. In UP, Yogi Adityanath’s government has routinely slapped criminal cases against critical journalists. It isn’t as if the well-oiled netapolice complicity surfaced only recently, writes senior journalist and author Rajdeep Sardesai. The men in khaki uniforms need to be sent constant reminders that their loyalty is not to their political masters, but to the Constitution first and last, he writes.
Over three years after ceasing operations, Jet Airways, now under new ownership, conducted a test flight to and from the Hyderabad airport on its 29th anniversary on Thursday — a vital step towards obtaining its air operator certificate (AOC). The test flight was conducted with a Boeing 737 aircraft bearing the registration code VT-SXE. In a series of tweets, CEO Sanjiv Kapoor wrote, “Our baby’s come home! #9W101 @jetairways… Our CFO Vipula and I celebrating the return of the @jetairways call-sign and aircraft to the skies today, a re-birth on Jet’s birthday.” Jet Airways is currently in the process of relaunching operations under new promoters, the Jalan-kalrock Consortium. After the test flight, an airline has to conduct proving flights, after which the aviation regulator will grant it an AOC.