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SC fumes at Gen VK Singh’s remarks
I may also be killed but I don’t care, says Rahul
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi with Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and Sports Minister Jitendra Singh at a rally in Alwar district on Wednesday. — PTI |
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Delhi polls: Harsh Vardhan
is BJP’s CM candidate
BJP’s chief ministerial candidate for Delhi Harsh Vardhan offers sweets to Delhi
BJP chief Vijay Goel as party chief Rajnath Singh and senior leader Sushma Swaraj look on in New Delhi on Wednesday. Tribune photo: Manas Ranjan Bhui
Decorated officer & royal scion gets 5-yr jail for ‘trying to sell Army land’
Sino-India border defence pact to ensure peace along LAC
Will build trust, says Army
Jiah Khan case: Bombay HC orders fresh probe
Maharashtra begins releasing funds for madrassa modernisation Notice to govt, others on plea to demolish Asaram's ashram Radia tapes
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SC fumes at Gen VK Singh’s remarks
New Delhi, October 23 “We don’t mind the judgments of this court being criticised. But we can’t allow motives to be attributed,” the Bench remarked while referring to Gen Singh’s recent interview to a news agency questioning the logic behind the SC’s order on his age controversy. His comments against the highest court of the country amounted to “striking at the very root of the judiciary” and indicated that “we are heading for bad days,.” the judges said. Agreeing with the Bench, the AG said Gen Singh’s “suggestion is very sinister and disruptive of the rule of law and administration of law.” While taking cognisance of the interview, the Bench had, on October 1, issued notice to Gen Singh and a newspaper, which had published the former army chief’s comments, asking them to show cause as to why they could not be proceeded against for committing contempt of court. Responding to the notice, Gen Singh had come to the court but his senior counsel Ram Jethmalani was not present as he was busy arguing another case before a different SC Bench. When the Bench asked as to whether the “contemnor” was present, Gen Singh stood up from his seat but did not say anything. On the other hand, senior counsel Fali S Nariman, who appeared for the newspaper, said his client had tendered an unconditional apology for publishing Gen Singh’s comments circulated by the news agency. However, he said he would argue on the larger issue of enjoying the right to freedom of speech without committing contempt. The Bench said both the news agency and newspaper had correctly reported Gen Singh’s comments without any embellishment, but it was not proper on their part to carry such statements which scandalised the judiciary. The SC took on record the CD containing Gen Singh’s interview and the transcripts, both in English and in Hindi, which were produced by the AG. The Bench asked the AG to have the transcripts translated officially within 10 days and give copies to Gen Singh and the newspaper to enable them to file their response by November 15. The Bench asked Gen Singh to be present in the court for the next hearing on November 20. On October 1, the Bench had clarified that it had merely allowed Singh to withdraw his petition on the age controversy on February 10, 2012 as he did not want to pursue the case. The SC had not given any ruling on his date of birth (DOB). In the petition, Singh had sought a directive to the government to treat his DOB as May 10, 1951 as recorded in his school leaving certificate and not as May 10, 1950 as maintained in the records of the Army and the Defence Ministry.
Taking strong exception
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I may also be killed but I don’t care, says Rahul
Churu (Rajasthan), October 23 Rahul accused the BJP of sparking communal tensions in the country for political benefits, and equated the plight of Uttar Pradesh's riot-ravaged Muzaffarnagar district's people with himself. He said he can understand their sorrow and grief as his grandmother and father were also murdered. Rahul, 43, was referring to the communal riots that took place in Muzaffarnagar that claimed more than 40 lives and rendered thousands homeless. "My grandmother was murdered. My father was murdered. Now I may also be killed one day. But I don't fear being murdered. I don't care about it... I see my face in the plight of Muzaffarnagar's people," Rahul Gandhi said while addressing the mammoth rally.His grandmother, then prime minister Indira Gandhi, and his father, former PM Rajiv Gandhi, were both assassinated. While Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards in Delhi October 31, 1984, Rajiv was assassinated by a Tamil Tigers suicide bomber at a political rally in Tamil Nadu May 21, 1991. Rahul referred to his speech as "dil ki baat" (A talk from the heart) and said he wanted to share his story with the people. "I was in classroom at my school when someone approached my teacher and whispered something in her ears. The teacher told me to go home immediately. I called up home from principal's office. I heard a scream from our housemaid. I was told something wrong had happened to my grandmother," recalled Rahul. Rahul said he and his sister Priyanka were taken home, hidden under the passenger seats of a car by bodyguards. "When I reached home, I saw blood of my grandmother on the road and the blood of two security guards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, in a room. They had always been like my friends. The incident filled me with a rage. It took me 10-15 years to calm down my anger," said Rahul Gandhi.
— PTI
Slams Politics of
hatred
I am against the kind of politics BJP does as they spark fire of tension for political benefits... they hurt people for political gains. They will go to Muzaffarnagar and set fire in it. They will go to Gujarat and set fire in it. They will go to UP and Kashmir and will do the same. We have to run from pillar to post to douse the
fire. — Rahul Gandhi, Cong V-P
Tactics to garner votes: BJP The BJP on Wednesday attacked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for making an emotional pitch to garner votes and claimed he had been compelled to do so as he had nothing to drive home about the UPA government's performance. "It is very unfortunate that Rahul has spoken about the assassination of his grandmother and illness of his mother during electioneering and made an emotional appeal to the people to vote for the Congress," said senior BJP leader Ravishanker Prasad said. "It clearly shows that he has nothing positive to talk about the performance of UPA government," said Prasad.
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Delhi polls: Harsh Vardhan is BJP’s CM candidate
New Delhi, October 23 The decision was finalised by BJP’s apex decision making body, the Parliamentary Board, attended by party president Rajnath Singh and senior leaders LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. Though the party’s PM candidate Narendra Modi was not present at the meeting, he tweeted to mark his approval. “Under the leadership of Dr Harsh Vardhan and Shri Vijay Goyal, I am confident that the BJP will do great in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha Elections,” Modi’s somewhat conciliatory tweet (for Goel) said. Vardhan’s nomination to the post comes after a bitter internal squabble that threatened to derail BJP’s campaign to wrest power after 15 years in the Capital. Though Goel was a strong contender, what clinched the decision is favour of Vardhan was a strong backing by the RSS-BJP’s ideological fountainhead. Rajnath Singh is believed to have made a pitch for Goel but sources said Vardhan found favour from Delhi in charge for the BJP Nitin Gadkari, Advani, Sushma and Jaitley. Without a credible name leading the party in the elections, the BJP, they felt, was losing the edge and Goel did not fit the bill for the top job. Sources say names of some other leaders were also contemplated but Vardhan’s name was finalised keeping in mind his clean image and to avoid adding further to confusion among party cadres. Several Delhi BJP leaders too conveyed to the central leadership about Vardhan’s wider acceptability among people and party workers. Making an appearance at the party dais after a long gap, Advani congratulated Vardhan and said Goel had accepted the party’s decision. Incidentally, unlike Advani who stayed away when Modi’s name was announced as the PM candidate, Goel was present on the party forum when the decision to anoint his rival was announced. Though Goel announced he was not upset with the party’s decision, a section in the BJP is worried. Sources say Goel has been offered a settlement in the Centre if the party comes to power in 2014. Face-off: Sheila, Kejri and Vardhan
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Decorated officer & royal scion gets 5-yr jail for ‘trying to sell Army land’
Chandigarh, October 23 The order was pronounced on October 8, around 22 years after the case was registered. The order, a copy of which is available with The Tribune, is, however, silent on the defence arguments in the case. Brig Sukhjit Singh was later granted bail by a higher court. When reached at Mussorie over the telephone, an elderly person answering the call said the brigadier had “no comment to make on the matter”. Four erstwhile officers of the Scinde Horse, Maj Gen BS Malik, Brig Sukhjit Singh, Col Ravinder Singh and Capt Kulwant Singh were the trustees of the Scinde Horse Trust Farm, which owned about 600 acres of land in Phulpur, Bishhai and Bihat villages in Bilaspur Tehsil of Rampur. Prosecuting officer Khatib Ahmed told The Tribune that Hargurusharan Singh of Bihat and three others had alleged that they struck a deal with the trustees to buy land on July 3, 1991, but when they arrived to get the deal registered on July 8, they found the court had refused permission to sell the land. This happened despite an assurance by Brig Sukhjit that necessary clearance had been obtained (for the sale). A sum of Rs 1.04 lakh had been paid as advance money to the brigadier, they said. An agreement was made to sell 50 acres to Hargurusharan and 50 acres to one Darshan Singh at Rs 44,000-Rs 45,000 per acre. “The court ruled that from the documents on records and the testimony of the witnesses, it stood proven that Brig Surjit Singh and late Col Ravinder Singh had hidden facts and given wrong information to the villagers in their bid to sell the land. Even though the Civil Judge, Rampur had rejected permission for the sale in October 1989, they still entered into an agreement with the villagers in 1991 for the same,” Ahmed said. While cases under provisions of the Indian Penal Code had been registered against all four officers on the basis of the villagers’ complaint, the high court had quashed those against Maj Gen Malik and Capt Kulwant. Col Ravinder Singh died during the course of the proceedings and the case had continued against Brig Sukhjit Singh. He was commissioned in the Army in 1954. As a lieutenant colonel, he commanded Scinde Horse in the Shakargarh Sector on the western frontier during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. He was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for warding off a heavy enemy armoured attack supported by artillery. Old Armoured Corps officers recall Brig Sukhjit had a brush with the then Defence Minister, Late Bansi Lal, in the 1970s over some issue pertaining to the same land. He resigned his commission soon after he became a brigadier. An officer of the Science Horse said Brig Sukhjit, now 80-year-old, was an honourable officer and there was much more to the issue.
The case
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Sino-India border defence pact to ensure peace along LAC
The Indian Army commands include one at Udhampur (Northern) and Calcutta (Eastern), while China is covered by the regions of Chengdu and Lanzhou across the border. The pact was signed in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang by Defence Secretary RK Mathur and Lt Gen Sun Jianguo, Deputy Chief of General Staff of Peoples’ Liberation Army, at the Great Hall here. The agreement has a component of information exchange on military and non-military activities near the border without any restriction on building of infrastructure in the areas. Information exchange will be about military exercises, aircraft, demolition operations and unmarked mines besides joint combat of smuggling of arms, wildlife, and other contrabands. The two sides will also assist each other in the location of personnel, livestock and work towards combating natural disasters or infectious diseases that may affect the other side. Besides having meetings on an incremental scale, the pact has elements to formalise social and sports activities and small-scale tactical exercises along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to enhance understanding and cooperation between the defence forces on the border. It also has an agreed format detailing how the border troops will react by not following or tail patrols of the other side in areas where there is no common understanding of the border, seek clarification from the other side in case a doubtful situation arises. In case of coming face-to-face, both sides will exercise “maximum restraint, refrain from any provocative actions, not use force or threaten to use force against the other side, treat each other with courtesy and prevent exchange of fire or armed conflict”. The additional confidence building measure is to ensure peace and tranquility, stability and predictability on the border that was stressed both by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Li. The pact reinforces that both sides will conduct joint military training exercises at army level in each other’s country on a regular basis. On his part, Premier Li said a joint counter-terrorism exercise would be held in South West China and hold a maritime dialogue at an early date. India and China have held “hand-in-hand” exercises in the past that got disrupted in one cycle following differences over the visit of an Indian Army Commander to China. India and China have three existing agreements to maintain peace and tranquility, one each in 1993, 1996 and 2005 to deal with issue arising out of situations that develop across the border that has remained peaceful for over four decades.
What it entails
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Will build trust, says Army
New Delhi, October 23 Within the Indian Army, the BDCA is seen as a refined version of the two earlier agreements signed in 1993 and 1996 and also the 2005 signed protocol. “The BDCA will build trust,” top sources in the Army have told The Tribune. The 1993 agreement was on ‘maintenance of peace and tranquility along the LAC and 1996 agreement was confidence-building measures in the military field along the LAC’. As per the BDCA, troops of either side will not tail each other’s patrolling parties in disputed areas along the LAC. The 2005 protocol mandates that troops on coming face-to-face will unfurl a banner asking the other to go back. This will remain and it now includes the words ‘show courtesy’ to either side. Sources said the biggest move will be the specified stress on military-to-military contact in the BDCA which will enable both sides to understand each other better. As of now only Brigadier-level officers meet at three designated spots - Spanggur gap in eastern Ladakh, NathuLa in Sikkim and Bumla near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. Now, two more meetings points are to be added — one at Kibithoo in eastern-most part of Arunachal and another point, either ShipkiLa in Himachal Pradesh or Lipu Lekh pass in Uttarakhand. For the first time the Director General of Military Operation (DGMO), India, will have a hotline with his Chinese counterpart. Also for the first time the Northern Army Commander will be interacting with his counterpart across in China’s Military Area Command (MAC) Langzhau. Similarly, the Kolkata-based Eastern Army Commander will interact with the MAC Chengdu, China. Another first will be small-scale tactical exercises along the LAC. These will be in addition to the military training exercises, at Army level, in each other’s country on a regular basis. Also the BDCA has refined the process of sorting out any dispute or claim along the LAC and also mandated for information-exchange about military exercises, aircrafts and consequent measures conducive to the maintenance of peace, stability and tranquility along the LAC. The alignment of the LAC is disputed and there is no formal border between India and China. The British had first tried to resolve it in 1846 and made five more attempts, the last one in 1913, but failed. Latter attempts by Jawaharlal Nehru and Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai in late 1950s and early 1960s had failed. In the past decade, the two countries have tasked high-ranking special representatives who have been conducting meetings.
Previous agreements
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Jiah Khan case: Bombay HC orders fresh probe
Mumbai, October 23 A Bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and Gautam Patel asked the Juhu police to record statement of Jiah's mother Rabia Khan on October 26 at 11 am in the police station. The judges asked the police to carry out further investigations on the material furnished before the court that the actor had been killed. Government pleader KV Saste informed that the police was all set to file chargesheet in the trial court within a week. The court did not stop the police from filing chargesheet in the trial court but ordered them to carry out further investigations on the basis of material provided by Jiah's mother indicating that the actor had been murdered. "If necessary, additional charge sheet can be filed by the police on the aspect of murder," the court said while disposing of Rabia's petition. The pleader said the police had recorded statement of Rabia three times earlier. However, the court asked him what was the difficulty in recording yet another statement on the basis of allegation that the actor was murdered. To this, the pleader replied that the police would once again record Rabia's statement. To a request made by Rabia's lawyer Abad Ponda, the court asked police to record her statement on October 26. Rabia was present in the court today. Ponda argued that his client wanted truth to prevail. At the moment, she was not pressing for transfer of probe to the CBI as pleaded in the petition. The court, therefore, did not pass any order on Rabia's plea to transfer investigations to the CBI. Jiah's mother alleged that it has come to light that her daughter may have been killed and made to look as if she committed suicide.
— PTI
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Maharashtra begins releasing funds for madrassa modernisation
Mumbai, October 23 In all 200 madrassas will receive funds during the current financial year. To avail of these benefits, the madrassas must be registered with the charity commissioner or the wakf board, the state government had said while unveiling the measure last month. The government has also proposed that it would pay salaries of teachers hired to teach subjects like English, Hindi, Marathi, science and mathematics. “We will gradually extend this scheme to all the 1,889 madrassas in the state,” Minority Development Minister Naseem Khan said recently. The proposal has predictably drawn the ire of the BJP and the Shiv Sena. “This government uses every opportunity to abuse Hindus. Now they are giving money to madrassas,” the Shiv Sena executive president said. Not to be left behind, Maharashtra BJP president Devendra Fadnavis accused the government of playing vote-bank politics.
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Taking strong exception to retired Army Chief Gen VK Singh casting aspersions on the Supreme Court, the SC and Attorney General GE Vahanvati today said his remarks were “scandalous and sinister and just can’t be accepted.”
A Bench comprising Justices RM Lodha and HL Gokhale made the observations while hearing a suo motu contempt of court case against Gen Singh, who was present in the court.
"My grandmother was murdered. My father was murdered. Now I may also be killed one day. I don't care about it," said Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, making an emotional pitch for Rajasthan's ruling party at an election rally here.
New Delhi, October 23
The Bombay High Court today asked the police to carry out further investigations on allegations made by the mother of actress Jiah Khan in a petition that the latter had been murdered and had not committed suicide.
A Bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and Gautam Patel asked the Juhu police to record statement of Jiah's mother Rabia Khan on October 26 at 11 am in the police station. The judges asked the police to carry out further investigations on the material furnished before the court that the actor had been killed.
October 23