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Cabinet clears Bill to give statutory status to UIDAI
Rahul’s remark has BJP, social media in splits |
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BJP lambasts Chidambaram for criticising Modi
Aarushi
murder
Allahabad HC says no to immersion of idols in Ganga, Yamuna
Identify posts for disabled under 3% quota: SC
Soon, autonomous colleges to grant degrees
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Cabinet clears Bill to give statutory status to UIDAI
New Delhi, October 8 The Bill was cleared at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It is now likely to be tabled in the winter session of Parliament. The Bill seeks to provide legal backing to Aadhaar, which is used to disburse subsidies. It also seeks to define penalties in case of misuse of the data collected under the UID project. Giving a statutory status to the UIDAI was necessary as it presently operates through an executive order. It issues 12-digit Aadhaar numbers to residents, thereby enabling them to receive various subsidies. The new law seeks to create a National Identification Authority of India, which will oversee implementation of the Aadhaar project. It also seeks to define penalties in case of the misuse of data collected under the project. The Bill cleared by the Cabinet is a revised version of the earlier Bill which was sent back by the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance headed by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha for re-drafting. The government has drawn much flak for continuing with the Aadhaar initiative without it having a legal backing and operating only through an executive order so far. The statutory status for the UIDAI comes in the backdrop of a Supreme Court ruling against making Aadhaar mandatory for availing of government services. A petition filed by former Karnataka High Court Judge KS Puttaswamy said the UIDAI did not have a legal backing.
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CBI to close probe against Mayawati
New Delhi, October 8 CBI sources said the apex court had quashed the agency's FIR in connection with alleged disproportionate assets of the BSP leader last year but the matter was in a limbo after an intervention application was filed by a private person. The Supreme Court had on August 8, this year dismissed the intervention application, paving the way for the closure of the DA case against Mayawati, they said. The sources said after getting a certified copy of the latest order, the agency had sought legal opinion on the orders of the apex court on the issue. They said legal experts were of the view that the agency should close the probe in the case. The experts felt that if anyone wanting a probe could approach an appropriate court to get a suitable order with which CBI would comply, they said. On August 8, the apex court had dismissed a petition filed by Uttar Pradesh resident Kamlesh Verma who was an intervener in the case filed by Mayawati for quashing the DA case against her. While reserving its verdict on May 1, the bench had said that the FIR in the DA case was quashed because CBI proceeded against her without properly understanding its orders which were confined to the Taj Corridor case. However, it had said that the judgment had not taken away CBI's power to proceed against her in a separate DA case. The Supreme Court had on July 6, last year quashed the nine-year-long disproportionate assets case against the BSP leader and had pulled up CBI for exceeding its jurisdiction by lodging an FIR against her without any direction from it. The court had said the DA case against Mayawati was "unwarranted" and that the agency proceeded against her without properly understanding its orders which were confined to the Taj Corridor case relating to the release of Rs 17 crore by the UP government allegedly without sanction. — PTI
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Rahul’s remark has BJP, social media in splits
New Delhi, October 8 BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi wondered as to “what escape velocity the Congress scion had computed for the hungry in India considering that his party's finance minister in Maharashtra says that the cost of the Food Security Bill was unaffordable”. “The year 2014 is some months away. How many states is the Congress willing to concede in 2013 or is this all talk of escape velocity a sign of scooting even before 2014 elections are announced. This government is desperately looking for an exit strategy with talk of escape velocity,” she said. The “physics of politics” also went viral on the social media with recommendations of a Nobel Prize for physics for the young Congress leader and tweets like: “Stephen Hawking has filed a petition for voluntary euthanasia after hearing Rahul Gandhi speak; Rahul Gandhi should campaign more, every time he speaks BJP gains few thousand votes; Ha Ha! Same is required for entire Congress party as well for leaving this country for good at the speed of Jupiter’s escape velocity”. Meanwhile, a news satire website said, “From today onward, the universal gravitational constant, or the Big G, will stand for (Rahul) Gandhi.”
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BJP lambasts Chidambaram for criticising Modi
New Delhi, October 8 “By comparing leaders of our party he is giving a walkover and accepting that no Congress leader matches the calibre of BJP’s PM candidate,” BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said, along with a detailed rebuttal on the country’s economic and jobs’ situation attacking Chidambaram. The finance minister, in an interview to a news agency, dismissed the emergence of Modi on the national political stage as “largely media created” “I don't think that Narendra Modi is a stronger candidate than either Vajpayee or Advani,” Chidambaram said. “I think don’t write us off so early and we are not facing a Vajpayee today. We are facing a Mister Narendra Modi who has got a very very checkered track record,” he was quoted as saying.
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Aarushi
murder R Sedhuraman Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, October 8 Their plea was part of their “dilatory tactics” to delay the trial at every stage, a Bench comprising Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde said in the order, pointing out that they had moved the SC on September 17, two months after the Allahabad High Court had rejected their prayer. “There is no reason why the petitioners ought to have waited from 19.7.2013 to 17.9.2013 to approach this court and allowed the trial to proceed even further” during this period, the Bench wanted to know. The accused dentist couple’s senior counsel UU Lalit had argued that his clients had come clean in the tests, while the CBI had suspected the involvement of their employees in the murder case in the wake of the tests. However, only his clients were made accused and the employees were given a clean chit. Aarushi, who was 14-year-old, and domestic servant Hemraj were found dead at the residence of the Talwar couple on May 16, 2008. “Criminal courts are not obliged to accede to the request made by any party to entertain and allow application for additional evidence and in fact are bound in terms of Section 233(3) CrPC to refuse such requests if it appears that they are made in order to vex the proceedings or delay the same,” the Bench ruled.
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Allahabad HC says no to immersion of idols in Ganga, Yamuna
Lucknow, October 8 In a decision of far reaching significance, a division bench comprising Justice Arun Tandon and Justice Ashok Bhushan yesterday denied permission to the Allahabad administration to allow immersion of idols in the rivers. In its order, the court has asked the state government to issue a circular instructing the district administrations not to allow immersion of idols in the Ganga and the Yamuna. The court also asked the state government to instruct the district administrations to accordingly make alternative arrangements for the immersion of idols within a year. Turning down the state government official’s plea for giving them an additional year, the bench categorically stated that steps were urgently needed to stop pollution of water bodies and rivers. The court also refused to agree to the plea of the state government counsel to allow the idols a ritual holy dip in the river before they were immersed at some other place. Chief standing counsel Ramesh Upadhyay had agued that an affidavit had been taken from the puja organisers that they would not use toxic colours and material in the making of the idols. He had also assured the court that cranes would be used to immerse the idols in the rivers and then take them out. However, the bench did not relent.
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Chargesheet filed in 2nd Mumbai rape case
Mumbai, October 8 The second victim, an 18-year-old woman, was attacked by five men, four of who were involved in the assault on the photographer. Meanwhile, the government’s Public Works Department moved in to clean up the Shakti Mills compound which is locked in dispute between two corporate houses.
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Identify posts for disabled under 3% quota: SC
“Employment is a key factor in the empowerment and inclusion of people with disabilities. It is an alarming reality that the disabled people are out of job not because their disability comes in the way of their functioning, rather it is social and practical barriers that prevent them from joining the workforce,” a three-member Bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam said in a 48-page judgment. As a result, many disabled people were living in poverty and in a deplorable condition, the Bench observed. Justices Ranjana Prakash Desai and Ranjan Gogoi were the other members of the Bench. Such persons were being denied the right to make a useful contribution to their own lives and to the lives of their families and community, it said. The SC delivered the verdict while disposing of the appeal filed by the Centre, challenging the Delhi High Court’s December 19, 2008, directives by interpreting Section 33 of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995. The Centre, the state governments and the Union Territories “have a categorical obligation under the Constitution of India and under various international treaties relating to human rights in general and treaties for disabled persons in particular, to protect the rights of disabled persons. Even though the Act was enacted way back in 1995, the disabled people have failed to get required benefit until today,” the SC observed. The court warned that not observing reservation scheme for disabled persons would be considered as an act of “non-obedience” and it would lead to initiation of departmental proceeding against the nodal officer concerned. NGO National Federation of the Blind had sought implementation of Section 33 of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 alleging that the Centre and states have failed to provide reservation to the blind and low vision persons and they are virtually excluded from the process of recruitment to government posts as stipulated under the Act. (With PTI inputs)
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Soon, autonomous colleges to grant degrees
New Delhi, October 8 The HRD Ministry following a meeting between the UGC and principals of selected autonomous colleges today asked the UGC Standing Advisory Committee on autonomous colleges under the chairmanship of Syed Hasnain to finalise recommendations, including a draft regulations for autonomous colleges and ways in which such colleges can be given degree granting powers, within two months. “The Centre will explore ways to confer degree granting powers on autonomous colleges by way of amending the UGC Act. We have also decided that at least 10% of all eligible colleges in the country will be given autonomy by end of the 12th Plan,” a ministry statement said today. The suggestion was made by the Secretary, HRD, at the first meeting of autonomous colleges.
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New Delhi, October 8