NATIONAL NEWS
Arrest is not always a must, says Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has held that merely because the law allows arrest does not mean the State can use the power indiscriminately to crush personal liberty. We may note that personal liberty is an important aspect of our constitutional mandate. The occasion to arrest an accused during investigation arises when custodial investigation becomes necessary or it is a heinous crime or where there is a possibility of influencing the witnesses or accused may abscond. Merely because an arrest can be made because it is lawful does not mandate that arrest must be made, a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy said. A distinction must be made between the existence of the power to arrest and the justification for exercise of it, it noted. If arrest is made routine, it can cause incalculable harm to the reputation and self-esteem of a person. If the Investigating Officer has no reason to believe that the accused will abscond or disobey summons and has, in fact, throughout cooperated with the investigation, we fail to appreciate why there should be a compulsion on the officer to arrest the accused, the court observed in its recent order. The order was passed in a plea for anticipatory bail filed by businessman Siddharth, represented by senior advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey and advocates Ravi Sharma and Rahul Shyam Bhandari. The Allahabad High Court had rejected his bail application in July. The case concerns an FIR registered against him for allegedly entering into a conspiracy and criminal breach of trust involving former ministers and high-ranking officials in relation to a project initiated by the Uttar Pradesh government in 2007 to build parks and museums, including the Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Asthal, Kashiram Smarak Asthal Gautambudh Nagar Upvan Echo Park and Noida Ambedkar Park. The FIR alleges a loss of ₹ 14,000 crore to the public exchequer. Dubey argued that his client had joined the seven-year-old investigation. There was no need for his custodial interrogation. There was no apprehension that he would abscond or tamper with evidence. The police were in the process of filing a charge sheet. Dubey said Section 170 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) has been wrongly interpreted by the police and trial courts to make arrest of the accused mandatory at the time of filing of the charge sheet. He argued that the word custody in Section 170 had been wrongly interpreted as ‘arrest’. Agreeing with the senior lawyer, the Supreme Court clarified that the word ‘custody’ appearing in Section 170 does not contemplate either police or judicial custody but it merely connotes the presentation of the accused by the Investigating Officer before the court while filing the charge sheet. The trial courts are stated to be insisting on the arrest of an accused as a pre-requisite formality to take the charge sheet on record in view of the provisions of Section 170 of the CrPC. We consider such a course misplaced and contrary to the very intent of Section 170 of the CrPC, the court said, laying down the law.
Must systematically plan to give a govt which believes in principles of Constitution: Sonia Gandhi
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on August 20 urged opposition party leaders to work together and plan systemically for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, saying the goal is to give the country a government that believes in the principles of the Constitution. Addressing a virtual meeting of various opposition parties, she said, Despite our compulsions, the time has come when interests of our nation demand that we rise above them. Leaders of 19 political parties participated in the virtual meeting convened by Gandhi, amid efforts to boost opposition unity and evolve a common strategy against the NDA government. Of course, the ultimate goal is the 2024 Lok Sabha elections for which we have to begin to plan systematically with the single-minded objective of giving to our country a government that believes in the values of the freedom movement and in the principles and provisions of our Constitution, she said. This is a challenge, but together we can and must rise to it because there is simply no alternative to working cohesively together. We all have our compulsions, but clearly, a time has come when the interests of our nation demand that we rise above them, Gandhi said. Among those who participated in the meeting were NCP supreme Sharad Pawar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her counterparts from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, Uddhav Thackeray and M.K. Stalin. Parties such as the TMC, NCP, DMK, Shiv Sena, JMM, CPI, CPI(M), NC, RJD, AIUDF, VCK, Loktantrik Janata Dal, JD(S), RLD, RSP, Kerala Congress (Mani), PDP and IUML took part in the meeting. Leaders of AAP, BSP and SP were not present at the meeting.
After Twitter, Facebook takes down post by Rahul Gandhi
Social media giant Facebook has removed the post by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi that identified the family of a nine-year-old victim of alleged rape and murder in Delhi as it violated the platform’s policies. The social media giant informed Gandhi, as well as the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), of the removal of the posts from Facebook and Instagram. In an emailed reply to a query, a Facebook spokesperson said, We have taken action to remove the content as it was in violation of our policies. According to Facebook, in this case, the family has pleaded for their safety in the court, and in view of their safety and to maintain the dignity of the victim, the company decided to take down the content from its platform. Earlier this week, sources said, Facebook had written to Gandhi asking him to remove the said post from Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing platform. The social media company’s action followed the NCPCR’s direction to Facebook to take appropriate action against Gandhi’s Instagram profile over the violation of provisions of Acts such as the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and the Indian Penal Code. Earlier, on August 7, Twitter too had locked Gandhi’s account, and subsequently several other handles associated with the Congress, for posting/sharing a photograph of the parents of the 9-year-old victim. A week later, on August 14, Twitter restored Gandhi’s account, after the company claimed that the Congress leader had submitted a consent letter from the victim’s family. However, Gandhi is yet to use the platform since. His last tweet from his verified @RahulGandhi handle was on August 6, when he shared a Hindi couplet on the farmers’ agitation. Meanwhile, photographs of his public interactions during a recent visit to his constituency have been shared on the handle for his constituency, @RGWayanadOffice. On Friday, he chose Facebook to share his thoughts on the 77th birth anniversary of his father and former Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi. A secular India alone is an India that can survive, Gandhi wrote, quoting his father. Remembering Shri Rajiv Gandhi ji on his birth anniversary.
Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments
The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,23,66,382 with the death toll at 4,34,265. American pharma major Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has applied for permission to conduct clinical trials of its single-shot Covid-19 vaccine on adolescents aged 12-17 years in India. The company has moved an application to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) seeking approval. The coronavirus vaccine developed by J&J has demonstrated 85% efficacy in staving off severe Covid-19 disease in its phase 3 trials. Meanwhile, the Drug Controller General has granted emergency approval to the Zycov-D, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadilla group, making it the first vaccine in India that can be administered to adults as well as those 12 and above. It’s also the only DNA-based vaccine in the world and can be administered without a needle, purportedly minimising chances of reactions.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Taliban are rounding up Afghans on blacklist, says private intel report
The Taliban have begun rounding up Afghans on a blacklist of people they believe have worked in key roles with the previous Afghan administration or with U.S.-led forces that supported it, according to a report by a Norwegian intelligence group, Reuters reported. The report, compiled by the RHIPTONorwegian Center for Global Analyses and seen by Reuters, said the Taliban were hunting individuals linked to the previous administration, which fell on Sunday when the Islamist militant movement took Kabul. Taliban are intensifying the hunt-down of all individuals and collaborators with the former regime, and if unsuccessful, target and arrest the families and punish them according to their own interpretation of Sharia law, said the report, dated Wednesday. Particularly at risk are individuals in central positions in military, police and investigative units. The non-profit RHIPTONorwegian Center for Global Analyses, which makes independent intelligence assessments, said the Afghanistan report was shared with agencies and individuals working within the United Nations. This is not a report produced by the United Nations, but rather by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, said a U.N. official, when asked for comment. A Taliban spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Since seizing Kabul, the Taliban have sought to present a more moderate face to the world, saying they wanted peace and would not take revenge against old enemies. The four-page report reproduced a letter it said had been written to one alleged collaborator who was taken from his Kabul apartment this week and detained for questioning over his role as a counter-terrorism official in the previous government. The letter, dated Monday, from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s Military Commission, noted that the detainee had travelled to the UK as part of his role which indicates you have had excellent relations with the American and British. If you do not report to the commission, your family members will be arrested instead, and you are responsible for this. You and your family members will be treated based on Sharia law, the letter said, according to a translation given in the report. Separately, a senior member of the security forces of the ousted administration sent a message to journalists saying that the Taliban had obtained secret national security documents and arresting former intelligence and security staff. Meanwhile, more than 18,000 people have been flown out of Kabul since the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital, a NATO official said on Friday, pledging to redouble evacuation efforts as criticism of the West’s handling of the crisis intensified. Thousands of people, desperate to flee the country, were still thronging the airport, the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters, even though the Taliban have urged people without legal travel documents to go home. The Taliban called for unity ahead of Friday prayers, the first since they seized power, calling on imams to persuade people not to leave Afghanistan amid the chaos at the airport, protests and reports of violence. Residents in Kabul and four other major cities said prayers appeared to have passed off with incident, though attendance was low. A witness told Reuters several people were killed in the eastern city of Asadabad on Thursday when Taliban militants fired on a crowd demonstrating their allegiance to the vanquished Afghan republic, as the Taliban set about establishing an emirate, governed by strict Islamic law. Kabul has been largely calm, except in and around the airport where 12 people have been killed since Sunday, NATO and Taliban officials said.
China formally passes three-child policy into law.
China’s legislature on Friday formally amended the country’s family planning rules to allow couples to have three children, also announcing a number of policy measures aimed at boosting declining birth rates. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, or Parliament, passed an amendment to the Population and Family Planning Law, state media said, adding that the amended law calls on the authorities to take supportive measures, including those in finances, taxes, insurance, education, housing and employment, to reduce families’ burdens as well as the cost of raising and educating children. The ruling Communist Party announced in May that couples in China would for the first time be allowed to have a third child in a relaxation of family planning rules. In 2016, a two-child policy was introduced that largely failed to boost birth rates. China’s regulators in recent weeks have taken drastic measures to reduce education costs – cited in many surveys as a main reason why many couples prefer to have only one child – including by overhauling the booming private education industry, which may be ordered to go non-profit according to reports in the Chinese press. The changes come in the wake of China’s once-in-ten year population census that recorded rapidly declining birth rates over the past decade. The National Bureau of Statistics said on May 11 that 12 million babies were born last year, the lowest number since 1961. The census said China’s population was 1.41 billion in 2020, an increase of 72 million since the last census in 2010. The census recorded 264 million in the age group of 60 and over, up 5.44% since 2010 and accounting for 18.70% of the population. Those in the 1559 age group were 894 million persons, down by 6.79% since 2010 and accounting for 63.35% of the population. China’s workforce in the 15-59 age bracket peaked at 925 million in 2011, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said previously. That number was down to 894 million in this census and would drop to 700 million by 2050. Huang Wenzheng, a fellow at the Center for China and Globalisation, in Beijing, told China Global Television Network (CGTN), an official broadcaster, following the release of the census that the ageing crisis might be the biggest challenge the Chinese nation faces in the next century.
