Backed by senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan, investigation sought against chief justice, top judge

Dangwimsai Pul with Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan

By Our Representative
Creating a major legal controversy, late Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul’s wife, Dangwimsai Pul, has asked India’s vice president Hamid Ansari to take cognizance of a 1991 Supreme Court judgment, consult apex court judges, and “permit” filing of FIR against Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and Justice Dipak Misra.
Dangwimsai Pul said this in a letter during her meeting with Ansari as part of a delegation, which included senior Supreme Court advocate and human rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan, bureaucrat-turned rights activist Harsh Mander, well-known political scientist Yogendra Yadav, and top legal expert Anjali Bhardwaj.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Veeraswami case, the letter wants that the issues mentioned in her husband’s suicide note against the two top dignitaries should be “credibly investigated” by an SIT constituted by 3/5 judges.
Kalikho Pul who, who was Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh from February 19 to July 13, 2016, committed suicide on August 9, 2016, following which 10 copies of his 60-page suicide note and dated August 8, 2016 were found.
The, note titled “Mere Vichaar” (My Thoughts), shows his "anguish about the corrupt state of affairs in politics and in the judiciary in the country", claims Dangwimsai Pul.
According her letter, Pul’s suicide note in particular contains “allegations of corruption against the sitting Chief Justice of India and the next Judge in superiority in the Supreme Court and also against the present President of India.”
“Given the gravity of the allegations contained in the note and the fact that many of them are from his personal knowledge and that a suicide note is treated like a dying declaration, this matter needs to be seriously investigated by a credible investigation team”, the letter says.

“However”, it adds, “Since it also involves the Chief Justice and another sitting Judge of the Supreme Court, to protect the independence of the judiciary, it should not be investigated by any investigative body controlled by the Government.”
The letter quotes from the judgment in the Veeraswami case, which says that “no criminal case shall be registered under Section 154, CrPC against Judge of the High Court, Chief Justice of High Court or Judge of the Supreme Court unless the Chief Justice of India is consulted in the matter.”
The judgment insists, “If the Chief Justice of India himself is the person against whom the allegations of criminal misconduct are received the Government shall consult any other Judge or Judges of the Supreme Court.”
Taking cue from the judgment, the letter believes, “The judgment says that in case there are allegations against the Chief Justice, the President will consult other judges. This, in terms of the spirit of the judgment, would mean the judge/judges next in seniority.”
“Since in this case the allegations are also against the sitting Chief Justice and the sitting President of India, I am therefore addressing this request to you to exercise the authority which normally the President would have exercised in terms of the Veeraswami’s judgment”, the letter concludes.

Comments

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

Counterview Desk
In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers.
Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’.
Pointing out that Evergreen Revol…

Rejoinder: Inescapable to have Central Water Commission as strong technical body in India

By BN Navalawala*
This is with reference to Counterview Blog (December 5, 2018), "Modi govt 'shelves' water reforms report, shows 'no interest' in its recommendations", below mentioned are my comments/observations thereon:
A committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Dr. Mihir Shah, Former Member, Planning Commission, for restructuring of Central Water Commission (CWC) and Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) for optimal development of water resources in the country in the backdrop of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Some Hindu bodies in US defending BJP-RSS' divisive, violent activities: Agnivesh

Counterview Desk Last week, Washington DC saw speakers at a religious freedom roundtable, chaired by the US Ambassador for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, express concern over "eroding" space for religious freedom in India. Dr Mike Ghouse, executive director, of the Center for Pluralism in Washington DC, referring to the roundtable, said in an email alert that Indian-Americans have "a moral duty to prevent India from being labeled as a Country of Particular Concern by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)".

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

Preventing childhood deaths: India performs worse than Bangladesh, "equals" Pakistan

By Rajiv Shah
A just-released study, “The Pneumonia and Diarrhea Progress Report 2018”, prepared by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has identified India among 15 other countries which are still far off the mark in achieving the targets of the Global Action Plan for the Prevention of Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD).

India's rewritten textbooks talk of demerits of democracy, praise Hitler, underrate Mughals

Counterview Desk
A detailed, 3,800-word review of the books rewritten under directions of the BJP rulers across India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014 has suggested that one of aims of the books is to instill a sense of doubt about India’s democratic polity among the country’s young minds. Reviewed in the prestigious US journal, “The New York Review of Books”, in its latest issue (December 6, 2018) by Alex Traub, the scrutiny insists, the effort has also been to paint Indian history from the angle of “Hindu triumphalism”, even as creating “Islamophobia”.

Govt of India "tarnishing" NGO reputation, dossier leaked selectively: Amnesty

Counterview Desk
Amnesty International India has said that a deliberate attempt is being made to tarnish its reputation by leaking a dossier, supposedly made by investigating agencies, to media without giving it access to any such information. The high profile NGO’s claim follows a Times Now report about proceedings launched by investigative agencies, including Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the rights body for “violations” of rules pertaining to overseas donations.

Four children die after poor UP Dalit, Muslim families forced to flee to forest area: PVCHR

Counterview Desk
Peoples’ Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) has said that the forest department police’s crackdown, allegedly without any prior notice, on Dalit and Muslim households in Dakhin Tola, Churk Bazaar, Sonbhadra district, Uttar Pradesh, beating up “children and old people, women, and men in an inhuman way”, has led to “forced displacement, starvation and discrimination”. This has reportedly affected about 350 people.

Social workers, architects, students, historians, common people come together, protest "politics" of renaming Ahmedabad

By Nandini Oza*
No sooner did the BJP leaders of Gujarat announce the intention of changing the name of Ahmedabad to Karnavati just before Diwali, on November 7, 2018, many people’s mood changed from festivity to heated debate and furor across the state. For many of us, an online petition, initiated by Bandish Soparkar, on change.org protesting name change came to immediate rescue.

Vedanta is out but corporate loot continues in Odisha: Local activists tell NAPM yatra

By Our Representative
Lok Shakti Abhiyan leader Prafulla Samantara, winner of the Goldman Environmental (also known as Green Nobel) Prize in 2017, has regretted that though Sundergarh in Odisha, like other forest areas, is a fifth schedule area, where Forest Rights Act (FRA) and Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) is applicable, but these laws are being “outrightly violated to facilitate corporate loot.”

Counterview

Search This Blog