Italian Govt reaches SC over its marines
New Delhi: Italian Government on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court challenging invocation of anti-terrorism law against its two marines, saying it “would tantamount to the Republic of Italy being termed a terrorist state”. The petition, which will be taken up by the Supreme Court on January 20, also sought direction to the Centre and NIA to expedite the proceedings in the case or discharge the marines, who are accused of killing two Indian fishermen off Kerala coast in 2012, on the ground of the delay in trial.
CBI to seek info from
Malaysia in coalgate
New Delhi: Taking its probe in coal scam to foreign shores, CBI will soon send a judicial request to Malaysia seeking information about a firm with which one of the accused Indian companies had shown a tie-up to bag a coal block in Chhattisgarh. CBI sources said during the probe it had surfaced that one of the accused companies having financial net worth of Rs two lakh, while applying for a coal block, had shown a tie-up with a Malaysian firm having net worth of about Rs 4,600 crore. The Indian firm showed the net worth of the Malaysian firm as its own to allegedly inflate its financial condition to become eligible for coal block allocation in Chhattisgarh.
Cabinet puts off Rail
Tariff Authority plan
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday put off a proposal to constitute a Rail Tariff Authority (RTA) which is meant to advise the Railway Ministry on fares, an important reform measure for the cash-strapped public transport system. Sources said the proposal could not be taken up as Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge was not present in the Cabinet meeting. A close aide of Kharge said the Minister could not attend the meeting as he is out of town and will be reaching here this evening.
MoEF: No more panels
on Western Ghats
New Delhi: In the wake of row over implementation of Kasturirangan Committee for protection of Western Ghats, the Environment Ministry has ruled out appointment of any more panels on the issue to address concerns of the six States through which the ecologically sensitive hills.
of rehaIJIJtt(IJ|IJIJr which agricultural land is not required to be provided at the relocation site.
Another controversial project queued up for the FAC meeting is the diversion of 313.88 ha of forest land for construction of 700 MW Tato-II Hydro Electric Project on Siyom River in West Siang District of Arunachal Pradesh. The proposal had come up for discussion before the FAC in its earlier meetings.
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NaMo writes to PM
against Home Min
PNS n GANDHINGAR
Condemning Union Home Minister Shushilkumar Shinde’s suggestion of setting up review or screening committees to assess the role of minority youths languishing in jails on terror charges without trial, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene and advise the Minister not to direct his attention to only the minorities as his suggestion was against the Constitutional principles and hit the ‘right to equality before law’.
In a letter to the PM, Modi said that Shinde’s suggestion was unprecedented and marked a new low for the country, while adding that the principles at stake were far too valuable to be sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.
Modi said Shinde’s statement could give out a wrong message about the country’s criminal justice system, while also having a demoralising effect on the entire law enforcement machinery.
“Strict and prompt action against erring police officers should be taken where there is malafide arrest of any member of minority community, wrongfully arrested person should not one be released immediately but they should also be suitable compensated and rehabilitated to join the mainstream,” Modi said.
He attributed the Home Minister’s concern as a brazen and callous attempt to woo the minority community and that even the minority community will raise questions on the timing of such statements. He further stated that the police and public order were state subjects with investigation being an integral part of it, and so, any wrongful and malafide arrest of a citizen, irrespective of his caste or community, should get the same redressal.
“A crime is a crime irrespective of the birth marks of the criminal, and that his religious beliefs could not determine the guilt or innocence,” he said adding that the proposed directive of setting up review committees was against the provision of criminal law, which does not provide for any review committee for withdrawal of pending cases where chargesheets have been filed.
“One cannot rule out the possibility of the trials getting delayed due to such illegal action on the part of the State if the courts were to find fault with such interventions made on extraneous considerations. If this were to happen, undertrial prisoners will end up being under incarceration for longer periods; thus achieving exactly the opposite of the purported objective,” said Modi in the letter.
The BJP PM candidate suggested that the Home Minister should find a solution within the constitutional framework, while mentioning that an acceptable solution would be to fast track all terror cases.
Modi said that the Home Minister’s public statement, without the backing of reliable data, was highly undesirable.