The Supreme Court, in an urgent interim order on September 6, protected Editors Guild of India (EGI) president and three senior journalists from arrest by the Manipur Police for their ground report concluding “bias” on the part of the local media in reporting the ethnic clashes.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud listed the case for a detailed hearing on September 11 and directed the Manipur Police not to take any coercive actions against them in the interregnum.
“Notice. Keep it on Monday... Till the next date of listing, no coercive action will be taken in connection with the FIRs,” Chief Justice Chandrachud dictated in the short interim order.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, who made an urgent oral mentioning before the Chief Justice’s Bench on behalf of the EGI, said they knew that at least two FIRs were registered by the Manipur Police after the report was released on September 2.
The FIRs have accused EGI president Seema Mustafa, Sanjay Kapoor, Seema Guha and Bharat Bhushan of offences under several provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including promoting enmity between different groups. The complaints, based on which the FIRs were registered, accused the EGI report of “incorrect and false statements”.
Divan said the report was prepared by the fact-finding team after extensive travelling and interviews with victims and eyewitnesses between August 7 and 10. An error which crept into the report was corrected promptly, the senior lawyer said.
He said the EGI had serious apprehensions about the right to free speech and personal liberty of the journalists after hearing Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh’s statements in a press conference following the release of the report.
“The Chief Minister said in a press conference he had personally held that the EGI was stoking passions and making provocative statements... Consider the particular dimensions now with the Chief Minister saying this...” Divan submitted.
Advocate Kanu Agrawal, for Manipur, requested the Bench to schedule the case on Monday, or, in the alternative, direct the petitioners to approach the Manipur High Court for relief strictly on the merits of the case.
Though the Chief Justice initially toyed with the idea of giving a four-week protection to the EGI journalists, the court finally settled on September 11. Earlier in the day, the Chief Justice had asked why the journalists had directly moved the Supreme Court in a writ petition without first approaching the High Court.
“You came without going to the High Court,” Chief Justice Chandrachud had asked Divan in the morning.
But after a brief discussion with Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, Chief Justice Chandrachud had told Divan to get the case papers ready. The court finally took up the petition at the end of the board just before rising for the day.
The report spoke about the deep ethnic divide in the media during the violence.
“During the ethnic violence, journalists of Manipur wrote one-sided reports. In normal circumstances, they would be cross-checked and monitored by their editors or chiefs of bureaus from the local administration, police and security forces. However, this was not possible during the conflict,” the report had said.
Shah, Meghwal meet Kovind days after he was appointed head of ‘one nation, one election’ panel
Home Minister Amit Shah and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on September 6 met former president Ram Nath Kovind who heads the committee on simultaneous polls in New Delhi, days after the government notified the panel, sources said.
They described the nearly hour-long meeting as a “courtesy call”.
Efforts are on to hold the first meeting of the high-level committee in the coming days and a venue is being finalised. The meetings in future could also be held in hybrid mode, they said.
The Law Ministry, it is learnt, is in the process of nominating officers who would help the panel and offer it secretarial assistance. On Saturday, the government had notified the high-level committee under Kovind to look into and make recommendations on the issue of holding synchronised polls to the Lok Sabha, State Assemblies and local bodies.
On Sunday, top Law Ministry officials had briefed Kovind and had sought to know how he would like to go about the mandate of the committee. Home Minister Shah, senior advocate Harish Salve, former Lok Sabha secretary general Subhash Kashyap, chairman of the 15th Finance Commission N.K. Singh, former CVC Sanjay Kothari and former leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad are its members.
Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had declined to be part of the committee.
Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is a special invitee. The law secretary has been named as the secretary to the committee.
PM Modi and President Biden to meet on September 8, says White House
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden will hold bilateral talks on September 8 in New Delhi, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed. Biden, who is being closely watched for symptoms of COVID-19, after U.S. First Lady Jill Biden tested positive on Monday, tested negative and is still on track to travel to the capital for the G20 Summit, as per the White House.
In New Delhi, the U.S. will focus on “delivering for developing countries, making progress on key priorities for the American people from climate to technology, and showing our [its] commitment to the G 20,” Sullivan told reporters at Tuesday’s White House press briefing.
Sullivan also said the U.S. welcomed the addition of the African Union as a new permanent member of the G20 and that scaling up and reshaping development banks and institutions (the World Bank and IMF) would also be a focus of the discussions this weekend. Biden will call on G20 countries to provide debt relief for low and middle income countries , and play a constructive role in this, with “no exceptions” , Sullivan said, presumably referring to China’s role as the world’s largest creditor.
Other global issues on the agenda at the G20, as per Sullivan, include the inclusive digital transformation, the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), climate and digital technology and infrastructure investment.
Biden will also call for a “just and durable peace” for Ukraine and respect for the United Nations Charter and international law, following Russia’s on-going invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the conference in New Delhi this weekend.
Sullivan acknowledged that getting consensus on a G20 statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was going to be “challenging” because Russia is a part of the G20.
India’s G20 “sherpa” or top official, Amitabh Kant, is still hopeful of a joint declaration, the Financial Times reported earlier this week, despite objections by Beijing and Moscow on language around Ukraine, borrowed from last year’s G20 Bali summit. In July however, Kant had said that the Russia-Ukraine was not a priority for India’s G20 presidency, but it was working instead on a Leaders’ Declaration focused on issues such as development, multilateral institutions and technological transformation.
During Tuesday’s press briefing, Sullivan assured the U.S. press of access during the G20 after he was asked if the press travelling with Biden to Asia (India and then Vietnam), should expect challenges such as threats and restrictions.
“...We are putting our money where our mouth is in terms of making sure that the American press will have all the access that they need and are entitled to as members of the international press, as members of the White House press,” Sullivan said, adding that Biden had himself spoken about human rights and democracy “as recently as the state visit” [of Modi to the U.S].
Punjab AAP Minister says there is no alliance with Congress
The cracks between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), partners in the newly formed Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) were on display on September 6 after a Cabinet Minister in Punjab, where the AAP is in power, ruled out any alliance with the Congress.
Punjab Tourism Minister Anmol Gagan Maan at a press conference in Chandigarh said there would be no alliance of the AAP with the Congress party in Punjab. “...We are not going to have any alliance with the Congress, the people of Punjab love Bhagwant Mann, they have elected an honest government. We will not tolerate any kind of alliance with the Congress…In Punjab, we will contest independently and there would be no compromise. There would be no seat sharing with the Congress,” Maan said. She was responding to the question of an alliance with the Congress party for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
She said the party’s State unit had taken the decision not to have the alliance in Punjab. “...alliance at the national level is a different thing as it’s between parties to throw out the BJP’s authoritarian government... In Punjab, the political situation is different,” Maan said.
Interestingly, her remark came days after Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema had spoken in favour of the alliance, stating that the INDIA bloc’s objective was very significant, and in the bid to achieve it, “small differences must be kept apart”.
On the other hand, while several senior leaders of the Congress’s Punjab unit continue to be critical of any alliance in Punjab with the AAP, Congress’s former president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday said the decision of the party high command would be supreme.
Several leaders of the Congress’s Punjab unit have been opposing the alliance with the AAP, pointing out to the party’s high command that the AAP had unleashed a “witch-hunt campaign” against Congress leaders and workers allegedly by misusing the police and investigation agencies. Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Tuesday said that his party was preparing to fight all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
In Brief:
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on September 5 left for an almost week-long Europe tour during which he will hold meetings with European Union (EU) lawyers, students and the Indian diaspora, sources said. Gandhi will meet a group of EU lawyers in Brussels on September 7 and also hold a similar meeting in The Hague, they said. According to the sources, the former Congress president will address students at a university in Paris on September 8. He is also slated to participate in a meeting of the Labour Union of France in Paris on September 9. Thereafter, he will visit Norway, where he will address a diaspora event in Oslo on September 10, they said. Gandhi is likely to return by September 11, a day after the G20 summit concludes.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
