The Supreme Court on August 4, 2023, stayed the conviction of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case for the ‘Modi’ surname remark he allegedly made during a political rally in 2019. The stay has paved the way for Gandhi to return to Parliament. He can participate in the ongoing monsoon session if the Lok Sabha Secretariat restores his membership.
A three-judge Bench headed by Justice B.R. Gavai, also comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and Sanjay Kumar, pointed out that the Gujarat trial judge, other than severely admonishing Gandhi for his alleged remarks, failed to give even a single reason for serving the Congress leader with the maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment.
The court said the Magistrate had insisted on handing the Congress leader the severest punishment when the penal code allowed a choice between imprisonment and fine or both. The Gujarat High Court too, the Supreme Court Bench said, while waxing eloquent about the various aspects of the case in a “voluminous” 120-page judgment had somehow skipped addressing the issue of complete lack of reasons for giving Gandhi the maximum punishment.
The top court said Gandhi was disqualified as MP from the Parliament for a total of eight years under Section 8(3) of the Representation of People Act solely due to the two-year sentence. “Had the duration of the sentence been a day less, provisions of the Act would not have been attracted… The judge is expected to give reasons for imposing maximum sentence, particularly when the offence is non-cognisable, bailable and compoundable,” Justice Gavai observed.
The Bench noted that “disqualification not only affects the rights of the individual but also that of the electorate he represents in the Parliament… the ramifications are wide”.
“Is it not a factor that an entire constituency which elects a person will go unrepresented,” Justice Gavai asked. Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi and advocate Prasanna S., for Gandhi, said the courts below had condemned the Congress leader to silence for eight years.
“There is room for dissent in democracy. There should be mutual respect in politics,” Singhvi said. But the Supreme Court said Gandhi’s alleged remarks, if made, were “not in good taste”.
“A person in public life is expected to exercise a degree of caution while making public speeches… The petitioner [Mr. Gandhi] ought to have been more careful,” it observed.
The court reminded Gandhi of how it had advised him to be more careful in future with his public utterances while accepting his apology for his “chor” remarks during the previous general elections. During the hearing, Singhvi submitted that he had not seen any other defamation case in which a maximum two-year sentence had been awarded to an accused.
He said there had been no reason for the Gujarat High Court to reject Gandhi’s plea to stay the conviction. He said the case did not entail heinous offences such as rape, kidnap or murder, which involves moral turpitude. Singhvi said Gandhi stood convicted of defaming an “amorphous group”.
Gandhi had already missed two Parliament sessions. A list of cases filed against him show they were all by BJP “karyakartas”, Singhvi argued. He debunked submissions that Gandhi had criminal antecedents.
Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, for defamation complainant and Gujarat BJP MLA Purnesh Modi, argued that there were official witnesses, tapes and recordings of Gandhi’s comments. He said the electronic evidence showed a “clear intent” to defame an entire community of people with the ‘Modi’ surname because of his hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
When asked in court, Gandhi had maintained that he did not remember his remark.
“How many politicians remember their speeches… They make at least 10 a day,” Justice Gavai remarked.
Challenging the July 7 Gujarat High Court decision which upheld his conviction, Gandhi asked how an “undefined amorphous group” could possibly be defamed in the first place.
Justice Rohit Deo of Bombay High Court, who discharged Prof. Saibaba, resigns in open court
Justice Rohit Deo of the Bombay High Court resigned in open court from office on August 4. Justice Deo sitting at the Nagpur Bench of the High Court had the assignment of hearing civil cases and on Friday discharged all the matters listed before him.
As per the lawyers present in court, Justice Deo apologised in open court and said that he has no hard feelings against anyone and that he is sorry if he had hurt anyone. He told lawyers to continue to work hard and apologised for being strict with them on certain occasions.
According to some lawyers and court staff, Justice Deo resigned because he received a lot of flak for passing two judgments in the recent past. On July 26, this year, Justice Deo had stayed a government resolution issued on January 3, 2023, that gave the Maharashtra government the power to cancel punitive proceedings by the Revenue Department related to any illegal excavation of minor minerals by contractors in the construction or execution work of Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Expressway.
On October 14, 2022, Justice Rohit had discharged Prof G.N. Saibaba, a 90% physically disabled, wheelchair bound convict in jail for nine years. The Bench headed by justice Deo had held the sessions court order of convicting Saibaba was “null and void” and set it aside in the absence of valid sanction under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. However, the Supreme Court on April 19, 2023, had stayed the acquittal.
On December 27, 2016, the Maharashtra Cabinet had appointed the then advocate general Deo as an additional judge of the High Court on June 5, 2017, and he was made a permanent judge on April 12, 2019. He was set to retire on December 4, 2025.
Advocate Nihalsingh Rathod who had appeared before Justice Deo on several occasions before the Nagpur Bench told The Hindu, “Justice Deo was a very bold and courageous judge. He was very judicious and always encouraged young lawyers to do better. His resignation is a loss to the Indian judiciary.”
Supreme Court allows non-invasive survey of Gyanvapi mosque
The Supreme Court, on August 4, 2023, allowed non-invasive survey of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The Supreme Court also directed the ASI to not conduct any excavations and the survey report be submitted in the Allahabad High Court.
The Supreme Court was hearing the matter after the Anjuman Intazamia Mosque Committee, managing the Gyanvapi mosque, had approached the top court following the Allahabad High Court’s order allowing the ASI to conduct the survey.
The mosque committee, represented by senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, argued that the survey, originally ordered by the District Judge was to find out if a Hindu temple existed underneath. He said the survey would go against the grain of the Places of Worship Act.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the Uttar Pradesh government and senior advocate Madhavi Divan submitted that the ASI would not conduct any excavation inside the premises and argued that the ASI’s job was to preserve history and not destroy it.
Earlier in the day, the ASI resumed its scientific survey of the mosque premises after the Allahabad High Court, on August 3, upheld the Varanasi Court’s order to conduct the survey. The High Court had noted that the survey was “necessary in the interest of justice and shall benefit the plaintiffs and defendants alike and aid the trial court in arriving at a just decision”.
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How will age-based certification for movies brought in by the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2023 work?
The Rajya Sabha on July 27 passed the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2023. This bill, among other things, brings in age-based certification for films and stringent penalties for piracy. It also provides for separate certification for the exhibition of films on TV and ‘other media’
So, what was the need for these changes to the Cinematograph Act, 1952? How will the age-based certification work and would it be in consonance with the age-based ratings in other countries? And how significant are the new provisions against piracy?
Next Opposition meeting will be held in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1
The next meeting of the INDIA parties will be held on August 31 and September 1 in Mumbai. The meeting which is being organised by Shiv Sena (Udhav) and NCP (Pawar) will be the first to be held in a State where the INDIA partners are not in government.
The meeting which was earlier scheduled for August 25-26 had to be deferred after several leaders said that they have other commitments on those days. This is the third meeting of the coalition and according to the sources, before the 2024 General Elections, there will be at least five to six rounds of such meetings.
The big agenda for the upcoming meeting is fixing the 11-member coordination panel. Though the coalition has 26 parties so far, it was decided that one representative will be drawn from 11 parties that includes- Congress, TMC, DMK, AAP, JD(U), RJD, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP, JMM, Samajwadi Party and CPI(M), so that the decision-making bodies does not become unweildy.
Primary, upper primary govt. schools in Bihar in danger of being replaced by cheap, dingy tuition centres, says report
A survey report on 81 randomly selected primary and upper primary schools (middle schools) in north Bihar says government schools are in danger of being “replaced by cheap and dingy tuition centers” and “urgent action is required to address this crisis”. The report was released on Friday by a non-governmental organisation, Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan (JJSS) and guided by noted economist Jean Dreze.
The survey was conducted across 11 blocks of two districts of Araria and Katihar of north Bihar in 81 randomly selected government schools (40 primary and 41 upper primary schools) with at least 50% enrolment of students from socially and disadvantaged groups (Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste, Other Backward Class and Muslims). “The survey reveals a serious failure to ensure even minimum norms of schooling in north Bihar. Inadequate resources, ineffective policies and indifferent action are the issues these schools face and which can be seen as a reflection of their interdependent failures. The COVID-19 pandemic not only exacerbated these issues but also added new ones”, said the 32-page report.
“Given the sorry state of government schools, many students rely on private tuitions. Though small and Spartan in infrastructure, private tuitions are very popular and have started acting as a replacement to a failing schooling system in rural north Bihar. A nexus has been formed between dysfunctional government schools and private tuitions, where the role of the school has been reduced to merely providing a midday meal and arranging examinations”, said the report. “Education is important for all and everything depends on quality education. It is sad that government school students go to private tuition at the time of school”, said Jean Dreze.
However, Additional Chief Secretary of the State Education department K.K. Pathak had recently issued a directive to private coaching institutions asking them not to operate during school timings (from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) on all working days. Pathak had written letters to all district magistrates in 38 districts and asked them to ensure coaching institutions in their areas do not operate during school hours.
Meanwhile, the JJSS survey report titled “Where are the kids?” said that “pupil attendance in primary and upper primary schools is barely 20%” and none of these schools meet the norms of the Right to Education Act. “There are acute teacher shortages, with only 35% of primary schools and 5% upper primary schools meeting RTE norms on pupil-teacher ratio which is one teacher per 30 children.”
Besides, “the Direct Benefit Transfer [DBT] scheme for textbooks and uniform for students forces a cruel choice on poor families in buying textbooks / uniforms or basic necessities and the result is not hard to guess as many children have no textbooks or uniforms,” stated the report. Under the DBT system, money is sent to children’s bank accounts (or, to their parent’s account, if need be) on the understanding that it is to be used for buying uniforms and textbooks. “The DBT money does not always reach the children or their parents as it is conditional on 75% school attendance and also requires an Aadhaar–linked bank account. DBT payments also fail due to Aadhaar-related problems following discrepancies in child’s name between Aadhaar card and school register or Know Your Customer [KYC] problems at the bank”, said the report. “Demanding Aadhaar from school children is a violation of Supreme Court orders”, said Kamayani Swami of the JJSS.
The survey report also highlighted that the schooling system suffered a heavy blow during the COVID crisis as “a majority of teachers feel that most children in classes 1-5 had forgotten how to read and write by the time schools reopened after the COVID crisis got over. “While a minority of privileged children were able to study online or in private tuition, others were left to fend for themselves and this has exacerbated existing inequalities in educational opportunities”, it added.
HC seeks Centre, ECI, 26 political parties’ stand on plea against use of INDIA for alliance
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Amit Mahajan issued notices to the petition filed by Girish Bharadwaj, saying it “requires hearing”. The bench, however, refused to grant any interim relief at this stage and said that no order can be passed without hearing the opposite parties.
“We can’t pass any order like this. Let the response of the other side come. We will definitely look into it,” the bench said.
Bharadwaj said the prominent leaders and members of 16 of the 26 political parties mentioned in the memo of parties of the petition gathered at Patna in Bihar on June 23 to form an alliance for contesting the upcoming general election of 2024 and decided to meet again at Bengaluru to prepare a strategy and choose the name of alliance and its convenor.
The petition said on July 17, these political parties gathered in Bengaluru to give shape to further strategies for the 2024 general election and the name of the alliance was announced to be INDIA.
The plea has sought interim order staying the use of acronym INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) by the political parties and to also prohibit the use of the national flag with the acronym INDIA by the respondent political alliance.
The plea referred to the statements of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. “...by dragging the name of our Nation Mr. (Rahul) Gandhi very cunningly presented the name of their alliance as the name of our nation and tried to show that the NDA/ BJP and Hon’ble Prime Minister Mr. (Narendra) Modi is in conflict with our own nation, that is, INDIA”.
“This attempt of Mr. Gandhi had created confusion in the mind of common people that the upcoming general election of 2024 will be a fight between political parties or between alliance and our country,” the plea said.
“That by creating this confusion the respondent political parties want to take undue advantage in the name of our country,” the plea added. Bharadwaj said that he gave a representation to the ECI but no action was taken after which he approached the high court with the petition.
In Brief:
The Lok Sabha on August 4 quickly discussed and passed amid Opposition sloganeering, the Indian Institutes of Management (Amendment) Bill, 2023 and Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Bill, 2023. The National Research Foundation Bill and Private Members’ Bills were also introduced. In Rajya Sabha, the treasury benches demanded a debate on atrocities against women in Rajasthan and the Opposition continued its demand for a debate on Manipur. The House devolved into chaos and was adjourned for the day.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
Published - August 04, 2023 08:29 pm IST
