Lok Sabha Ethics Committee, on November 9, adopted a report recommending the expulsion of TMC MP Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha. The report was adopted with a 6-4 vote. The Congress MP Praneet Kaur voted in favour of the report while the other four Opposition MPs submit dissent notes.
Moitra as per the report has been indicted for “unethical conduct” and “contempt of the House” for sharing her Lok Sabha log-in credentials with unauthorised personnel. The panel called this a “serious misdemeanor” and recommended “severe punishment”.
“In view of highly objectionable, unethical, heinous and criminal conduct” the Committee has recommended “intense, legal, institutional inquiry by Government of India (GOI) in a time bound manner.”
The panel has left it for the central government to investigate and establish the money trail. The panel has also admonished its own member and BSP MP Danish Ali for “twisting/moulding the intent of question put forth by Chairperson.”
CPI (M) MP PR Natarajan in his dissent note according to the sources expressed shock at the “unseemly haste and complete lack of propriety and legal requirements in which this so-called enquiry has been conducted.”
Bihar Assembly passes bills to increase quota from 50% to 65%
Bihar assembly on November 9 unanimously passed bills to raise the reservation quota for Backward, Extremely Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from the existing 50% to 65%. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar assured the House members that his government would implement the provisions of the Bill as soon as possible.
Bills providing the same reservation in educational institutions and government jobs drafted in view of the caste survey conducted by the State government recently, were also passed unanimously through voice vote in the state assembly. The amended Bill will now be sent to the Governor for his assent before it becomes law.
The Bill which was passed in the State Assembly said the reservation quota for Extremely Backward Class (EBC) will be raised from the existing 18% to 25%, for Backward Classes from existing 12% to 18%, for Scheduled Castes to 20% from 16% and it will be doubled for the Scheduled Tribes from 1% to 2%. The existing 3% reservation for women from Backward Classes has been scrapped.
The amended Bill was passed while Opposition BJP legislators asked the government, during a debate over the Bill, for some clarifications over 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of the society. “Though our party supports the raise in reservation for which the Bill has been brought in by the government, but we also want to know, has the government included the 10% EWS reservation in the category of 35% khuli gunagun koti (open merit category) bracket?”, asked the BJP legislator from Khajauli in Madhubani district, Arun Shankar Prasad.
Senior state BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav too stood up to ask the government to explain the break-up of the raise in reservations. Responding to them, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said, “Yes, the 10% EWS reservation quota has been included in the 35% open merit category. The Bihar government has proposed increases in reservation only for Backward, Extremely Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes”.
Appeal filed: MEA on case involving 8 Indians on death row in Qatar
An appeal has been filed against the death sentence handed down to eight former Indian Navy personnel by a Qatari court last month, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on November 9.
MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the Indian embassy in Doha received another consular access to the detained Indians on November 7 and that New Delhi will continue to extend all legal and consular support to them.
The eight former Indian Navy personnel were on October 26 given death sentence by Qatar’s Court of First Instance. India described the ruling as “deeply” shocking and vowed to explore all legal options in the case.
“An appeal has already been filed in the case,” Bagchi said at his weekly media briefing. The Indian nationals, who worked with private company Al Dahra, were arrested in August last year reportedly in an alleged case of espionage.
Neither the Qatari authorities nor New Delhi made the charges against the Indian nationals public.
In its reaction to the ruling by the Qatari court, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) last month said it is attaching “high importance” to this case and is exploring all legal options.
The charges were filed against the eight Indian navy veterans on March 25 and they were tried under Qatari law. All of the former Navy officers had “unblemished stints” of up to 20 years in the Indian Navy and had held important positions including that of instructors in the force, former military officials had said.
Supreme Court directs High Courts to monitor expeditious trial of criminal cases against MPs, MLAs
The Supreme Court on Thursday (November 9) gave Chief Justices of High Courts the responsibility to form a Special Bench each in their High Courts to maintain a constant vigil over the criminal trials of Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies, some of them accused of crimes punishable with death or life imprisonment, and ensure they reach the finish line.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, months ahead of the General Elections in 2024, spurred the State High Courts into action to prevent criminals from donning the mantle of lawmakers in the country.
Amicus curiae Vijay Hansaria and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, the petitioner, said 40% of the MPs and MLAs have criminal antecedents.
Delivering the verdict, Chief Justice Chandrachud said the High Courts were best suited for the role of monitoring the trials as they already had the power of superintendence over their respective district judiciary under Article 227 of the Constitution and could easily monitor the status of each case.
The Supreme Court directed the Chief Justices of High Courts to register suo motu cases in their respective jurisdictions titled ‘In re: Designated courts for MPs and MLAs’ to monitor the early disposal of criminal cases pending against the Members of the Parliament and the State Legislative Assemblies.
The Special Bench of each High Court may either be headed by the Chief Justice or comprise judges assigned by the Chief Justice. The High Courts should give Principal District Judges responsibility to allocate the cases to special designated courts for effective disposal of the pending criminal cases.
The designated trial courts should give first priority to cases concerning offences punishable with death or life imprisonment and then for five years’ imprisonment and other charges with lesser punishment. The courts should allow no adjournments unless in rare or compelling circumstances.
The Special Bench of a State should monitor the progress of the trials by listing the suo motu case at regular intervals and by asking for information from the Principal District Judges through status reports on the progress of the pending trial proceedings.
The Special Bench can avail of the assistance of the Advocate Generals of the States concerned and Public Prosecutors. The High Courts should host an independent tab in their official websites providing district wise details of the year of filing of the criminal cases against the legislators and the status of the trial.
The Chief Justices of High Courts should list and hear cases in which there was a stay of the trial passed by the Special Benches and pass appropriate orders, including vacation of the stay orders to ensure commencement and conclusion of the trial.
The court has kept another plea for a life ban on lawmakers with past convictions from contesting elections.
100 billion uses on, Aadhaar authentication down for over 54 hours this year
For over 54 hours, Aadhaar authentication services were interrupted in 2023, representing a significant outage for the largest identity platform in the world. In a Right to Information response to The Hindu, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) revealed that delays in sending one-time passcodes by SMS, and ‘intermittent’ and ‘minor fluctuations’ in authentication were faced by Aadhaar servers for hours-long periods throughout the year till September, amounting to 54 hours and 33 minutes of disruptions.
Aadhaar authentications are key to how the 12-digit identifier functions: while a ‘card’ is typically issued to Indian residents, authentication to access services only happens when someone puts in their fingerprint or keys in an SMS passcode to access rations or verify their identity to access government services.
The UIDAI did not respond to emailed queries on the downtime faced by its servers.
Authentication — which is used in other use cases like Aadhaar-enabled ATM machines and daily employee attendance at some government offices — relies on servers administered by the UIDAI and linkages with telecom operators, which may not always work when needed. Prolonged and repeated outages throw up uncertainty on the reliability of Aadhaar services when they are needed.
Since Aadhaar was launched in 2009, over 100 billion authentications have taken place.
Reetika Khera, an economics professor at IIT Delhi who has closely studied the identity programme for years, said that access and transparency issues on technical failures have long plagued Aadhaar. The data obtained by The Hindu “confirm that technical glitches are baked into the system,” Dr. Khera wrote in an email. “People are being punished and deprived of their entitlements on account of UIDAI’s incompetence,” she charged, citing fieldwork she was involved in where “server problems” kept cropping up.
Dr. Khera said that the UIDAI should publish these outages for all to see on its websites. So far, information on server disruptions are only shared with agencies that have access to these systems to carry out authentications, as and when disruptions occur.
In Brief:
Winter Session of Parliament to run from December 4 to 22, beginning a day after State poll results
The Winter session of Parliament will commence on December 4 and continue till December 22, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said on November 9. In a post on X, he said the session will have 15 sittings spread over 19 days. The report of the Ethics Committee on the “cash-for-query” allegations against TMC MP Mahua Moitra will be tabled in the Lok Sabha during the session. The House will have to adopt the report before the expulsion recommended by the panel comes into effect. Three key bills which seek to replace the IPC, CrPC and the Evidence Act are likely to be taken up for consideration during the session. Another key bill pending in Parliament relates to the appointment of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners.
U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin arrives in India for 2+2 Ministerial dialogue
U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin arrived in India on November 9 for the 2+2 Ministerial dialogue scheduled to be held on November 10. He was received at Palam technical area by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and was given tri-service Guard of Honour. “Secretary Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will co-chair the Ministerial 2+2 Dialogue with Singh and Minister of External Affairs (MEA) Dr S. Jaishankar on November 10. It will be followed by a bilateral meeting between Secretary Austin and Defence Minister,” a Defence Ministry statement said.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
