The Supreme Court Collegium on Thursday stood firm by its resolve to have the government appoint openly gay lawyer Saurabh Kirpal as Delhi High Court judge, saying every individual is “entitled to maintain their own dignity and individuality based on sexual orientation”.
The three-member Collegium of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph took the rare decision to publish the full extent of the government’s objections to Kirpal, based on his sexuality and his “passionate” advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.
The Collegium referred to letters from the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), forwarded by the government, frowning upon Kirpal’s partner being a Swiss national, that they have an “intimate relationship” and the lawyer is “open about his sexual orientation”.
The government, the Collegium said, was also worried that same-sex marriage was not recognised in India though “homosexuality stands decriminalised”.
“Moreover,” the Collegium quoted the Law Minister’s missive of April 2021 stating that Kirpal’s “ardent involvement and passionate attachment to gay rights” did not rule out the “possibility of bias and prejudice”.
Replying to the government, the Collegium said the R&AW did not consider the individual conduct of either Kirpal or his partner as having “any bearing on national security”.
Besides, many constitutional authorities in India have or had foreign spouses. “Many persons in high positions, including present and past holders of constitutional offices have had spouses who are foreign nationals. There can be no objection to the candidature of Shri Saurabh Kirpal on the ground that his partner is a foreign national,” the Collegium said.
Moreover, in this case, Switzerland was a friendly nation, the Collegium pointed out to the Centre.
The Collegium said the fact that Kirpal is open about his sexual orientation goes to his credit. The lawyer’s sexual orientation is his constitutionally recognised right. He has never been “surreptitious” about it. Kirpal, the Collegium said, possessed “competence, integrity and intellect” and he would be an asset to the Delhi High Court as a judge.
“His appointment will add value to the Bench of the Delhi High Court and provide inclusion and diversity,” the Collegium underscored.
If appointed, Kirpal would be India’s first openly gay judge in a High Court. The Collegium however added a line that it “may have been advisable for the candidate [Mr. Kirpal] not to speak to the Press” about his prolonged appointment process.
Kirpal’s name was recommended five years ago by the Delhi High Court Collegium, in October 2017. The Supreme Court Collegium had approved his name in November 2021. The government had returned his file to the Collegium for reconsideration on November 25 last year.
India says BBC documentary on PM Modi ‘a propaganda piece, designed to push a particular discredited narrative’
After British broadcaster BBC broadcasted a two-part docu-series called “India: The Modi Question” on BBC Two, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday said that the series is “a propaganda piece, designed to push a particular discredited narrative.”
“If anything, this film or documentary is a reflection on the agency and individuals that are peddling this narrative again. It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it. Frankly, we don’t wish to dignify such efforts,” the MEA was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
“Do note that this has not been screened in India... We think that this is a propaganda piece, designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly visible,” the Ministry added.
Responding to the criticism from the Foreign Ministry, the BBC said its documentary was “rigorously researched”. “The documentary was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards,” the BBC said in a statement.
“A wide range of voices, witnesses and experts were approached, and we have featured a range of opinions – this includes responses from people in the BJP. We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series – it declined to respond,” the statement added.
Responding to a query from The Hindu asking whether the broadcaster had pulled down the video from YouTube, a BBC spokesperson said, “The documentary on YouTube was not uploaded by the BBC. As is standard practice, we follow procedure to have illegal uploads of any BBC content removed.”
About the series, “India: The Modi Question”, the BBC stated that it “will examine how Narendra Modi’s premiership has been dogged by persistent allegations about the attitude of his government towards India’s Muslim population and a series of controversial policies implemented by Modi following his 2019 re-election, including the removal of Kashmir’s special status guaranteed under Article 370 and a citizenship law that many said treated Muslims unfairly, which has been accompanied by reports of violent attacks on Muslims by Hindus”.
NGOs flag ‘generalised surveillance’ of citizens in Delhi High Court
The Center for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) on Thursday flagged what they said was “generalised surveillance” of Indian citizens by the Government, in an ongoing case before the Delhi High Court.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan argued on behalf of the non-profits that in a “press release,” the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said that the “government has ordered us to provide all the traffic which goes through the internet to their [Centralised] Monitoring System (CMS).“
Bhushan was referring to a regulatory submission that was obtained from the Department of Telecommunications in November 2022, where the ISPAI admitted that broadband providers “are mandated to connect their systems to the CMS facility”, and that “law enforcement agencies are provided facility for on-line and real-time monitoring of traffic.”
“This effectively means everything— all our private communications, all our emails, all our phone calls, everything will be piped into the Central Monitoring System,” Bhushan charged in court. Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, representing the Union Government, said that similar matters were pending before the Supreme Court, and asked the court for time to respond to SFLC’s affidavit.
“This kind of centralised monitoring [is] taking place through these three systems: the Central Monitoring System, NETRA and NATGRID, these are generalised surveillance [programmes], not [done] on a case-to-case basis,” Bhushan said, referring to three communications interception systems the Government runs to intercept network and call traffic. The Government has insisted that it uses these systems with safeguards and due process.
Bhushan pointed out, however, that the Government said in Parliament that the home secretary approves 7,500 to 9,000 interception requests a month. “It is impossible for any single human being to be able to scrutinise these many requests in a month and give permissions on any reasonable basis,” Bhushan said. “It’s a very serious matter.”
“It’s a very serious matter on maintainability also,” Sharma shot back. “Without pointing out a single instance, a generalised carte blanche is raised.”
In the additional affidavit filed by the petitioners, a copy of which The Hindu has reviewed, the non-profits accused the government of “mislead[ing] this Hon’ble Court” in their past affidavits in the case, and demanded that the Government place the “correct facts” on record.
A two judge bench of Delhi High Court chief justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Subramonium Prasad ordered the Government to file a reply in the case within six weeks.
Wrestlers’ sexual harassment charges | Heads must roll and PM Modi should speak up, says Congress
Prime Minister Narendra Modi should break his “silence” on the allegations of sexual exploitation against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the Congress said on January 19.
The party questioned the reason for the delay in taking the resignations of those persons against whom serious allegations of sexual harassment have been made by renowned wrestlers.
The attack by the Congress comes after shocking accusations by star wrestler Vinesh Phogat on January 18 that WFI president Singh has been sexually exploiting women wrestlers for years. The charge was, however, categorically rejected by Singh.
“Our players are the pride of the country. They bring laurels to the country by their performance at the world level. The players have made serious allegations of exploitation against the Wrestling Federation of India and its president. Their voices should be heard, their allegations must be investigated and appropriate action must be taken,” Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also took to Twitter to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi “why all those who oppress women are members of the BJP”.
“Kuldeep Sengar, Chinmayanand, father-son duo Vinod Arya and Pulkit Arya... and now this new case! The list of BJP leaders committing atrocities against women is endless. Mr. PM, was ‘Beti Bachao’ a warning to save daughters from BJP leaders? India is waiting for an answer,” Ramesh tweeted.
“Yesterday, you said that a better environment has been created for sports in the past eight years. Is this the ‘better environment’, in which even our daughters who bring laurels to the country are unsafe?” he added, referring to a speech of Modi on January 18 in which the Prime Minister had said that “a better environment for sports has been created and now more children and youths are looking at sports as a career option”.
Addressing a press conference at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in New Delhi, Congress’ media department head Pawan Khera said Singh’s resignation should have come on January 18 itself.
“That should have been the first step. Had it been any other sensitive government, it should have happened immediately,” Khera said, adding “The Sports Minister [Anurag Thakur] should speak out. The Prime Minister should speak out, there should be resignations, and heads should roll immediately. This should have happened long back, 24 hours is too long a time. The silence is more shocking than what has happened.”
Air India imposes four-month flying ban on Shankar Mishra over ‘urination’ incident
Air India has imposed a four-month flying ban on Shankar Mishra, who is accused of urinating on a woman co-passenger onboard a flight in November last year, a source said on January 19.
The incident happened on an Air India flight from New York to Delhi on November 26, 2022. Currently, Mishra is in jail and the case is before a Delhi court. He was allegedly in an inebriated state at the time of the incident.
The source said the airline has imposed a flying ban on Mishra for four months.
The flying ban was recommended by a three-member internal committee set up under DGCA norms. Specific details could not be immediately ascertained.
On January 4, Air India said it had imposed a 30-day travel ban on Mishra but did not disclose the specific date from which the ban came into force. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on January 5, issued notices to the officials and crew of the New York-Delhi flight, asking why action should not be taken against them for “dereliction” of duty while handling the November 26 ‘urination’ incident.
“The conduct of the concerned airline appears to be unprofessional and has led to a systemic failure,” the regulator had said about the incident.
DGCA has issued show cause notices to the accountable manager of Air India, its director in-flight services, all the pilots and cabin crew members of that flight as to why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligations.
The woman, who had accused Mishra of urinating on her on the flight, on January 13 rejected the claims made by him that she seems to have urinated on herself, saying these are “completely false and concocted and by their very nature are disparaging and derogatory”.
Mishra’s counsel, while arguing against a police petition seeking revision of an order passed by a magisterial court refusing his custodial interrogation, on January 12 claimed that he did not commit the offence, and that she urinated on herself.
Delhi women’s panel chief Swati Maliwal dragged by intoxicated car driver
Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal was allegedly dragged by a car in the early hours of January 19 near AIIMS Hospital in South Delhi, police said.
According to the police, a person, driving a Maruti Suzuki Baleno, approached her when she was standing near the hospital and asked her to sit in his car. When Maliwal tried to reprimand the man, he pulled his window glass up, resulting in Maliwal’s hand getting stuck in the window, South district DCP Chandan Chowdhary said, adding that Maliwal was then dragged for about 10-15 metres.
Maliwal, in a tweet, raised questions about women’s safety in the National Capital. “I was inspecting the state of women’s safety in Delhi last night. A drunk man in a car misbehaved with me and when I caught him, he stuck my hand in the window glass and dragged me. God saved my life,” she wrote in Hindi.
“You can imagine the condition [of women’s safety] if the chairperson of the Women’s Commission is not safe in Delhi,” added Maliwal.
The police have arrested the driver of the car, Harish Chandra, and have registered a case under IPC Sections 323, 341, 354, 509, and Section 185 of the Motor Vehicle Act, the DCP said.
Draft amendment to IT Rules: Surreptitious assault on free speech, smacks of Orwellian Big Brother syndrome: Congress
The Congress on January 19 termed as “surreptitious assault on free speech” the new amendment in the draft IT Rules asking social media companies to take down news articles that have been deemed “fake” by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), and demanded its withdrawal.
The Opposition party also said the rules be discussed threadbare in the forthcoming Parliament session.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on January 17 released a modification to the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which it had previously released for public consultation.
The addition in the “due diligence section” for social media intermediaries states an intermediary shall not be allowed to publish information that “deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation” that has been “identified as fake or false by the fact check unit at the PIB of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorised by the Central government for fact-checking”.
Slamming the government, the Congress’ head of media department Pawan Khera alleged that for the Narendra Modi Government, IT rules stand for “image tailoring” rules.
If the Modi Government ‘fact checks’ online news, who will ‘fact check’ the Union Government, Khera asked at a press conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi.
“Muzzling the Internet and censoring online content through PIB is the Modi Government’s definition of ‘fact checking’,” he said.
“In an unprecedented move, which smacks of the Orwellian ‘Big Brother Syndrome’ — the Modi Government has anointed itself to be the judge, jury and executioner of online content regulation.” Khera said the amendment essentially means that PIB’s fact-checking unit has become a “judge” in taking down content which might not suit the Modi Government’s image. He also alleged that “bulldozing” the press is not new for the Modi Government. “The popular term ‘godi media’ is now ingrained in the psyche of most Indians, and now this government wants to make it ‘godi social media’,” Khera claimed.
He said the Congress strongly condemns this “surreptitious assault on free speech and vile censorship”. “We demand that the new amendment in the Draft IT Rules be immediately withdrawn and that these rules be discussed threadbare in the forthcoming session of the Parliament,” he said.
In Brief:
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on January 19 said she is stepping down as New Zealand’s leader and will not contest general elections set for October. Fighting back tears, Ardern told reporters in Napier that February 7 will be her last day in office. She will hold her seat as a lawmaker until the general election, which she said would be held on October 14. “I am not leaving because it was hard. Had that been the case I probably would have departed two months into the job. I am leaving because with such a privileged role, comes responsibility, the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead, and also, when you are not. I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice.” she said.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
