📰 Constitution Bench to hear plea on bid to sway SC judge
CBI has lodged an FIR in which a former Orissa High Court judge has been named as an accused.
•A Constitution Bench, on November 13, will hear a petition regarding a corruption case involving a former Odisha High Court judge who allegedly conspired with a "hawala dealer" to influence the outcome of a case pending in the Supreme Court in favour of a debarred private medical college.
•The petition seeks an investigation into the case by a special team, supervised by a former Chief Justice of India. The Bench will comprise "first five judges of the Supreme Court in the order of seniority".
•The medical college case in question was heard by a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in August/September this year.
•The petition filed by Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal, represented through senior advocate Dushyant Dave and advocate Abhimanue Shrestha , submitted that the CBI had registered an FIR and was investigating the corruption case.
•The two-judge Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Deepak Gupta, who referred the petition to the Constitution Bench, noted its alarm at the contents of the FIR. “The FIR contained certain allegations which are disturbing. The allegations pertain to the functioning of this Court,” Justice Chelameswar recorded in the court order.
Chief Justice Misra
•The petition has asked the Supreme Court to shift the case from the CBI to a Special Investigation Team led by a retired Chief Justice of India to ensure a fair investigation. It said that as the case involves “corruption in the very highest echelons of power, including the justice delivery system”, a probe by the CBI, a government-controlled agency, may affect the independence of the judiciary.
•“As it appears from the FIR recorded by the CBI, attempts were being made to unduly and illegally influence the outcome of the petition which was pending before this Hon’ble Court…The FIR lodged by the CBI names a retired judge of a High Court as an accused, who was allegedly negotiating through a middle man to get the favourable order in a petition pending in this Hon’ble Court. The said petition was being heard by a bench headed by the present Chief Justice of India. The FIR therefore casts cloud on the judiciary at the highest level,” the petition noted.
•Significantly, the petition urged that Chief Justice Misra should not be part of the Bench hearing it because the top judge had previously dealt with the medical college case under scanner.
•“As the allegations pertain to a case which was being heard by a bench headed by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, propriety demands that the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, ought not to deal with the present petition either on the judicial side or even on the administrative side. Therefore, the present petition can neither be heard by a bench presided by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India nor can it be assigned to any other bench by his Lordship in his administrative capacity,” the petition contended.
•It has to be seen whether Chief Justice Misra would be leading the Constitution Bench on November 13.
"Integrity of the judicial institution at stake"
•The petition quoted the CBI’s FIR alleging a “bribery scandal” which names retired Odisha High Court judge I.M. Quddusi, Delhi resident Bhawana Pandey and “hawala operator” Biswanath Agarwal, all of whom hatched a conspiracy with the management of Uttar Pradesh-based Prasad Education Trust to influence its case in the Supreme Court in exchange for a “very large illegal gratification”. The Trust's medical college was debarred by the Medical Council of India for sub-standard infrastructure and facilities.
•The petition quoted news reports that CBI raids in connection with the case saw seizure of close to ₹2 crore in cash and several incriminating documents. The agency had also seized ₹1 crore, which the hawala operator had handed over to an aide of the retired judge.
•Events began to unfold on Thursday morning when Mr. Dave mentioned the petition before Justice Chelameswar’s Bench. Mr. Dave launched into a short narrative of the contents and allegations in the FIR and requested the Bench to hear the matter as soon as possible. Mr. Dave said the integrity of the judicial institution was at stake.
•Usually, urgent matters like this are mentioned before the Chief Justice’s Bench. But Chief Justice Misra was at the time heading a Constitution Bench hearing the Centre-Delhi power tussle over who should administer the National Capital.
•Moved by Mr. Dave’s submissions, Justice Chelameswar posted the matter at 12.45 p.m. Post noon, the Constitution Bench hearing before Chief Justice Misra in the Centre-Delhi spat came to an abrupt halt.
•Meanwhile, Justice Chelameswar’s court called Mr. Dave’s case at the scheduled time. However, the proceedings witnessed an officer of the Registry of Supreme Court hand over to Justice Chelameswar a xerox copy of some “proceedings purportedly issued by the Chief Justice of India” in the corruption case.
•But this did not have any effect on Justice Chelameswar’s Bench. Justice Chelameswar went on to place on record the document given to him by the Registry officer. Justice Chelameswar then proceeded to order the Constitution Bench to be set up and hear the corruption case on November 13.
•“Having regard to the totality of the circumstances, we deem it appropriate that this matter be heard by the Constitution Bench of the first five Judges in the order of seniority of this Court. Having regard to the importance of the matter, we also deem it appropriate that the matter be listed on Monday, the 13th November, 2017,” Justice Chelameswar ordered.
•Besides, in an interim order, Justice Chelameswar directed the case diary, materials and evidence collected so far by the CBI in the corruption case to be sealed and produced before the Constitution Bench on November 13. Justice Chelameswar recorded that these precautionary measures to keep the evidence safe was necessary “having regard to the nature of the case”.
📰 It takes a village
Audience and actors share their stories during a Playback Theatre show at Oragadam, a suburb on the outskirts of the city
•Playback Theatre brings together audiences, actors and musicians on one platform. In the words of Jonathan Fox, co-founder of the art form, “It is a stage for expression not just for the actors, but also for the audience.” He believes that every individual is a potential actor and encourages the audience to participate. This is the reason why he was at Oragadam, this weekend, encouraging the audience to talk to the performers. The resulting performance was a fascinating pastiche of their stories.
•The play opened by enacting basic concerns of the audience that night, from demonetisation to how to save money. The mood gradually became more intense as the people began to open up. It was fascinating to see them discuss serious issues, and then observe reactions as the actors presented their stories. It was also clearly cathartic. On being asked how they felt about the play, everyone said that they felt happy.
•Jonathan Fox, along with his wife Jo Salas, began the first ever playback theatre company in New York 41 years ago. Since then, there have been several similar companies launched, which has resulted in the form spreading in over 65 countries.
•In India, the Sterling Playback Theatre company, started by Cyril Alexander with wife Amutha Thomas, has just completed 16 years. They have done almost 150 performances in the past five years alone. This event was part of a six-day fest to celebrate their 16th anniversary, which included acting workshops and a masterclass with Jonathan Fox.
📰 India, China to hold border talks next month
Talks come after the 73-day stand-off at Doklam
•India and China will hold the 20th round of border talks in the end of December, the first since the 73 day standoff at Doklam.
•“Starting next month the bilateral exchanges will begin. The first one is of our foreign minister Wang Yi who will attend the India-China-Russia foreign ministers meeting here… Then our State Counsellor Yang Jiechi he will come to attend the 20th round of border talks… So these two very important visits by the two leaders will start a new chapter for our bilateral relations,” said Li Bijian, Minister Counsellor in the Chinese Embassy. He was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Observer Research Foundation on Thursday.
•Mr. Yang has been made a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party and will become the Chinese Vice-Premier in charge of foreign policy next year.
•Mr. Li said that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Xiamen after the Doklam incident in September they reached a consensus to take forward bilateral relations and these visits were part of the initiative.
•The last round of boundary talks between the two Special Representatives, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Mr. Yang were held in China in April last year.
•The two armies got into a standoff at Doklam on June 16 after Indian soldiers prevented Chinese from building a road in disputed territory near the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction and after tough diplomatic negotiations announced disengagement on August 28. In this backdrop, there are wide spread apprehensions on the future course of the border talks.
•Speaking on the just concluded 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, Mr. Li said it was an opportunity for India.
•“In the next 30 years the main task of the Chinese Government is development. In the last five years of Mr. Xi’s rule 60 million people have been brought out of poverty. But we still have 40 million below poverty. India also has a similar task. We can share our experiences in development,” he said.
•He added that a strong and developing China gives opportunities in trade, investment and consumption.
📰 GST Council to tighten norms for Composition Scheme
•The twenty-third meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in Guwahati on Friday is set to tighten the noose on players who, authorities believe, have started splitting their business operations into smaller entities to avoid higher tax liabilities.
•The Council is also set to cut tax rates on a large number of product lines.
•The Council is expected to further liberalise the Composition Scheme for small businesses and traders to pay a flat and low tax on their turnover.
•The annual turnover eligibility threshold is likely to be raised to ₹1.5 crore from the ₹1 crore limit, imposed at the Council’s October meeting.
Parallel economy
•However, the government is concerned about the emergence of a parallel economy despite the restrictions on the Composition Scheme, whose original threshold limit was just ₹75 lakh a year.
•A Group of Ministers tasked with simplifying the Composition Scheme is learnt to have recommended a new regulation that would bar all associated enterprises from participating in the scheme, if their combined turnover crosses the specified threshold limit.
•“We understand that businesses are getting fragmented to take advantage of the Composition Scheme. Existing firms are creating multiple entities so that the turnover of each entity remains below the threshold,” said an official.
•He stressed that this not only meant a loss of revenue for the exchequer but also dents the ease of doing business in the country.
•“The Central and State GST laws already define associated enterprises in line with the Income Tax Act, which lays down, among other parameters, common management, control and shareholding patterns among different firms to determine if they are linked,” said a tax expert who didn’t want to come on record till a formal decision was taken in this regard.
•While the Prime Minister assured last Saturday that the GST Council could resolve almost all woes faced by businesses under the fledgling indirect tax regime, he attached a caveat that some States could thwart some of the proposed simplification measures.
•Officials said the Council is likely to consider a proposal to permit firms making inter-State good supplies to participate in the Composition Scheme, but smaller States that are largely consumers, have reservations on the idea as it could impact their revenues.
•At the same time, businesses in Delhi, for instance, become ineligible for the Composition Scheme, even if a minor part of their sales are to customers in Gurugram and Noida.
•“Small States may have legitimate concerns, but the restriction on inter-State supplies by businesses under the Composition Scheme could also fuel the prospects for more informal trade outside the tax net,” an official said, adding that States have in any case been assured of compensation for revenue losses for the first five years of the GST regime.
Restaurant rates
•Separately, while the group of ministers has recommended harmonizing the tax rates on all restaurants to 12% instead of differential rates for those that have air-conditioners or a liquor licence, the revenue department is worried about a potential revenue loss of ₹4,000 crore from the move as well as the implications of offering such businesses input tax credits for their raw materials and rent.
•The GoM has also not been able to arrive at a consensus on the question of whether supplies from small firms that are part of the Composition Scheme should translate into input tax credits for larger firms who buy from them. The GST Council, where States and the Centre have so far resolved issues by consensus, will have several knotty questions on its plate.
📰 Olive Ridleys keep date with Odisha coast, arrive in large numbers
•Olive Ridley turtles have kept their date with Gahirmatha beach in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, known as world’s largest rookery of this endangered species, arriving just offshore for mating in large numbers.
•“Olive Ridley pairs have been seen floating near Gahirmatha coast since October last week. We hope that turtles would scale the sand slope in large number to lay eggs in January and February,” said Bimal Prasad Acharya, Divisional Forest Officer of Mangrove Forest Division (Wildlife), Rajnagar, on Thursday.
•Offshore congregation of Olive Ridley pairs has been observed along 8 km of the Habelighati shoreline. The spectacular sight fascinates nature lovers and scientists.
•To ensure safe mating, day and night patrolling has been intensified so that fishing attempts can be checked, said Subrat Patra, Gahirmatha forest range officer. Mechanised fishing spells the biggest trouble for turtles as they get entangled in the trawl net.
•The forest division recently got a shot in the arm with the acquisition of two speed boats -- with the assistance of World Bank -- which have enabled wildlife teams to patrol the entire stretch of Gahirmatha sanctuary in five to six hours as against the earlier 11-12 hours.
•In 2016-17, around 9.75 lakh Olive Ridley turtles came out from the sea to lay eggs along the Odisha coast. Nasi II Island of Gahirmatha Sanctuary had alone hosted six lakhs. As per the forest department estimates, 20.22 lakh hatchlings finally emerged from egg shells in Gahirmatha.
•Following a high-level meeting held here in the third week of October, a central monitoring unit was set up in the Principal Chief Wildlife Warden’s office to coordinate with law-enforcing bodies for ensuring smooth mass-nesting of turtles, which begins in November and continues till May.
•Sporadic nesting activities of the turtles and their mortality are also being monitored through a web portal, www.manage.odishawildlife.org. It has also been decided that rookeries would be fenced to protect the nests and eggs after the mass nesting.
📰 Will bank recapitalisation fix NPAs?
This will give the banking system time to enhance its credit portfolio
•The move on the part of the government to inject capital of ₹2.11 lakh crore into public sector banks (PSBs) is commendable and a decisive step.
•In making this move, there was an implied acceptance that the recovery process set up through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) reform had not been working at the desired pace. When the Reserve Bank of India asked PSBs to work on the recovery process for 12 large exposures which account for 50% of the total non-performing assets (NPAs) worth ₹8 lakh crore in the banking system, it was expected that by December 2017, the banks would recover about ₹ 2 lakh crore. But it’s already November and we know that recovery is eluding us and the process may take longer. Till then the banking system will starve for capital.
Capital needs
•In addition, the first few resolutions that have taken place so far have suggested that the size of the haircuts the banking system is expected to take will perhaps be much more than the original estimate of about 50% of the exposure amount. This means that there will be additional loss of capital. We are at a stage where the recovery will become more expensive in terms of capital in the banking system. If you take a haircut of 90% then you have to write off additional 40% of the exposure amount, and that would hurt your capital requirement. Therefore, there must have been a view that till the recovery process gathers momentum, more capital would be required. There is also a time dimension associated with this equation.
•The economic value, and therefore the value recovered from borrowers, may perhaps grow after 8-10 quarters. At present, the value at which the resolution happens is sub-optimal. The government’s decision to put more capital into the banking system could pay off if the banking system were to hold these assets for this period.
Focus on clean-up
•It is significant that capital is being infused into banks. This could give the banking system a good breathing time to enhance its credit portfolio and restore value out of the NPA accounts. We may have to watch the situation unfolding over the next three years. During this time, the regulator, banks and the government will have to focus on the quality of public sector banking assets, the NPAs and the recovery. There has been a broad-brush approach to the quality assessment. The system will have to conduct more analysis, more evaluation sector-wise in terms of its potential for value restoration and enhancement. They will have to understand which sector is in a position to restore more economic value in six to eight quarters. Some sectors may perhaps take longer.
•The last thing the economy and the banking system can afford is a further drop in economic value. What may be perceived as a ₹8 lakh crore problem today might grow into a much larger amount. The quality of governance will play a significant role in this regard. There has not been any worth-while effort on this unfortunately. There will have to be more reforms to put a higher order of governance in the banking sector. Ensuring performing boards at public-sector banks do become more critical.
•The last point which is equally important is that as long as the government wants to hold on to 51% equity in PSBs we cannot have periodic injection by way of recap bonds.
•To fund the economy, the government will have to make a yearly budgetary allocation of the amount of capital required by PSBs. Programmes such as Indradhanush and small budgetary allocations will not work. The PSBs need budgetary allocation of at least ₹75,000-80,000 crore each year.
📰 The pecking order
The Law Commission on preventing cruelty to poultry
•Lack of hygiene and cruelty towards birds (poultry), such as confining them in battery cages, has impacted those who consume meat or eggs. The health hazards include a rise in diseases such as cancer.
•The Law Commission of India, in its 269th report, drafted two new laws to end the cruelty to birds and pave the way for more compassionate processes in the poultry industry. The rules are the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Egg Laying Hens) Rules of 2017 and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Broiler Chicken) Rules of 2017.
•The rules mandate that a more natural environment of housing that allows hens to perch and move about freely is a better alternative to the existing practice of battery cages. They call for better farming techniques.
•The report condemns practices such as the breaking of beaks and the killing of young male chicks in the poultry industry. It recognises that the practice of unnecessary feeding of non-therapeutic antibiotics to the birds (which eventually leads to antibiotic resistance) directly impacts human health.
•The Law Commission notes that the Indian poultry industry is unable to cater to an increasing consumer base which is demanding cruelty-free meat/organically-produced eggs. The lack of such an existing trend in the larger market has made it difficult for sellers and the hospitality industry to cater to the business.
On certification
•The Commission’s report, published in July, further recommends certification of poultry farms by State animal husbandry departments. The certification should make a distinction between produce obtained from cage free egg farming and that obtained from battery cage farming.
•In the draft Egg Laying Hens Rules, the onus is on a farmer to immediately report the “outbreak or suspected outbreak of any zoonotic or contagious disease or infection to the local authority, the State Board and the State government. Every farm shall have at least one room or enclosure for quarantining sick hens, or hens suspected to be sick”.
•In the draft Broiler Chicken Rules, the Commission recommends that chickens should not be housed in cages or kept on wire or slatted floors. “Chickens shall be provided sufficient space for movement without any difficulty, to stand normally, turn around and stretch their wings.”
•The Rules also mandate that indoor chickens should be provided with a “stimulating environment” to keep them active.
•These include ramps, low perches, pecking blocks and straw bales to stimulate exploratory, foraging and locomotive behaviour and to minimise injurious pecking. Besides, poultry farms should sell chickens only to licensed slaughter houses.
📰 For a wider cover: meeting climate goals
India needs to design its tree-based programmes better to meet climate goals
•In 2015, India made a Bonn Challenge commitment to place into restoration 13 million hectares (Mha) of degraded land by 2020 and an additional 8 Mha by 2030. India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) have also pledged to sequester 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent additionally by 2030 through enhanced tree cover. Initial government estimates suggest that to achieve this, India will need to extend tree cover on at least 28-34 million hectares, outside of the existing forest cover.
•As different States work to achieve these commitments, it appears that there is an over-reliance on plantations. In July this year, Madhya Pradesh planted 66 million trees in 12 hours to enter the record books, overtaking Uttar Pradesh’s record of planting 49.3 million trees in a day, in 2016. Other States are also expected to follow suit.
Improving ecology
•Notably, neither the Bonn Challenge nor the NDCs are about large-scale plantations alone. The Bonn Challenge, for instance, lays emphasis on landscape approaches — a model aimed at improving the ecology of a landscape as a whole in order to benefit local livelihoods and conserve biodiversity. The NDC lays emphasis not only on carbon sequestration but also adaptation to climate change through a strengthened flow of benefits to local communities that are dependent on forests and agriculture for sustenance.
•This also reflects the spirit of India’s policy framework on forests which lays emphasis on a landscape approach to manage forest and tree cover, so that the flow of multiple ecosystem services — including food security, climate mitigation and adaptation, conservation of biological diversity and water supplies — is secured.
•In this context, large-scale plantation drives, which often do not lay stress on species selection, the quality of planting materials or survival rates, nor recognise tenure and resource rights to ensure that the benefit flows to communities, do not really achieve the goals. Plantations do have their space, but as one among a larger suite of interventions. However, to operationalise a landscape approach, we must protect healthy forest areas from deforestation, degradation and fragmentation. We must also creatively integrate trees into different land uses.
•India has numerous models that are suited for different regions and farm household sizes to draw upon, and must not rely on plantation drives alone to secure environmental and developmental outcomes.
Tree-based interventions
•The nation practises at least 35 types of agroforestry models that combine different trees that provide timber, fruits, fodder, fuel and fertilizers with food crops. This diversifies income from farming, and improves land productivity. Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) systems where farmers protect and manage the growth of trees and shrubs that regenerate naturally in their fields from root stock or from seeds dispersed through animal manure can also deliver several economic and ecosystem benefits.
•In Niger, West Africa, farmers operating on 5 Mha of land added roughly 200 million on-farm trees using FMNR in the past 30 years. This has sequestered 25-30 million tonnes of carbon and increased annual agricultural production by about 500,000 tonnes.
•In India, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD’s) ‘Wadi’ model and the Foundation for Ecological Security’s re-greening of village commons project are good examples of tree-based interventions which are proving to have great value in terms of cost-effectiveness as well as the range of benefits they deliver to communities.
•An important success factor in large-scale tree-based programmes is security of tenure and land rights. In several parts of the world, securing tenure over forests has been established as a cost-effective way of achieving climate sequestration. In Brazil, for instance, the average annual costs of providing communities with secure rights to their forest is $1.57 (₹103) per hectare (ha) while the resulting carbon-mitigation benefits range from $38/ha to $230/ha per year. That’s a net value of $1,454-1,743/ha for a period of 20 years.
•It is also important to have in place a performance monitoring system to quantify tree survival rates and the benefits to communities. This can be achieved through a combination of remote sensing, crowd sourced, ground-level monitoring with support from communities and civil society organisations.
Better to ROAM?
•As we regenerate trees through different interventions, it is critical to ensure that owners have the right to manage and use these trees. It is also critical to use scientific evidence-based methodology with a participatory approach to determine the right type of tree-based interventions most suitable to a certain land use. A tool called the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) is being used in 40 countries to find the best methods for landscape restoration. The tool includes rigorous analysis of spatial, legal and socio-economic data and draws on consultations with key stakeholders to determine the right type of interventions. In India, this tool is being piloted in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.
•India has the policy framework, the political will and financing to endorse landscape restoration. What we really need now is innovation and imagination to build replicable and scalable models with a participatory approach to achieve the country’s climate goals through landscape restoration.
