📰 How will you trace the 'undeclared foreigners' in Assam, SC asks State govt
The court drew a personal undertaking from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that the Assam Chief Secretary would be present in court on April 8
•The Supreme Court on Monday raised questions over the Assam government’s efforts to trace over 70,000 illegal immigrants who have already mixed with the local population.
•A Ministry-of-Home-Affairs affidavit filed in the Supreme Court shows that 91,609 persons were declared by Foreigners Tribunals in Assam as illegal foreigners as of March 2018. Of this number, 72,486 are absconding. “This is quite a large number,” a worried Home Ministry told the court.
•A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, said there may even be “undeclared foreigners” who have already succeeded in “merging with the local population” of the State.
•“What is the number of these undeclared foreigners?” the CJI’s asked and it drew a blank from the Assam government.
•The Home Ministry explained that persons declared as ‘illegal foreigners’ by the tribunals either abscond immediately or are already untraceable.
•Presently, 829 persons declared ‘foreigners’ by the tribunals and 115 foreigners, who have completed their jail term, are lodged in the six jail-cum-detention centres.
•“But where are those illegals who have neither been deported nor are lodged in the detention centres? Where are they? How will you track them? What have you done in the past five years?” Chief Justice Gogoi went on to ask Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Assam. Mr. Mehta initially requested the Bench to defer the case.
Many obstacles
•The hearing saw the Supreme Court criticise the policy of “pushing back” illegal foreigners to Bangladesh without enquiring about their country of origin.
•This was in the backdrop of the Home Ministry spelling out the obstacles in the nationality-verification process of illegal foreigners.
•“They either do not provide information or give the information. Details of the country of origin depend completely upon information provided by the person,” the affidavit said. Though as a sovereign nation, India has the absolute right to deport illegal immigrants, it cannot do so randomly, the Ministry agreed with the court’s point of view
•Mr. Mehta briefed the court that the “push-back” policy was dropped in 2013 and nowadays diplomatic channels are employed to determine the nationality of an illegal foreigner and to deport the person. The Ministry’s affidavit said how the Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh visited the detention centres to talk to detainees. If their information is proved correct, they are expeditiously issued travel documents.
•“You have been pushing them back without knowing their country of origin... Now, suddenly you have grown wise and are resorting to diplomatic channels,” the CJI reacted.
•The hearing saw the court ask questions on a series of connected issues. “What percentage of illegal migrants have you proceeded against? What are you doing to improve the conditions of those detained in the detention centres? How long will they remain?” the CJI asked.
•The absence of the Assam Chief Secretary in court to personally answer these questions irked the Bench.
•“Where is the Chief Secretary?” the CJI asked Mr. Mehta, “he was here the last time. Who exempted him from personal appearance this time? Does he get to decide that he need not come?”
•The Chief Justice said, “Government of Assam is playing around with the court.”
•“Your affidavits are an exercise in futility,” CJI remarked.
•“We are doing our best,” Mr. Mehta responded.
•“If this is your best, then you permit us to pass our orders in full exercise of our constitutional powers,” Chief Justice Gogoi said.
•Finally, the court drew a personal undertaking from Mr. Mehta that the Chief Secretary would be present in court on April 8, the next date of hearing, and would only return to Assam after getting permission from the court.
•The court is hearing a petition filed by activist Harsh Mander about the dismal living conditions within the four walls of the detention centres in the State.
•The court noticed that many detainees continue to be lodged inside these centres even after the expiry of their term of imprisonment for illegally entering the country.
•The Election Commission on Monday notified that the cadres of the Kuki militant groups, who signed the Suspension of Operations agreement with both the Centre and the Manipur government, will cast their votes in postal ballots.
•To exercise their franchise, the cadres also must reside in their designated camps and their names feature in the voters’ list, the office of the State Chief Electoral Officer said in a statement here. They would have to collect the postal ballots from assistant nodal officers or nodal officers.
•The agreement was first signed by the State and the Centre with two militant groups of the community in 2008.
📰 Space for campaign: On PM Modi’s address on ASAT test
EC went by rule book on ASAT issue, but PM should have upheld the spirit of Model Code
•In ruling that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not violate the Model Code of Conduct by announcing through a nationally televised address the demonstration of India’s capability to bring down an operational satellite, the Election Commission has taken a possibly correct view of the Code’s provisions. However, it remains a narrow technical view as it is a thin line that divides the idea of making a high-level declaration of a defence capability from using it for electoral advantage. Opposition parties had accused the Prime Minister of violating the Model Code by touting the demonstration of the anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test as a significant achievement of the ruling BJP. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had formally complained to the EC. There were questions about the timing of the test as well as the manner of announcement as the country is in election mode. A five-member committee formed by the EC concluded that the relevant provision was not attracted in this case. Part VII of the Code covering the “party in power” says that “…the misuse of official mass media during the election period for partisan coverage of political news and publicity regarding achievements with a view to furthering the prospects of the party in power shall be scrupulously avoided.” The committee’s finding that there was no “misuse of official mass media” as Doordarshan and AIR took the feed from a news agency, and more than 60 channels did the same, is rooted in the letter of the code, not its spirit.
•It is possible to come to an equally valid conclusion that Mr. Modi’s action in making the announcement himself, rather than letting the DRDO, the agency involved, do so violates the bar on “furthering the prospects” of the ruling party by the nature of the publicity given to the achievement. The practice of using a private agency to record the announcement and asking it to share the feed , obliquely serves the purpose of generating publicity through the official media. As the legal maxim goes, what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly either. Given that Mr. Modi gave advance publicity to the announcement, there is really no virtue in claiming that DD and AIR were not used for the purpose. As a landmark achievement in defence research, it deserved a public pronouncement at a high level. Even then, letting the DRDO explain the achievement first would have served the purpose. That the motive was to proclaim the ASAT demonstration as an achievement of the regime in the field of national security became obvious when it was propagated by the ruling party that its predecessor did not have the political will to approve such a test. The BJP must demonstrate it will not use such achievements for partisan advantage.
📰 Taking a cue from Japan
How India can bridge the Belt and Road divide with China
•As the countdown begins for the second edition of the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) later this month, Beijing is jubilant. Last month, China demonstrated that President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) had steamed into the heart of Europe. Late last month, during President Xi’s Europe visit, Italy became the first G7 country to formally subscribe to the China-led BRI. The Chinese have interpreted Rome’s decision as a historic event that revives ties between the European and Chinese civilisations. During his visit, President Xi also spoke about joint venture prospects in other countries, including in Africa. That apparently tickled a nostalgic nerve in European capitals, where it has been difficult to separate the guilt of colonisation from a whiff of romance. The geopolitical subtext of the visit is also fairly obvious. With its ties with the U.S. souring, China is making a bold move to chip away at the real or contrived fault-lines of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance. As in 2017, when there were plenty of red faces in China when India did not grace the BRF, there is once again a fear in Beijing that New Delhi may repeat the embarrassment. India had stayed out because of sovereignty concerns as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship of the BRI, passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The question then arises whether there is third way out of the problem that would allow India to hold on to its position against official participation, but yet convey to the Chinese that New Delhi has no ingrained ill-will towards the BRI.
•Perhaps, New Delhi can pull a leaf out of Japan’s play book. In 2017, after Tokyo had decided that it needed to rebuild bridges that had collapsed following a maritime dispute over a few East China Sea islands, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decided to send his trusted party ally, Toshihiro Nikai, to China. Mr. Nikai, the secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, though an established heavyweight, was technically not a part of government. His presence signalled that Tokyo continued to have reservations about the BRI, but was nevertheless open to an engagement with the enterprise, provided a course correction was carried out in the future. Significantly, Mr. Nikai’s delegation included the head of Keidanren, Japan’s Business Federation lobby — a pointer that its current misgivings apart, Japan could be open to business within the ambit of the BRI.
•Taking the cue from Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi can also tap an influential party heavyweight to lead an Indian non-official delegation to the BRF, along with business leaders and reputed scholars. A mature and pragmatic Indian response, which keeps the door open for a future partnership with the BRI, may help keep afloat the reset achieved last year following the informal summit between Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi in Wuhan.
📰 SC asks Opposition to file reply in a week on EC’s affidavit on VVPAT
ECI said the adoption of a particular percentage as a sample for VVPAT slip verification was devoid of scientific logic or statistical basis.
•The Supreme Court on Monday asked 21 Opposition parties to respond by April 8 to an Election Commission of India (ECI) affidavit that states that increasing random physical verification using VVPAT to 50% would delay the Lok Sabha poll results of 2019 by six whole days.
•A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, in a short hearing, agreed to a request made by senior advocate A.M. Singhvi for time to submit, in writing, the Opposition’s response to the ECI’s affidavit.
•“The 50% Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slip verification in each assembly segment of a Parliamentary Constituency or Assembly Constituency on an average shall enlarge the time required for counting to about six days,” the ECI said in a 50-page affidavit filed last week. Observing that the current confidence level in EVM-VVPAT accuracy was 99.9936%, the ECI said any increase in the sample size of verification of VVPAT slips would only lead to a “very negligible gain in the confidence level”.
•The ECI said the adoption of a particular percentage as a sample for VVPAT verification was devoid of scientific logic or statistical basis. In fact, it was “otiose” (would serve no practical purpose).
•The Commission has stood its ground despite the apex court’s recent strong observations in favour of an increase in the sample VVPAT slip counting for the forthcoming elections.
•The 21 Opposition parties jointly moved the apex court challenging the ECIs guideline that VVPAT slip counting would take place only in one polling station in an Assembly constituency or each Assembly segment in case of parliamentary elections.
ISI report
•The ECI is banking on a March 22 report of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) to buttress its case against increasing the sample size for counting VVPAT slips.
•The ISI report recommends that a sample verification of 479 EVMs and VVPATs out of a total 10.35 lakh machines would lift confidence to 99.9936%. Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain, who authored the affidavit, however, wrote that the ECI’s sample verification for the Lok Sabha polls would cover 4,125 EVMs and VVPATs. “This is 8.6 times the sample size recommended in the Indian Statistical Institute report.”
•The poll panel, represented by senior advocate Aryama Sundaram and advocate Amit Sharma, submitted that no mismatch had been detected during mock polls, or in the verification of VVPAT slips carried out at 1,500 polling stations till date.
•The ECI said increased VVPAT slip counting would require extensive training and capacity building of election officials in the field. VVPAT slip counting takes place in specially erected VVPAT counting booths under the close monitoring of the returning officer and with direct oversight by the observer.
•The ECI said its confidence in EVM-VVPATs is sourced from their secure designs, elaborate procedural safeguards adopted for their usage, and finally the fact that there have been zero errors in sample verifications so far.
📰 China, U.S. lock horns over Masood Azhar
•China on Monday said it was making “some positive progress” to resolve differences on listing Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, and rejected Washington’s alternative move to ban the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) through a resolution at the UN Security Council.
•Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang asserted on Monday that the UN 1267 committee should be the sole forum where Azhar’s listing should be discussed.
•“After the application of designation was proposed at the (1267) committee, China has been in close communication and coordination with various parties,” Mr. Geng said.
•He added: “As I said we have been working with various parties and (our efforts) has made some positive progress. The U.S. knows that very well.”
•The friction between China and the U.S. sharpened after Washington, along with France and the United Kingdom, piloted a resolution in the 1267 committee for listing Azhar, following the February attack in Pulwama in which more than 40 CRPF personnel were killed.
•China placed a “technical hold” on the listing despite Pakistan-based JeM, which Azhar heads, taking responsibility for the attack. Following China’s move in the 1267 committee, the U.S. sponsored a resolution in the Security Council seeking Azhar’s ban.
•“We believe that in the current circumstances, forcing a resolution at the Security Council not a constructive move and is setting a bad example,” Mr. Geng observed.
•The Chinese foreign ministry pointed out that the U.S. was failing in its bid to muster majority support in the UNSC, and urged Washington to return to the 1267 committee to resolve the issue.
•“We hope various parties will meet each other halfway and continue to properly solve the issues under the 1267 UN committee framework. Last Friday, the UN Security Council members exchanged views on the U.S.-proposed draft resolution and the majority believes that efforts should be made under the framework of 1267 committee and solve the issue through dialogue and consultations,” Mr. Geng said.
•The spokesperson stressed that the majority of the UNSC “are not in favour of forcing a draft resolution.”
•“China has been working with various parties and is making progress. The U.S. knows that very well. But under such circumstances, the U.S. is still pushing the Security Council to adopt a draft resolution. This cannot be justified.”
•China has emphasised that the purpose of its “technical hold” is to allow more discussion on the issue in order to achieve a consensus based settlement.
•The spokesperson pointed out that the Washington’s stance “will only complicate the issue and is not conducive to peace and stability in South Asia.”
•Last week, China had slammed remarks by U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who had accused the country of “shameful hypocrisy.” With China’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and the designation of Azhar as the subtext, Mr. Pompeo said that, “China abuses more than a million Muslims at home, but on the other it protects violent Islamic terrorist groups from sanctions at the UN.”
•On Friday, Beijing had dismissed allegations that it was sheltering terrorists by placing a “technical hold” on listing Masood Azhar. In response to another question on Monday whether the US moves were linked to elections in India, Mr. Geng, declined comment as the query, he said, was related to India’s “domestic affairs.”
📰 Forest fires threatening Odisha’s flora and fauna
March has alone registered 4,495 fire spots; April started with 11 fires on Monday
•Odisha had registered a sudden jump in forest fires across the State resulting in massive damage to flora and fauna.
•As many as 5,332 fire spots had been noticed since November 1 last, the beginning of forest fire season, in the State. The month of March had alone registered 4,495 fire spots.
•As per statistics generated by SNPP (Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite, only 385 fire spots were recorded February while in January, only 55 fire incidences were detected.
•Southern Odisha looked red in the map provided by Forest Fire Geo Portal of Forest Survey. In Koraput, the southernmost forest circle in Odisha, 2,809 fire spots had been detected since November. It was followed by Bhawanipatna with 622 fire incidences and Berhampur (601). Rourkela and Sambalpur division had relatively lower incidences with 416 and 355 fire spots detected during the same period.
•The month of April started with 11 fires on Monday as detected by Moderate resolution Imaging spectro-radiometer (MODIS) with a resolution of 1 km.
Forest divisions mapped
•Though forest department claimed to have mapped the forest divisions prone to fire and maintained more than 6,000-km long fire line in different forests ahead of the fire season, forests continue to be gutted. Given the vastness of forest areas and gigantic task, number of fire watchers engaged in fire-fighting appears to be too little.
•“Apart from causing a huge loss to the timber and other fruit and leaf bearing trees and creepers of the forest, fires also destroy wildlife and their habitat. Nests and eggs of ground dwelling birds are lost. Reptiles also lose their young ones due to forest fires,” said Biswajit Mohanty, former member of the National Board for Wildlife.
•Fire could only be tamed at the initial stage before it became a conflagration preventing anybody from even approaching it due to the intense heat generated, Mr. Mohanty said demanding it should be monitored from the office of Principal Chief Conservator of Forest.
📰 India gets surveillance satellite
PSLV-C45 successfully puts 28 other satellites too in orbit
•The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the country’s first electronic surveillance satellite, EMISAT, from Sriharikota in coastal Andhra Pradesh on Monday morning.
•As many as 28 small satellites of international customers were also put in space as secondary riders.
•Space-based electronic intelligence or ELINT from the 436-kg spacecraft will add teeth to situational awareness of the Armed Forces as it will provide location and information of hostile radars placed at the borders; this will be another dimension to current land or aircraft-based ELINT, according to defence experts who did not wish to be named. ISRO, which is said to have built the satellite body for the DRDO payload, merely said the spacecraft would measure the electromagnetic spectrum. Once the last cubesat came out, ISRO Chairman K.Sivan announced, “Today PSLV-C45 has successfully injected the ISRO-made EMISAT in a 748-km orbit as well as 28 customer satellites in a 504-km orbit as sought by the customers.”
•An ISRO release said that as EMISAT came out, “[Its] two solar arrays were deployed automatically. The ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network at Bengaluru assumed control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration.”
•A new PSLV team executed the mission as the previous programme head R. Hutton has moved to headquarters in Bengaluru as the director of the Human Space Flight Centre.
•The PSLV’s new QL variant took off from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in coastal Andhra Pradesh at 9.27 a.m. along with a total of 29 passengers.
•The multi-orbit mission totally lasted three hours and released all 29 spacecraft in nearly the first two hours. Overall, three sets of payloads were let out at three different orbits in space.
•About 17 minutes after takeoff, EMISAT was ejected first at an orbit 749 km away from Earth. The small ‘cube’ satellites, belonging to four countries and together weighing 220 kg, were released after about 40 minutes at a lower orbit of 504 km. To get the lower orbit, the fourth stage of the rocket or PS4 had to be restarted twice.
•ISRO has started reusing PS4 as an innovated, low-cost, space-friendly test bed for its own microgravity experiments and those of others. It has been gradually putting additional support systems also on every new PS4; the power generating solar panels are new this time.
•This is the third such mission and carries an ISRO test on Automatic Identification System (AIS) related to tracking ships on sea.
•AMSAT or the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, India, has sent a payload called the Automatic Packet Repeating System.
•This is expected to help amateur radio operators to get improved locational accuracy in their tracking and monitoring.
•The third one, the Advanced Retarding Potential Analyser for Ionospheric Studies has been sent up by ISRO’s university, the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.
📰 Deepening insecurity
The buzz around ‘Mission Shakti’ should be an opportunity to review India’s defence strategy
•After ‘Mission Shakti’ — India’s anti-satellite test — there is a feeling that India needs this form of deterrence for its security. To be visibly strong in order to deter any enemy from attacking is a concern that goes back to pre-historic times. But when this ancient urge is exerted by nations with nuclear weapons, it must be an occasion to revisit the arms race, the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine and their long-term implications.
•The doctrine emerged during the Cold War in the mid-20th century when the U.S. and the erstwhile U.S.S.R. had stockpiled so many nuclear weapons that if launched, the weapons could destroy both nations many times over.
•Since there was eventually a ‘détente’, or a relaxation of hostilities between the two, it is tempting to think that MAD is a valid doctrine that should continue to be applied by all countries with nuclear weapons capability. What is the basis of this belief? And does it actually work?
•For more than 100 years now, scientists and writers of science fiction alike have fostered the illusion that some day humankind will have a weapon so terrible that the fear of its impact will end war for all times.
Deterrence and violence
•Having invented dynamite and unleashed it upon the world in 1867, Alfred Nobel believed that “the day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops”.
•Since then incalculably more destructive weapons, including nuclear bombs and chemical weapons, have been deployed but this has not ended war. On the contrary, the invention of increasingly deadly weapons has fuelled a global arms race.
•Globally, the annual spend on armaments is now estimated to stand at about $1.7 trillion. Estimates of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world range from 15,000 to 20,000, with each one of these weapons being far more powerful than the bombs dropped by the U.S. on Japan in 1945. The U.S. and Russia still maintain about 1,800 nuclear weapons in a state of high alert, ready for launch within minutes.
•According to the Global Peace Index, in 2017, the economic impact of violence globally was estimated at about $14.76 trillion, which was 12.4% of global GDP. Since 2012, there has been a 16% increase in the economic impact of violence largely due to the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
•It is vital to note that having competing weapons, in terms of quality and quantity, has not acted as a deterrent either in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or in the Syrian war or the prolonged conflict in Colombia. What did finally end the conflict in Colombia, after almost 50 years, was a protracted process of negotiation between all parties of the conflict.
•The Global Peace Index also shows that over the last 70 years the per capita GDP growth has been three times higher in more peaceful countries. This is partly why, compared to 10 years ago, 102 nations are spending less on military as a percentage of their GDP.
•But that is a thin silver lining to a grim reality. Ban Ki-moon, while he was UN Secretary General, said, in 2009, “The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded …. The end of the Cold War has led the world to expect a massive peace dividend. Yet, there are over 20,000 nuclear weapons around the world. Many of them are still on hair-trigger alert, threatening our own survival.”
•According to the website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the failure of the nuclear powers to disarm has heightened the risk that other countries will acquire nuclear weapons. In 2017, the ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Double-edged sword
•Theoretically, MAD is supposed to eliminate the incentive for starting a conflict but it also makes disarming almost impossible. This is partly why, long after the Cold War ended, the U.S. is poised to spend enormous amounts of money over the next 10 years in updating and modernising its nuclear arsenal.
•The tragic irony of this trend is that nuclear defence, particularly with warheads riding on rockets of supersonic speed, actually deepens insecurity in both countries by causing millions of lives to perpetually be at the risk of instantaneous annihilation.
•All through the Cold War and even now, the MAD doctrine has been opposed on both moral and practical grounds by a variety of disarmament and peace groups. The most prominent of these, War Resisters’ International (WRI), which will turn 100 in 2021, has 90 affiliated groups in 40 countries. Such groups ceaselessly serve as a counter to all those who glamorise or justify war or an arms race. Above all, they constantly draw attention to the fact that the only true security lies in dissolving enmity by going to the roots of any conflict.
•Once the joy about India’s technological achievements, in the realm of missiles, has settled down, perhaps attention can shift to the much bigger challenge of seeking answers to a key question: what really makes us, the world a whole, more secure?
📰 Ensuring access to justice
The Supreme Court must set up more Benches, and disciplinary jurisdiction over lawyers must go back to the judiciary
•The justice system in any democracy is set up, under the Constitution to serve the public without “fear or favour, affection or ill-will” as far as judges are concerned. Yet the protagonists, as far as India is concerned, in operating the system have stopped that very access — judges through lack of prescience, and many lawyers through their dishonesty in many forms.
Revisiting judges’ advice
•At an informal meeting, all of the then sitting judges of the Supreme Court (including myself) advised the then Chief Justice of India to decide against the request of the then Central government to sit in other places in the country under Article 130 of the Constitution. The reason we (judges) decided against it was because we felt that the authority of the Supreme Court would get diluted. The reasoning, in retrospect, was fallacious. Many High Courts in this country have different Benches for meting out justice without ‘justice’ being ‘diluted’. For example, the Bombay High Court has four Benches — in Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Panaji (Goa) — and the quality of its decisions or status have certainly not been diluted thereby.
•The number of Benches depends on the size of the State, the idea being to facilitate easier access to justice. The direct consequence of the wrong decision has been three-fold. First, the Supreme Court sitting only in Delhi has resulted in excellent lawyers from other High Courts not appearing before the Supreme Court, possibly because it casts too large a monetary burden on their clients, many of whom are impoverished. Second, all lawyers, whatever their calibre or competence, who happen to be in Delhi now appear in the Supreme Court. Some of the good lawyers who were able to leave lucrative practices in the High Courts have settled down in Delhi, but they have established a monopoly, and, as a result, charge unconscionable fees even from charitable concerns — sometimes even when they do not appear at the hearing. This is also true of litigating lawyers at all levels of the judicial system. The third fallout of the failure to act under Article 130 is that the Supreme Court in Delhi has been flooded with work and been reduced to a District Court instead of a Court of Final Appeal and Constitutional Court as envisaged under the Constitution.
Unethical lawyers
•But the fault in actually denying access to justice to citizens is the fault of unethical lawyers alone. That lawyers are generally dishonest is a well-known fact. Lawyers are (frequently) humorously called liars, and because they are the middle-men between judges and the litigating public, they act like dishonest brokers. That is why William Shakespeare said, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” (Henry VI). This is a somewhat unfair condemnation of those lawyers who are persons of high principles.
•Some of the lawyers specialising in victim compensation cases do not charge any fees for their services and render services free of cost. They generally obtain a blank cheque from the victim which is filled in after credit of the compensation to the bank account of the victim. Victims who open bank accounts for the purpose of victim compensation are being duped by some of the lawyers who link their or their assistant’s mobile number to the account so that they can have access to all the information of the transactions in the bank account. Some of the lawyers specialising in victim compensation cases thus take huge money as a percentage of compensation amount awarded towards victim compensation. Such a practice is frustrating the whole purpose of victim compensation. The procedure is similar to that adopted by some advocates dealing with Motor Accident Claim Cases under Section 166 (application for compensation) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. They agree to conduct the cases without a fee, but in the event of compensation being granted by the court, the advocates get a certain percentage. This is illegal, being a champertous agreement.
•In some cases, as soon as an award of victim compensation is made by any Legal Services Authority (LSA), a statutory body to render free legal services to the impoverished all over India, the lawyer gets in touch with the victim and somehow convinces him/her to file a writ petition before the High Court to show that without such writ petition the compensation will not be disbursed by the State LSA (SLSA). Ultimately when the amount of compensation is finally disbursed by the SLSA, the lawyer takes credit and shows that it was because of his noble initiative that the victim got the relief, and in exchange claims a hefty share in the compensation. Such lawyers effectively create a perception of rendering a benevolent service by not charging any fees so the victim could never suspect him/her of any malpractice. Incidentally, according to a study carried out by a research organisation, Vidhi, in the Delhi High Court, more than 70% of the delays in the disposal of cases are attributable to lawyers, a major reason being sometimes unjust pleas for adjournments.
•The litigating public and lawyers (including women and students) — either because they do not trust the judicial system or they distrust lawyers in particular, or for whatever reason — write hundreds of letters to the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Justices and Justices of each High Court for relief. Some issues raised in these letters are administrative or statutory in nature. Apart from these letters, hundreds of letters are written to Chief Justices for relief on the judicial side. Given the huge workload before all judges, it is not possible to deal with all letter-appeals simultaneously on the statutory, administrative or judicial side, unless they are drawn specifically to the Justices’ attention. Unfortunately the disciplinary powers available to Bar Councils both in Delhi and in States are more often than not ineffective. Some are politically motivated and some States do not have disciplinary committees at all. The disciplinary jurisdiction over lawyers was originally with the courts. As far as the older High Courts are concerned, this is clear from the respective Letters Patents under which the courts were set up. This continued till the power was taken away by the Advocates Act, 1961. Significantly, the Law Minister at that time was Ashoke Sen, a well-known lawyer. The solution to the present situation is to give the disciplinary jurisdiction back to the courts and to repeal the Advocates Act, 1961.
The way forward
•Therefore, to hound out the corrupt lawyers from the system at all levels so that justice may be truly rendered to the public, I have a few suggestions. First, the Supreme Court should reconsider setting up Benches in different States in keeping with the recommendations of the Law Commissions (125th Report and 229th Report). Second, the Bar Council of India should exercise its powers under the Advocates Act, 1961 more effectively. If not, the disciplinary jurisdiction must be returned to the judiciary as was the position prior to the Advocates Act, 1961 by repealing the 1961 Act. Third, lawyers should be made irrelevant by referring more cases to trained mediators, as the Supreme Court has done in the Ayodhya dispute.
📰 RBI tweaks NPA divergence disclosure norms
•The Reserve Bank of India on Monday asked banks to disclose bad loan divergences in their financial statements if the additional provisioning exceeds 10% of profit before provision and contingencies.
•In a notification, the RBI said it is observed that some banks, on account of low or negative net profit after tax, are required to disclose divergences even where the additional provisioning assessed by RBI is small, which is contrary to the regulatory intent that only material divergences should be disclosed.
•Therefore, it has been decided that henceforth, banks should disclose divergences, if “the additional provisioning for NPAs assessed by RBI exceeds 10% of the reported profit before provisions and contingencies for the reference period”.
•Earlier, banks were to make suitable disclosures if the additional provisioning requirements assessed by RBI exceeded 15% of the published net profits after tax for the reference period.
•The RBI further said disclosure has also to be made if the additional gross NPAs identified by RBI exceed 15% of the published incremental gross NPAs for the reference period.
•In another notification regarding large exposures framework (LEF), the RBI said non-centrally cleared derivatives exposures will be outside the purview of exposure limits till April 1, 2020.
•However, banks must compute these exposures separately and report to the Department of Banking Regulation on quarterly basis, it added.
