📰 1,160 elephants killed due to reasons other than natural causes: MoEFCC
While electrocution turned fatal for 741 pachyderms, train hits led to the death of 186 mammals, says RTI reply
•A whopping 1,160 elephants were killed in the country due to reasons other than natural causes in the past 10 years up to December 31, 2020, according to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
•While electrocution claimed the lives of 741 elephants, train hits led to the death of 186 pachyderms, followed by poaching - 169, and poisoning - 64, a document accessed from the Ministry through the Right to Information (RTI) Act revealed.
•Karnataka and Odisha lost 133 elephants each due to electrocution during the period and Assam reported 129 deaths.
•Among elephant casualties due to train hits, Assam stood first with 62 deaths, followed by West Bengal at 57.
•A total of 169 mammals were killed by poachers in the 10 years and Odisha reported the highest - 49 deaths, followed by Kerala 23.
Poison deaths
•Assam reported the highest number of elephants poisoned - 32, and Odisha stood second with 15 deaths.
South tops
•The Ministry said in the document that India had a total of 29,964 wild elephants as per an estimation done in 2017. The southern region comprising Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra accounted for the highest population — 14,612 elephants.
•The north-east region comprising Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, the north region of West Bengal, Manipur and Mizoram stood second with 10,139 elephants.
•Karnataka - 6,049, Assam - 5,719, Kerala - 5,706, and Tamil Nadu - 2,761 were the top four States that had the highest number of elephants as per the RTI reply from the Project Elephant Division of the MoEFCC.
‘Project Elephant’
•The document said financial and technical assistance were provided to elephant range States under the Centrally sponsored ‘Project Elephant’ scheme to protect elephants, their habitat and corridors to address issues of man-elephant conflict and welfare of captive elephants. The Ministry released ₹212.5 crore under the Project Elephant to 22 States in the 10 years.
•RTI activist R. Pandiyaraja of Tenkasi district in Tamil Nadu, who accessed the details in May this year, said the Centre and the States together had a greater responsibility in protecting elephants, a keystone species, and their habitats.
•Among various measures taken, the document said that guidelines for the management of human-elephant conflict had been issued by the Ministry in October 2017 and elephant range States had been requested to implement the same.
•Critical elephant habitats are notified as ‘elephant reserve’ for focus and synergy in elephant conservation and to reduce conflict. A total of 30 elephant reserves have been established in 14 major elephant States. To reduce man-elephant conflict and to avoid retaliatory killing of elephants, compensation is provided to local communities for loss of property and life caused by wild elephants.
•A Permanent Coordination Committee has been constituted between the Ministry of Railways and the MoEFCC for preventing elephant deaths due to train hits.
Members flag exclusion of single parents and LGTBQ community from using the procedure
•The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill,, 2020 that proposes the establishment of a national registry and registration authority for all clinics and medical professionals serving in the field.
•Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, while moving the Bill for passage, said several suggestions of the Standing Committee have been considered by the Government to improve the legislation. The Bill seeks to regulate and supervise Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinics and ART banks, prevent misuse, adopt safe and ethical practice and so on.
•“Many such ART clinics have been running without regulation. A need was felt for regulation of such clinics as there are implications on health of those who undertake the procedure,” Mr Mandaviya told the House.
•Opening the debate, Congress’s Karti Chidambaram said this law is Victorian as it doesn’t include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people (LGBTQ) or single men for exercising the right. He also urged the Government to consider supporting poor childless parents to take ART’s help.
•Supporting the Bill, Dr. Heena Gavit of the BJP said the Bill sets minimum standards and codes of conduct for fertility clinics and egg or sperm banks and about 80% of ART clinics are not registered.
•“The Bill also has a provision that those involved in trafficking and sale of embryos will be fined ₹10 lakh at first instance and in second instance, the person can be imprisoned for up to 12 years,” Dr. Gavit said.
•Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP, Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who is a specialist in the field, said experts should be involved at every level to monitor the Bill’s provisions and pointed out “ART banks” should not be there unless it has a proper laboratory.
•Dr. Dastidar and BSP’s Sangeeta Azad raised the issue of exclusion of single parents and the LGTBQ community from using this procedure. “They have a right to be parents too,” they argued. Welcoming the Bill, NCP’s Supriya Sule also talked about the LGBTQ community and single men.
•“I think we should not deprive any human being who deserves or wants to have a child. Why do we not put all the bright minds together,” Ms. Sule said, adding that there should not be any jail terms for doctors.
•RSP’s N.K. Premachandran raised a technical point and said, “Surrogacy bill is pending in the Upper House, that has not been passed. How can this House pass a law that is depending upon another law”.
•The Health Minister said both the Bills would now be taken up in the Upper House together.
📰 SC pushes for council on judicial infrastructure
•The Supreme Court on Wednesday orally said courts cannot wait on the whims and fancies of the Government, but need a proper mechanism for funding the development of judicial infrastructure.
•A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud gave Additional Solicitor General K.M. Natraj three weeks to consult with the Government and come back with a “line of thinking” on the issue.
•“Why cannot you think of constituting a sort of council on judicial infrastructure? We are least interested in retaining control of the council. The benefit of having a senior judge or Chief Justice on it would be that they are in the know of things. The composition can be of the Union Minister for Law and Justice, the Secretary, Finance, etc. The States can also be represented,” the Bench told the law officer.
Funds disbursement
•The court said the Centre should meet with the finance and law Secretaries of the States to know the status of disbursement of funds for the judiciary in each State.
•It mooted the idea of an “umbrella national organisation” that would take care of the need for judicial infrastructure.
•Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana has been vocal in pushing the proposal for establishing the National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation to uniformly improve judicial facilities and access to justice.
•“There is a need for the Centre and States to cooperate and create a National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation, as a one-time measure, to cater to the need for judicial infrastructure in the country. Such a corporation would bring the uniformity and standardisation required to revolutionise judicial infrastructure,” Chief Justice Ramana had said in an address earlier this year.
•The modernisation of judicial infrastructure did not mean building more courts or filling up vacancies or ploughing through vacancies. An efficient “judicial infrastructure” means providing equal and free access to justice. This could be realised through a “barrier-free and citizen-friendly environment”, he had said.
📰 India joins G20’s Troika with Indonesia and Italy
It is set to take over presidency in 2022
•India on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, joined the G20 ‘Troika’.
•With this move, India has started the procedure for taking over the G20 presidency next year. Troika refers to the top grouping within the G20 that consists of the current, previous and the incoming presidencies — Indonesia, Italy and India.
•“India will assume the G20 presidency on December 1, 2022 from Indonesia, and will convene the G20 Leaders’ Summit for the first time in India in 2023,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
•Italy hosted the G20 summit during October 30-31 that was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi where India had raised the issue of Afghanistan’s future following the takeover by the Taliban.
•Indonesia took over the G20 presidency on Wednesday. In the coming months, Indonesia will hold rounds of discussion at various levels among the members of the G20 before convening the G20 Leaders’ Summit scheduled for October 30-31, 2022. Next year’s summit will be organised along the overall theme of “Recover Together, Recover Stronger”.
•“As a Troika member, India will work closely with Indonesia and Italy to ensure consistency and continuity of the G20’s agenda,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.
📰 Point of disorder: On suspension of MPs
Disruption of proceedings, suspension of MPs undermine parliamentary democracy equally
•The suspension of 12 Opposition Members of Parliament from the Rajya Sabha for the entire winter session of Parliament, evidently an extreme step by Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu, has turned the spotlight on the use of disruption of proceedings as a parliamentary tactic. The Government and the Opposition should try and work a way out of this situation, but that may not resolve the underlying affliction of perennial conflict between the two sides. A guiding principle of parliamentary proceedings is that the majority, i.e. the Government, will have its way, and the minority, the Opposition, will have its say. This principle has been observed in its violation in India for several years now. As the principal Opposition in the years leading up to 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) so disrupted Parliament that a majority government was rendered dysfunctional for years; since 2014, in power, the BJP has tinkered with parliamentary processes in a way that the Opposition has been pinned down. Bills are passed in a hurry and even amidst din; the scrutiny of Bills by committees and debates are few and far between. Also, the decision to suspend Members for their conduct in the previous monsoon session at the beginning of a new session seems excessively punitive. This is no defence of disruption in general or the behaviour of the particular MPs, but the punishment is only worsening the conflict, and not facilitating debate.
•Parliament is the platform where the executive is held accountable to the representatives of the people. That is where people’s representatives raise matters of public concern and seek the Government’s attention. The trend of weakening that process in the name of efficiency is not merely undermining the spirit of democracy; it is also landing the Government itself in a difficult spot as the mayhem that followed the hurried passage of three controversial farm laws last year shows. Parliamentary debates should not be viewed as a distraction or waste of time; they are a barometer of public mood and must be respected as such, by both the ruling side and the Opposition. Disruption as a brief, momentary reaction to a situation that demands debate is understandable, but as a sustained strategy, it is self-defeating. The absence of the Opposition will only leave the Government even more unchecked. It was the BJP’s Arun Jaitley who theorised on the legitimacy of disruptions as a parliamentary instrument. It is time to shun that idea. The Government must make amends to restore the function of Parliament by deferring to parliamentary mechanisms, and also through informal channels of communication with the Opposition.
📰 Errors of judgment
There seems to be a palpable error in a recent Allahabad High Court order on POCSO which must be set right
•The Allahabad High Court recently held that oral sex with a minor (aged about 10 in this case) is not a case of ‘aggravated penetrative sexual assault’ under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. This is shocking as Section 5(m) of the Act clearly lays down that “whoever commits penetrative sexual assault on a child below twelve years” is said to commit “aggravated penetrative sexual assault”. Section 6 prescribes punishment with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 10 years but may extend to imprisonment for life.
•Though para 16 of the judgment replicated Sections 3 to 10 of the Act, all verbatim, including Section 5(m), Justice Anil Kumar Ojha, in para 17, concluded that “putting penis into mouth does not fall in the category of aggravated (penetrative) sexual assault or sexual assault”. There seems to be a palpable error of law which must be set right quickly.
Protecting children
•The POCSO was enacted specially to protect children (of any sex) from offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography, realising the fact that a large number of such offences were neither specifically provided for nor adequately penalised. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Act reinforces the legislative intent, which was made clear by providing neutral definitions and enhanced punishments for various offences of sexual nature. Though Section 42 on ‘alternate punishment’ was specifically introduced in POCSO to award greater punishment, in case of difference when compared to any other law in force, the Indian Penal Code was also amended to remove anomalies in the quantum of punishment for same or similar offences.
•Second, there is no ambiguity about the language used in Section 5 of the Act. Recently, the Supreme Court, while dismissing the requirement of skin-to-skin physical contact in cases of sexual assault, held that where the language of a statute was clear, the intention of the legislature was to be gathered from the language used. In the absence of any ambiguity of language used in Section 5 about the definition of ‘aggravated penetrative sexual assault’, there was no reason for the Court to deviate from the law and award lesser punishment. The ‘rule of lenity’, though not discussed in the judgment, had no application in the case.
•Third, it was not a case where the Court had any discretion to award lesser punishment than the minimum 10 years as prescribed in Section 6 of POCSO. Earlier, the Courts had discretion under Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the IPC to award lesser punishment than the minimum prescribed by recording ‘adequate and specific reasons’. The Supreme Court, in State of Rajasthan v. Vinod Kumar (2012), set aside the High Court order which reduced sentences less than the minimum without recording ‘adequate and special reasons’. However, this discretion was taken away by amending Section 376 of the IPC in February 2013. Since the POCSO Act does not provide any discretion in awarding punishment of imprisonment, the High Court was mandated to adhere to the statutory provisions.
Decision to be scrutinised
•Four, the High Court did not deliberate on the reasons for not considering the offence as being of aggravated nature. The age of the victim was recorded as about 10 years and did not fall even under the category of marginal difference from 12 years. The Supreme Court has held that recording of reasons by a judge is not a mere task of formality, but an exercise of judicial accountability and transparency. This makes the decision available for further scrutiny at the touchstone of reason and justice. Five, it was not even a case where the provision of minimum punishment of 10 years imprisonment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault was under challenge for being disproportionate (to the objective of protecting children aged less than 12 years) as compared to the gravity of the offence under Article 14 of the Constitution. When no such test of reasonableness was under scrutiny, the Court fell into error by not considering the offence under the applicable relevant sections.
•Despite quoting the relevant sections of ‘aggravated penetrative sexual assault’, the High Court overlooked Section 5(m) of POCSO and convicted the accused for ‘penetrative sexual assault’ with lesser punishment. Since monitoring of implementation of the Act is the responsibility of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, and the State government, this decision, which appears to be per incuriam, must be challenged so that the accused is not allowed to escape from the clutches of the appropriate sections of the POCSO Act.
