G.O. granted nod for withdrawing 61 criminal cases, including against BJP leaders
The Karnataka High Court on Monday restrained the State government from taking any further action based on a August 31, 2020 government order (GO) granting permission for withdrawing 61 criminal cases, including those against MPs and MLAs from the BJP.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty, passed the interim order on a PIL petition filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Karnataka challenging the legality of the GO.
Against MPs, MLAs
The cases withdrawn include those registered against MPs Pratap Simha and Sumalatha, Law Minister J. Madhuswamy, then Minister C.T. Ravi, Agriculture Minister B.C. Patil, Forest Minister Anand Singh, and M.P. Renukarcharya and Halappa Achar, MLAs.
Father Stan Swamy, the 83-year-old jailed priest, has been selected for an award honouring the late Mukundan C. Menon, journalist and founder of the human rights organisation People’s Union for Civil Liberties.
The award, which includes a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and a citation, “is in recognition of people’s struggle for democratic and human rights of Adivasis led by Father Stan Swamy”, the award organisers have written, according to sources close to the arrested Jesuit priest.
Sources said the award would be sent to Swamy at Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai, where the Parkinsonism patient has been lodged following his arrest by the anti-terror agency NIA from his Ranchi home on October 8.
Indian police use violence as a shortcut to justice. It s the poorest who bear the scars
By Mohit Rao
Updated 3:57 AM ET, Thu December 3, 2020
Bengaluru, India (CNN)It was minutes into India s Independence Day when police stormed a slum in the western state of Gujarat where Hira Bajania, 65, was sleeping. In the black of night, he was dragged from his home, taken to a nearby police station and accused, with 11 other men, of stealing cell phones.
As dawn broke on a day commemorating India s freedom, one by one the men were taken from their cell to be interrogated for up to 30 minutes, according to a complaint subsequently filed to police, and seen by CNN. They were bound, stripped, beaten, abused and, according to two people in the group, tortured sexually and told to confess. Many returned to their cell limping, unable to stand or sit, say several of the men. All denied the charges.
Christian women from Chingavaram village who say they were beaten up on the night of November 24.
Our first glimpse of Chingavaram, a village in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, was in the dark. It was early evening on November 28. The village was quiet and apparently peaceful. A youth sat in the verandah of the local grocery shop, browsing on his mobile.
“Yes, there was some trouble three nights ago,” he told us, pointing down the road. “The Christian houses are there.”
We found no one there except for a few old women.
The attack
The next morning, we spent two hours with influential members of the village: the sarpanch-pati, or the powerful husband of the female head of the panchayat, the patel, or the village headman, the son of the pujari, the village priest, and a teacher. We also met a leader of the Koya samaj, a tribal body, from the neighbouring village and a few others.
Bombay HC directs proper protection be provided to witnesses
A family member of one of the inmates lodged in Nashik jail had last month written to the state government, police and the State Human Rights Commission that four inmates who had come forward to speak on the incident were being harassed by officials. December 12, 2020 4:56:35 am
A division bench of Justice S C Gupte and Justice S P Tavade was hearing the petition filed by Shinde on January 13. (File)
THE BOMBAY High Court on Thursday ordered for “proper protection” to be given to witnesses in the case of a 32-year-old convict’s death at Nashik central jail in October. After the convict died by suicide leaving behind a note in his abdomen alleging that he was harassed by five prison officials, some of his co-inmates had also written to authorities about it.