December 10th, 2012

ALB20121212

Abhyaas Law Bulletin

For the quintessential CLAT aspirant
The Scoop Of The Month The Editors Column

Ajmal Kasab hanged after President rejects mercy petition

Dear Student, Welcome to the last edition of the Abhyaas Law Bulletin for this year. The last month was full of action on the political front with the Government managing to overcome the FDI test in both houses of Parliament with the support of the Samajwadi Party(SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP). It is interesting to note that majority MPs including those from the SP and BSP opposed FDI in retail, but that was reflected during the voting. Ajmal Kasab was hanged in a secret operation in Pune after the President rejected his mercy petition. It is expected that the President will now dispose the other mercy petitions pending before him soon. Founder of the Shivsena, Bal Thackerey passed away after a prolonged illness. Sec 66A of the IT Act was again at the centre of the popular discourse after two girls in Mumbai were arrested for expressing their opinion about bundhs on Facebook. The government has since then issued guidelines to states on use of this section. The Supreme Court is currently hearing a PIL filed on this issue by a Delhi student. The 2G auction did not bring in the expected revenues for the government and the government did not lose this opportunity to attack the CAG. Happy Reading !

In a top secret operation, 25-year-old Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, was hanged in Punes Yerwada Central Jail at 7.30 a.m. on November 21st. Fifteen minutes later, a terse phone call conveyed to the Maharashtra Home Department that Operation X was successfully completed. Police sources said Kasab was buried on the jail premises. The execution came five days before the fourth anniversary of the attacks that began on November 26, 2008, lasting nearly three days, and taking the lives of 166 people. But if his execution brought some measure of closure for the victims families, the Lashkar-e-Taiba masterminds of the attack in Pakistan continue to evade justice. The events that unfolded before the hanging were kept a closely guarded secret too. Jail officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kasab had offered prayers (namaz) before he was brought to the hangman. The final walk to the gallows in the jail is about 20 feet, and was covered in a minute, the sources said. Around 10 people, including Jail Superintendent Yogesh Desai, a medical officer from the (Contd .)

(Rakesh Dubbudu)
Index: Page 2: National Page 3: International

Page 4: Spotlight

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December 10th, 2012 National: government-run Sassoon Hospital and an executive magistrate were present for the hanging. Preparations, including the testing of the strength of the rope and mock hangings, were made a week before. Mr. Desai told that there was no designated hangman and a jail staffer covered Kasabs head with a customary black hood, then put and tightened the noose around his neck before pulling the lever, making the platform below give away. As per the process, the body was left hanging for half-an-hour, after which the medical officer declared him dead. He was buried before noon. Official sources said X, the codename, was set in motion on November 12, after President Pranab Mukherjee turned down Kasabs mercy petition on November 5. Even within the State machinery, very few people knew about the operation, right from setting the date for the execution to bringing Kasab to Pune. It was reportedly overseen by Special Inspector-General (Law and Order) Deven Bharti and 16 handpicked officers, including Joint commissioner of Mumbai Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy and Inspector-General (Prisons) Meeran Chaddha Borwankar. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde signed the file and the communication reached the State government by November 8. The process was set in motion soon after. Except Mr. Bhartis cell phone, the devices of the other 16 officers were switched off. Kasab was shifted from Mumbais Arthur Road Jail to Pune on November 19. Officials said he was taken on a special flight late at night and whisked off to the Yerwada jail. He was escorted by senior officers of the Crime Branch, commandos of the Quick Response Team and officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. The team reached the jail in the early hours of Monday morning, said the official. Few jail officials were aware of the identity of the prisoner. Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil said the date for execution was fixed by the State government on September 11 itself. The jail manual was read out to him in Hindi and Urdu whether he had any statement or will to make. The last hanging took place in the State 17 years ago: Amrutlal Joshi was hanged on August 26, 1995 for murdering three members of the Sadarangani family in Mumbais Khar suburb. Maharashtras last designated hangman Arjun Jadhav had conducted the execution. Mr. Jadhav, who retired in 1996, had expressed the desire to hang Kasab. However, he died in September this year, aged 77. Yerwada is one of the two jails in Maharashtra, the other being Nagpur Central Jail which houses facilities for hanging. Owing to the shorter distance from Mumbai, and the extreme security and secrecy involved, it was decided to execute Kasab in Pune, a top official said. Mr. Patil said the State had spent more than Rs 1.47 crore on Kasab in the past four years. This is (not counting) security expenses: the egg-shaped cell where he was housed or the security provided by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the cost of which is expected to be borne by the Central government. Must Read: Please read this article on the history of mercy petitions, relevant constitutional provisions etc. Government wins the FDI test in Parliament The UPA government successfully overcame the motion introduced by the opposition on FDI. They defeated the motion in both the houses of parliament. While the SP and BSP abstained from voting in the Loksabha, the BSP voted in favour of the Govt in the Rajyasabha. It is also interesting to note that majority MPs including those from the SP and the BSP opposed FDI in retail as a policy while their voting pattern did not reflect the same kind of opposition to FDI. Pranab launches advanced version of low-cost Aakash-2 tablet

The advanced version of low-cost tablet Aakash was launched by President Pranab Mukherjee. Coming at a price tag of Rs. 1,130 for students, the new version Aakash 2 which will be made available to students of engineering colleges and universities to begin with is now powered by a processor running at 1 GHz, has a 512 MB, a 7inch capacitative touch screen and a battery working for three hours of normal operations. It has been developed under the aegis of IIT Bombay with the active support of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).

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December 10th, 2012 No urgent need to change process of CAG appointment, says PM Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that there is no urgent need to consider changes in the appointment process of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and other Election Commissioners (ECs). In a letter to Communist Party of India Member of Parliament Gurudas Dasgupta, Dr. Singh maintained that the procedure for appointment to these constitutional posts had been in existence for a long period and was followed by the earlier governments. Accused has no inherent right to appeal against conviction, rules Bombay High Court International Nobel Prize Winners 2012 The Nobel Prize In Physics Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland for groundbreaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems.

The Nobel Prize In Chemistry Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors.
The Nobel Prize In Physiology or Medicine Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. The Nobel Prize In Literature Mo Yan who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary. The Nobel Peace Prize European Union (EU) for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe. The Prize in Economic Sciences Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. 40 years prison term for horn trading

In a significant ruling, the Bombay High Court has held that an accused does not have an inherent right of appeal against his conviction and the same has to be conferred by a statute. The legislature can confer the said right or can make available the said right conditionally. It (legislature) may withdraw the said right by amending the statute which confers the right of appeal, Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Sadhana Jadhav observed in a recent judgement. The Judges gave the ruling on a petition challenging a provision in the Criminal Procedure Code, which restricts the right to appeal in small cases in which the punishment is less than the stipulated period of imprisonment or amount of fine. The petition, filed by three convicts, sought a direction from the High Court to declare 376 (b) and (c) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr PC) as unconstitutional and ultra vires the Constitution as it takes away the right to appeal .
Kerala Information Commissioner suspended Governor H.R. Bhardwaj has suspended State Information Commissioner K. Natarajan, pending a formal enquiry by a Supreme Court judge into the allegation that he had tried to interfere with a vigilance investigation. The probe he had sought to stall was into the alleged gifting of government land by Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly V.S. Achuthanandan to a relative when Mr. Achuthandnan was Chief Minister. An enquiry ordered by the State government found that Mr. Natarajan had tried to influence Deputy Superintendent of Police V.G. Kunhan, who was investigating the case against Mr. Achuthanandan.

A Thai national, Chumlong Lemtongthai, who pleaded guilty to running bogus rhino hunts as cover to sell horns on the black market, was sentenced to 40 years in a South African jail, by the Johannesburg magistrate court. He admitted to paying prostitutes to pose as hunters, to harvest horns, sold on Asias lucrative traditional medicine market. The group is thought to have netted around 26 horns. Most of the rhinos are killed in the world-famous Kruger National Park and their horns turn up in Vietnam, China and other East Asian nations, used to produce a fingernail-like substance, falsely believed to have powerful healing properties.

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December 10th, 2012

This month in pictures:

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was awarded the prestigious Kyoto Prize in Kyoto.

A great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi Shanti Gandhi was elected to a State Assembly (Kansas) in the USA.

Ranjit Sinha took over as the new director of the CBI.

Tony Hall took over as BBCs Director-General succeeding George Entwistle.

Former Chief Secy of UP, Neera Yadav was sentenced to 3 years in prison in a land scam case.

Veteran CPM leader P.Govinda Pillai passed away.

Spotlight: Symbiosis Law School, Pune Symbiosis Law School, Pune originally known as Symbiosis Society's Law College, was established in 1977 under the banner of Symbiosis Society. Active clubs and societies of Symbiosis Law School, Pune include the Human Rights Cell (HRC), The Environment Protection and Consumer Rights Organization (Ecocon), Legal Aid and Literacy Cell, Tech Legal Cell, Alumni Cell, Corporate Cell, Law Hawks Forum, International Cell - ILSA, Sports Committee, Law and Economics cell(LAWECON) Admission for Undergraduate Programmes is through Symbiosis Entrance Test (SET)which is a common written test for the admission processes of Undergraduate Institutes of Symbiosis International University (SIU). The Entrance Test is followed by Group Exercise and Personal Interview . The total intake is 200 seats (inclusive of 150 seats of B.B.A.LL.B and 50 seats of B.A.LL.B). Symbiosis Law School, Pune has been ranked fifth and sixth of India Today and Outlook's ranking respectively. SLS is conferred with the honour of being a core partner in the global network of legal institutes, the Erasmus Mundus, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) a grant for bilateral exchange with Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany.

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