August10th, 2013

ALB20130808

Abhyaas Law Bulletin

For the quintessential CLAT aspirant
The Scoop Of The Month

Congress declares Telangana will be a reality

The Editors Column Dear Student, Welcome to the August edition of the Abhyaas law Bulletin. The UPA government finally started taking some major decisions ahead of the general elections in 2014. The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision making body of the party finally decided to recommend creation of a separate state of Telangana to the Union Government. There were protests in the Seemandhra region. The Congress has since appointed an internal committee headed by A K Antony to look into the apprehensions and grievances of the people from the Seemandhra region.

Moments after the Congresss allies in the UPA Coordination Committee agreed to the division of Andhra Pradesh, the partys Working Committee pronounced in a unanimous resolution that Telangana would be a reality. Andhra Pradesh will probably be able to celebrate 57 years of its existence this November, before the curtains come down on it. But Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy did not wait for the announcement. After making a last ditch effort as did other central ministers, Congress MPs and other leaders from Seemandhra to persuade the Congress leadership not to go through with the separation he dashed back to Hyderabad to deal with the political fallout. With threats of resignations coming in from Congress State ministers and MLAs from the Seemandhra region, a grim-faced party general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijaya Singh admitted, in response to a question, Some issues are agitating the minds of people on both sides, and it is the responsibility of the Congress general secretary in charge and the State leadership to resolve them. The complicated process that will accompany the creation of what will be Indias 29th state, Mr. Singh said, will take four to five months. (Contd)

The Union Government relaxed FDI norms in major sectors in a bid to attract foreign investment. It relaxed norms in sectors like defence, telecom, insurance, commodity exchanges and power exchanges. There was a nation wide outrage over the suspension of young IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal by the UP Government allegedly for her crackdown on the sand mafia. The Union Government is mulling to modify certain rules with respect to civil services officers transfers and suspensions after the incident.
Happy Reading !

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

Page 4: Spotlight

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August10th, 2013 National: Centre, he said, will send the CWC resolution to the State assembly for its approval, which would then be sent to the Union cabinet that will set up a Group of Ministers to address the issues of Telangana and Seemandhra: these will include the sharing of waters, revenue, land, power. After that, it would come back to the Cabinet, which would ask the Union law ministry to draft a bill that would be sent to the Andhra Assembly for its comments. Then the Union home ministry will make the adequate provisions, incorporating the suggestions. Next, the draft bill, approved by the government, will be sent to the President, after which Parliament will have to pass the bill in both the houses by a simple majority. It will then be sent back to the President for notification. Mr. Singh made it clear that the approval of the Andhra Assembly was not needed for the creation of Telangana. As for the provisions of Article 371 (D), he said the Union cabinet would have to examine whether its provisions would remain relevant after the creation of Telangana. The 10 districts of Telangana will form the new State, while the remaining Andhra and Rayalaseema regions will together constitute Seemandhra. Hyderabad will be the common capital for the two states for 10 years, by which time Seemandhra is expected to build a new capital located within its geographical boundaries. Over 30% of MPs, MLAs face criminal charges Days after the Supreme Court ruled that a convicted elected representative cannot continue in office, an analysis of the affidavits of Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies, has revealed that over 30 per cent of them have criminal cases registered against them. According to an analysis done by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch (NEW), 30 per cent of sitting Lok Sabha MPs and 31 per cent of sitting MLAs have criminal cases registered against them. To get a sense of criminalisation of politics, the ADR and the NEW analysed the self-sworn affidavits of a total of 4,807 sitting MPs and MLAs. These affidavits were submitted by the politicians to the Election Commission of India prior to contesting elections. When it comes to party-wise distribution of MPs and MLAs with criminal cases, the Indian National Congress, has the lowest percentage (21 per cent) with criminal cases of its 1,433 elected representatives, 305 are facing such charges. On the other hand, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the ruling party in Jharkhand, has earned the dubious distinction of having the highest percentage of MPs and MLAs 82 per cent with criminal cases. Sixty-four per cent of MPs and MLAs who have been elected on RJD ticket have declared criminal cases against themselves; whereas in the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party the figure is 48 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. Of the 1,017 MPs and MLAs from the BJP, 313 have declared criminal cases. Among the States only Manipur has no MLA with declared criminal cases in its 2012 Assembly. The Jharkhand 2009 Assembly has the highest percentage of elected representatives (74 per cent) who declared criminal cases against them. As many as 55 MLAs in the Jharkhand Assembly are facing charges. Among the recent elections that have been analysed by ADR and NEW, the Bihar 2010 Assembly has 58 per cent MLAs who have declared criminal cases against themselves. In the Uttar Pradesh 2012 Assembly, there are 47 per cent MLAs with criminal cases.

For the moment, the proposal to include two districts of Rayalaseema in Telangana has been put in cold storage; however, Mr. Singh, when asked a question on the subject, said that while for the moment the two districts would not be part of Telengana, over the next few months, those from the State who wanted them to be included could make a suggestion to the Group of Ministers that will be set up for consideration. The emphasis in the CWC resolution is that the creation of Telangana has been difficult, but that it comes after years of promises made by different leaders of the party from Union home minister P. Chidambaram to the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, as well as its mention in several party documents. Indeed, the resolution takes pains to stress that it is historical reasons rather than political expediency that has led the government to take this painful step.

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August10th, 2013 No acid sale sans ID: Supreme Court With a view to prevent acid attacks, the Supreme Court has completely prohibited over-the-counter sale of the chemical unless the seller maintains a log/register recording the address and other details of the buyer, and the quantum. Giving this interim direction, effective until rules are framed by States and Union Territories, a Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and Ibrahim Kalifulla, hearing the petition filed by acid attack victim Laxmi, said all dealers should sell the chemical only after the buyer showed a government-issued photo identity card and specified the purpose of purchase. The seller should submit the details of sale to the local police within three days of the transaction; no acid should be sold to any person under 18 and all stocks must be declared with the local sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) in 15 days. All institutions shall maintain a register of usage of acid and file the same with the local police and the SDM concerned. Further, the institutions should make a person accountable for possession and safe keeping of acid; acid should be stored under the supervision of this person and there should be compulsory checking of students/personnel leaving the laboratories where acid is used. Supreme Court order on smoking hazard The Supreme Court removed all hurdles on implementation of Point of Sale Rules on tobacco and tobacco products. As per the rule, each display board should contain in an Indian language a warning that tobacco causes cancer or tobacco kills and it should be prominently displayed in a space measuring 20 cm by 15 cm. Four Indian-Americans win awards Four Indian-American professors are among 13 mathematicians, theoretical physicists and theoretical computer scientists selected for the Simons Investigators awards for their cutting-edge research. Kannan Soundararajan, Rajeev Alur, Salil P. Vadhan and Senthil Todadri will receive $1,00,000 a year for five years for long-term research. FDI cap hiked in key sectors In a bid to boost foreign investment, the UPA government hiked limits and relaxed rules for Foreign Direct Investment in key sectors including defence, telecom, insurance, commodity exchanges and power exchanges. In telecom, the FDI limit has been increased from 74 per cent to 100 per cent under the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) route. These major policy decisions taken at a meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are aimed at boosting the flow of foreign funds in the light of a depreciating rupee against the dollar and a bid to turn around declining investor sentiment. The 26 per cent FDI cap on defence manufacturing would now be under the automatic route and beyond 26 per cent the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will take a decision on a case-to-case basis. Addressing concerns, especially of the foreign investors in the insurance sector, the government hiked the 26 per cent FDI limit to 49 per cent under the automatic approval route. Similarly, for basic and cellular services in the telecom sector, the government hiked the limit under the automatic route to 49 per cent and 49 to 100 per cent under the FIPB route. In petroleum and natural gas, refining, the cap has gone up to 49 per cent under the automatic route.

Time lapse is no ground for quashing preventive detention order: Supreme Court
Inordinate delay in execution of a preventive detention order, either because the offender has been absconding or evading arrest or it could not be executed due to inaction on the part of authorities, cannot be a valid ground for quashing it, the Supreme Court has ruled. A Bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir (who has since retired) and Justices Gyan Sudha Misra and J. Chelameswar, by a majority of 2:1, held that the order of detention at the pre-execution stage is not fit to be quashed and should not be quashed merely due to a long lapse of time. Writing the main judgment, Justice Gyan Sudha said if it was held that a detention order was fit to be quashed merely because the same could not be executed for one reason or the other specially when the person concerned was evading it, the laws of preventive detention would surely be reduced to a hollow piece of legislation which is surely not the purpose and object of the [Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities, or COFEPOSA] Act.

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August10th, 2013

This month in pictures:

IPS officer Sharad Kumar was appointed the new chief of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

IAS officer from UP Durga Shakti Nagpal was suspended by the UP Govt allegedly for her crackdown on the sand mafia.

Indian American Nisha Desai Biswal was nominated to the post of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia (SCA) by President Obama.

Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan will be honoured with the 21st Rajiv Gandhi National Sadhbhavna Award.

Spotlight: NLU, Delhi

Sunetra Gupta, an India-born chemist and physicist has joined the big league of scientists like Marie Curie in a first-of-its-kind art exhibition at the prestigious Royal Society.

India-born former Goldman Sachs Director Rajat Gupta has been ordered to pay a $13.9-million penalty in a civil case over insider trading.

National Law University, Delhi (University of Law), abbreviated to NLUD is a specialised law university offering courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. NLUD is one of the elite national law schools in India built on the five-year law degree model proposed and implemented by the Bar Council of India. NLUD was established in 2008 in the National Capital Territory of Delhi with the initiative of the High Court of Delhi. The University has state of the art infrastructure with all facilities for the best of learning and research. The University initially offers a 5-year integrated B.A., LL.B (Hons.) degree programme with effect from the Academic Year 2008-09 starting in August, 2008 Admission to the First Year of the 5-Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) Degree Programme is made strictly on merit, based on the All India Law Entrance Test (AILET). NLU, Delhi also shares the broader vision of providing quality legal education to produce a new generation of lawyers that are competent and humane. The academic curriculum is designed to enable prospective lawyers to deal with the legal systems of India and other countries. The total number of seats for B.A., LL.B (Hons.) Degree Programme is eighty. Out of the eighty seats, ten seats are for Foreign Nationals.

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