Tag: High Court

Share of Women in Subordinate Courts Highest in Telangana, Least in Bihar.

Source – news18.com

Telangana has the highest share of women judges at 44 per cent and Bihar the lowest at 11.5 per cent in subordinate courts, while seven states did not have a single woman judge in their high courts as of June 2018, according to a report.

The share of women in the judiciary has come down and despite wide acceptance of value of gender diversity, the actual presence of women in state judiciaries is underwhelming, the Tata Trusts’ India Justice Report-2019 stated.

It said that “among the large and mid-sized states, at just above 44 per cent, Telangana had the largest share of women in the subordinate courts, but at the high court level, this drops to a meagre 10 per cent.”

“Similarly, Punjab with 39 per cent at the subordinate level, (the share of women judges) drops down to 12 per cent in the high court,” it said.

“This pattern is apparent everywhere with only Tamil Nadu breaking the trend with a high number of women at the high court level (19.6 per cent), and more women than its quota of 35 per cent at the subordinate courts,” according to the report.

Data of 18 large and mid-sized states, and seven small states was taken for the Tata Trust report.

The share of women judges at subordinate courts in Meghalaya is 74 per cent and in Goa, 66 per cent the highest among small states.

“However, Goa’s share at the high court level was just 12.68 per cent. Sikkim demonstrates a high share of women at both levels, with 64.71 per cent in the high court and 33.33 per cent at the subordinate court level.

“In terms of absolute numbers, however, this would be one female judge of three, at the high court-level, and 11 female judges out of 17 at the level of subordinate courts,” the report said.

The ranking is an initiative of Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS- Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

“The presence of women judges portrays the institution that upholds law and dispenses justice as an equal opportunity space driven by fair, meritocratic, and non-discriminatory practices and norms.

“Arguably, women on the bench also influence the quality of judicial decision-making, because the inclusion of their life experiences must necessarily allow a wider variety of human experiences into the process of judging,” the report said.

The country has about 18,200 judges with about 23 per cent sanctioned posts vacant, as per the findings of the report.

Fugitive’s Jail Road stroll stuns Ranchi.

Source – telegraphindia.com

A chance encounter of The Telegraph photographer Manob Chowdhary with fugitive Birsa Munda jail undertrial Ashish Ghosh on Tuesday evoked strong reactions from residents of the state capital, especially on the role of the police in the whole case.

This paper reported Ghosh’s account, caught on tape by Chowdhary, including sensational claims of his being framed for the August 2018 double murder of a woman and a boy that he said he did not commit, severe beatings and sodomy he alleged by policemen at Bariatu police station leading to his shoulder dislocation and anal bleeding, and finally, his escape from RIMS on October 18 this year, which he said he managed by bribing a policeman Rs 5,000.

Though the police on Tuesday denied all of Ghosh’s allegations, treasurer of People’s Union of Civil Liberties Anand Kumar Singh, however, said that the man’s allegations of torture warranted a judicial inquiry. “The statement of undertrial prisoner Ashish Ghosh puts a big question mark on the working style of the police. Third-degree torture after arrest is a violation of guidelines given by Supreme Court judge D.K. Basu. A judicial inquiry should be done in the matter,” Singh said.

Pointing out how easily Ghosh fled RIMS under judicial custody, Jharkhand High Court advocate Rajeev Kumar, who has filed hundreds of PILs on various issues, said he was aghast at how the state’s biggest government hospital, had become a sub-jail of sorts.

“There is some nexus between the police, jail administration and RIMS,” he said. “This nexus decides how to use RIMS for the benefit of high-profile or sensitive prisoners,” he added, pointing out the “prolonged treatment of Lalu Yadav” and “the easy way this man fled and became a fugitive on city roads”.

Former president of the Federation of Jharkhand Chambers of Commerce and Industries and social activist Vikas Singh, supporting advocate Kumar, said the way a fugitive was found roaming in the capital without being caught, suggested something was fishy. “It requires a thorough probe,” Singh said.

Rajan Kumar Singh, an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, who has joined the Aam Aadmi Party as its state secretary, called for a CBI probe in the case.

“Unfortunately, the Raghubar Das government has reduced law and order to jungle raj. In several cases, the role of police has been suspicious. Jharkhand police is on the verge of losing its credibility. The CBI should probe the case,” Rajan said.

Sadar DSP Deepak Pandey admitted their failure to nab Ghosh on Wednesday, a day after Chowdhary had spotted him by chance on East Jail Road. “CCTV cameras installed on roads have so far not given any clue. However, we are on the job. Raids are being conducted at various locations of the city to nab Ghosh, including near his Bariatu residence,” the DSP said.

Officer-in-charge of Bariatu police station Sanjeev Kumar could not be contacted for his comments despite repeated calls to his cellphone from this paper.

Wanted: Saviour for felled trees in Jharkhand.

Source – telegraphindia.com

Remember the outrage recently when the Supreme Court stepped in after thousands of trees were cut in Arey, a suburb of Mumbai, for the Metro rail project? Now sample this: The Jharkhand forest department has still not been able to implement a high court direction from three years ago on transplanting trees cut for infrastructure projects.

The department has been struggling to complete the tender process to find an agency to undertake the task.

Concerned over mindless felling of trees in the name of development, Jharkhand High Court while hearing a public interest litigation in June 2015 had imposed a total ban on cutting of trees for widening highways.

The court had constituted a high-powered panel of lawyers and experts to study the present conditions and the need to cut trees for projects. The committee comprised the regional chief conservator of forest (RCCF) of Ranchi as its chairman and also the road construction department chief engineer, former IFS officer Narendra Mishra, environmentalist Bulu Imam, and the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) CEO.

The committee had in its report suggested empanelment of a tree transplanting agency.

“We had started the tender process for empanelment of tree transplanting agency three times in the last three years but the process could not be completed as only one firm took part in the bidding process,” a highly placed forest department source said. “We have again started the process again and have also initiated talks with some local agencies to show interest in the tender bid so that we can complete the process.”

The high court had in August 2016 had criticised the state government for delay in arranging a tree transplanting agency.

A senior forest official associated with the project of finalising the tree transplanting agency confirmed that Hyderabad based Volvo Trucks is interested in executing the work across state.

“Volvo Trucks has tree transplanting machines and has taken part during all the tender processes. However, no other agency took interest as the truck-mounted transplanting machine costs in excess of Rs 4 crore. We are in talks with some local agencies so that they take part in the tender agencies, even if they do not meet the eligibility criteria, to complete the tender process through multiple bidders. This is because we cannot complete the bidding process with a single bidder. We hope to complete the exercise by the end of October,” said the official.

According to the norms, whoever applies for the job should have at least three years’ experience in this field in the country. The company should also have a qualified team of at least one tree biologist and/or silviculturist (tree specialists, especially for forests) and a minimum of 10 tree transplanting machines, besides adequate number of complementary machines and other requisite resources to successfully carry out the task in time.

Jharkhand principal chief conservator of forest Sanjay Kumar said the department wanted to comply with the high court direction.

“The department is trying its best to select a tree transplanting agency for empanelment across state as per the advise of the high power committee constituted by the high court,” Kumar said. “Hopefully, it will be completed soon. As of now, agencies carrying out development work requiring tree felling are either carrying out tree plantation or transplantation on their own. It is mandatory to compensate for each felled tree by planting trees.”

The PIL was initiated suo motu by the high court on the basis of a news report that the road construction department had cut thousands of trees but had not planted saplings as it was supposed to do so.

Geologist and environmentalist Nitish Priyadarshi, lecturer in the department of environment and water at Ranchi University, said that in recent years hundreds of trees have been felled for road widening projects.

“In the last one or two years, hundreds of old trees have been cut in Taimara under Bundu police station area along NH-33 for its widening. There are proposals to cut hundreds of trees for widening of the Ranchi-Khunti and Ranchi-Silli road. Tree transplanting is the best method as merely planting saplings are no replacement for cutting old trees; the saplings would take years to grow, which would harm the ecology,” said Priyadarshi.

There are reports that nearly 3.44 lakh trees would be felled for the North Koel reservoir (known as Mandal dam) in the Palamau Tiger Reserve. “Tree transplantation should be done for projects both in city and rural areas as loss of tree cover will harm the environment,” Priyadarshi said.

BSEB May Delay Bihar STET Admit Card 2019 Download Date, Reopen Application Form.

Source – news.aglasem.com

Teaching aspirants across Bihar are waiting eagerly to download STET admit card 2019. It has been more than three weeks since the application form submission ended. And most importantly, the exam date is supposed to be November 7, 2019, which is only two weeks away.

Candidates are expecting STET admit card for the Bihar Secondary Teacher Eligibility Test 2019 to be released this week. However, even now there is neither any link to download admit card, nor any notification about its release date yet.

There are high chances that BSEB may have to delay releasing the STET admit card 2019. This is because of the decision of the high court to remove age limit. 

As per latest reports, the Patna High Court has ordered Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), which the conducting body for STET 2019, to remove the age limit in the exam. As per the report, the high court deems that since the state had not conducted any STET in the last 8 years, many candidates who were waiting for the exam have crossed the STET 2019 age limit now. It is not, as per the decision, the candidates’ fault that they do not fulfill the age limit. 

Now if BSEB has to adhere to this decision, then it will have to remove the age limit. As per Bihar STET 2019 notification, the age limit was as follows: general male – 37 years, general female / BC male / BC female / EBC male / EBC female – 40 years,  SC male / SC female / ST male / ST female – 42 years. 

And if the age limit is removed, then all the candidates who were earlier not eligible for the STET 2019, will now be eligible, and they will have to be given a chance to apply. In that case, the online application form of the exam will reopen.

If the application form submission reopens, then admit card cannot be released immediately. So it will take some time after that for BSEB to issue the hall tickets. 

Whether exam date will also be postponed is another question. After the court decision, there is no notification on the official website bsebstet2019.in or on the board website biharboardonline.bihar.gov.in regarding either the decision, or what next. 

The only confirmed thing right now is that whenever the admit card is released, it will be made available at bsebstet2019.in only. There, candidates will have to login with application number and date of birth in order to download their admit card. 

Bihar STET 2019 is being organized to fill 25,270 vacancies of teachers in classes 9th and 10th, and 12,065 in classes 11th and 12th. For classes 9th, 10th, there will be paper 1, and for classes 11th, 12th, there will be paper 2. Recruitment of teachers will only be on the basis of merit obtained in the exam, subject to fulfillment of eligibility criteria and verification of documents. Both the papers will be 2.5 hours long, without any negative marking.

Patna floods: High court lawyer files complaint against Nitish Kumar, Sushil Modi and others

Source: financialexpress.com

A complaint was filed against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi over the recent floods in Patna that left the city paralysed for more than a week. Several state ministers and Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials have also been named in the complaint.

The complaint was filed in the court of Patna Chief Judicial Magistrate under several sections of the IPC including 302 (murder) and (120B) criminal conspiracy. The complainant, an advocate at High Court, has sought action against Kumar, Modi and others for inaction during the crisis.

Besides Kumar and Modi, those who have been named in the complaint include Cabinet minister Suresh Kumar Sharma, PMC Mayor Sita Sahu, Commissioner Amit Kumar Pandey, Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited Managing Director Amrendra Prasad Singh, Ex-UDD principal secretary Chaitanya Prasad and Ex-Patna Commissioner Anand Kishor.

The complainant said that several people lost their lives and government and private properties worth over Rs 100 crore were damaged due to the ‘man-made’ flood. He said that flooding in the capital was caused due to the non-maintenance of the drainage system and the failure of the government machinery.

Patna, the capital of Bihar, was flooded a few weeks ago after heavy rains lashed the city and neighbouring districts. The posh Rajendra Nagar, Kankarbagh localities were waterlogged for almost a week. The historic Gandhi Maidan, busy Dak Bungalow Chauraha were also inundated.

The complainant claimed that even after 18-20 days of flooding, some of the affected areas were water-logged.

As many as 73 people lost their lives in different districts of the state due to floods in September.

2.7 Lakh Prohibition Cases Pending, High Court Asks Bihar For Plan

Source: ndtv.com

PATNA: More than three years after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rolled out an ambitious prohibition policy, its success remains a matter of debate. But one thing it has achieved is an alarmingly high pile of excise cases. Now, the Patna High Court has asked the state government to present a plan for how it plans to dispose these cases.

In a recent judgement, the court noted that the total number of such pending cases till July 8 this year is some 2.7 lakh.

In the absence of adequate judicial officers and support staff, the management of these cases is near impossible.

In an affidavit, the government has said that so far 67,000 people have been arrested and over 52 lakh litres of liquor has been seized. However, only 2,629 cases have been disposed of.

After the state government’s affidavit, the court has directed the Chief Secretary to file another about how the state hopes to tackle the problem of increased litigation.

The move is seen as one directed to draw attention to courts getting overburdened with excise and prohibition cases.

Bihar had banned country liquor from April 1, 2016 and prohibited the consumption of any alcohol six months later.

But at its peak, the law the led to an average of 172 arrests every day or one every 10 minutes.