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Chidambaram budget NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Finance Minister P Chidambaram may present a .....more Rapes,
murders, NEW DELHI, Dec 29: It might have remained relatively free from militancy-related . ....more Mulayam
meets EC; NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Samajwadi Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief .......more Bge
techies help dist CUDDALORE (TN), Dec 29: When the magnitude of the Tsunami that hit the Tamil Nadu coast....more |
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India staged a diplomatic coup of sorts in 2004 NEW DELHI, Dec 29: India staged a diplomatic coup of sorts in 2004 when, for......more HC does away with ghost of Bofors for Congress in 2004 NEW DELHI, Dec 29: The Congress finally got rid of the ghost of Bofors with the Delhi ....more Himachal to introduce Environment Studies in schools SHIMLA, Dec 29: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh......more Fear
of epidemic COLACHAL (TN), Dec 29: The air is thick with the stench of human flesh. The fear of outbreak of epidemic looms large .....more |
Chidambaram budget may be radically different NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Finance Minister P Chidambaram may present a radically different budget in February that will give a thrust to "massive tax reforms" to make the structure "simple and stable" and raise the tax to growth ratio. Perked up by buoyant economic fundamentals as year 2004 draws to a close, he outlines his reforms agenda that includes simplification of both direct and indirect taxes, raising savings and attracting investment in all sectors. In an interview to PTI, he also spoke of the strong need for attracting huge investments in agriculture and infrastructure running into a few hundred billions of dollars, quicken banking reforms by coming out with a roadmap and also Government’s monitoring of inflation and management of money supply. Asked about the thrust of the budget exercise which has already begun and whether it would be radically different from the earlier budgets, Chidambaram said "we are trying to have a growth-oriented and inclusive budget which cannot leave any section". "You must be different in a substantive way. You will have to wait for the exercise to complete. Keep the tax structure to be simple but it should also be revenue generating," he said adding "it is for you to judge whether it is radically different." Chidambaram said reforms of the tax structure were linked to keeping it simple and to raise the tax-GDP ratio from the present nine per cent to beyond eleven per cent. The main objective was to have a tax regime that will remain stable over the next four years. Secondly, he said "we must encourage ways and means to encourage savings rate which is satisfactory but not good enough to sustain higher growth." "The savings which are at present 22-23 per cent of GDP needed to be improved by 2-3 per cent. We have savers but they will have to be turned into investors," he said. As infrastructure sector needed huge investments, he said "we need sound and alternative methods to raise resoruces from banks, insurance and pension funds." In this connection, Chidambaram said Government was committed to putting in place pension fund regulation and development authority by January one. There could be a few days delay in the issue of an ordinance in this regard in the face of Tsunami disaster that hit south India. But it was coming, he said. On criticism resounding various steps to widen the tax net, Chidambaram said it was to ensure that nobody who had the potential to pay taxes escaped the net. Chidambaram said the real expansion in the tax collection could come from the corporate sector and certainly not from the salaried class who could not form the bulk of the tax. The main issue was whether the Government was able to collect the taxes that taxpayers should actually be paying, he said adding the purpose of Annual Information Return (AIR) and Tax Information Network (TIN) were meant to capture real expenditure by individuals to compute their income. Chidambaram said at the moment Government had decided to keep filing of AIR for only seven items and justified inclusion of purchases of more than Rs two lakh through credit cards annually for AIR reporting. "I don’t think there is anything wrong in it," he said adding they would have only to disclose. When the nation’s per capita income was just Rs 30,000, any disclosure of over Rs two lakh purchases through credit cards was justified. Referring to inflation, Chidambaram said it continued to be an area of concern. The measures available to control inflation are fiscal, monetary, imports and removing bottlenecks. "We have used one or the other measures to moderate inflation from time to time," he said adding the real issue that global crude oil prices should come down to below 40 dollars a barrel and that "I am afraid was not happening." Another wrinkle was money supply induced inflation. Management of M3 (money supply) was not astute (by the previous NDA Government) perhaps because of the mistaken belief that control of money supply will affect India shining campaign, he said. This year money supply has been managed by RBI quite astutely by keeping it below 14 per cent, he added. Chidambaram said Government was monitoring the situation to ensure that money supply-induced inflation did not occur, particularly when foreign exchange reserves were surging. Yet another area of concern was implementation. "Implementation is very long," he said adding "we have to create a situation where both private and public sector were able to get their loans disbursed. Chidambaram said the level of investment needed was huge, particularly in agriculture and infrastructure which required hundreds of billions of dollars. He said it augured well for the economy that there has been a 26 per cent growth in the investment proposals which have shot up to over rs 17,93,970 crore this year. This, he said, was a welcome development. The bulk of the investment had to come domestically, he said adding one important factor for this was to step up savings by at least two to three per cent. Asked how he assessed the seven months of the UPA regime, Chidambaram said seven months ago there were a lot of questions about what kind of Government it would be and what direction the economy would take. "I think the questions have been answered resoundingly in favour of conclusion that this Government is stable, durable and will take appropriate decision," he said. He said when the Government took over with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, nobody questioned the ability of the Government to take decisions but only expressed doubts about its capacity. "Even this has been resoundingly answered and I think the economy has been guided with a matured hand that is reflected in the results". Elaborating on the point, he said the core sectors have performed well. There has been a sharp accretion of foreign exchange reserves, confidence reflected in the stock market indices and in the investment intentions announced, the minister added. "So I think now we should settle down to doing some solid work — legislative and non legislative — to push economic growth", he said. Asked whether the Government was hindered by coalition compulsions, he said that surprisingly the coalition partners were pulling together on several major issues. As far as budget measures go, there were a few measures that had to be implemented on the ground. There were about eight or nine which were yet to be implemented and they would be done well before the fiscal year was out. Regarding outside support, he said, "we are continually engaging them in a dialogue and while we take their criticisms into account, periodic announcement of decisions clearly shows that we are able to move forward. Nobody is stalling progress as such. Where criticisms are well merited, decisions are suitably modified to move forward". (PTI) |
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Rapes, murders, auto-thefts: Story of ‘crime capital’ in 2004 NEW DELHI, Dec 29: It might have remained relatively free from militancy-related incidents unlike the previous four years but the year 2004 had little to assuage the growing feeling of insecurity of Delhi’s denizens, with cases of rapes, murders and auto-theft spiralling. Interestingly, a few of the cases which hogged headlines included the MMS sex clip case and a Gay murder. Competing with these were the dramatic escape of Sher Singh Rana, prime suspect in Phoolan Devi murder case, and murder of a Congress MP’s aide in the lawmaker’s farmhouse allegedly by the latter’s brother-in-law. After the terrorist attack on Parliament building in 2001 and several encounters in the two subsequent years, the outgoing year was much quieter on the militancy front for Delhi Police. Only one encounter with militants was witnessed. But this was only cold comfort for the Delhi Police as a series of rapes and murders challenged its credo of ‘with you, for you, always’. The insecurity faced by women in India’s ‘crime capital’ was brought into sharp focus by the gruesome rape and murder in March of a 59-year-old Australian tourist Dawn Emily Griggs, allegedly by two taxi drivers, shortly after she had alighted here for a spiritual tour of India. The accused raped griggs, smashed her head with a screwdriver, dumped her body barely 200 metres from the Indira Gandhi International Airport and decamped with her cash. The accused were soon arrested, unlike in the unsolved case of rape of a Swiss diplomat who was assaulted in October 2003 at the venue of India International Film Festival. Grigg’s case was just one of the 491 incidents of rapes recorded this year across the city till november 15, already one more than the whole of last year. Even patients and their attendents were not spared in the hospitals by lust-driven men. While a 16-year-old patient was allegedly raped by a 26-year-old former intern of the Safdarjung hospital, a patient’s attendant was sexually assaulted by a sweeper in the Vidyasagar Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences. But nothing aroused as much media interest as the MMS case and double murder of ‘homosexual couple’ Pushkin Chandra and Kuldeep on the eve of Independence day in a posh south Delhi locality, with newspapers and TV channels running special stories on amorous relationships in schools and the city’s ‘secret homosexual network’. It emerged that Chandra, am employee of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), had brought four men into his house who later killed him and Kuldeep when they tried to take photographs. Police moved fast in the Multi-Media Messaging Sevice (MMS) when a case was registered after the offending clip was put up for sale on popular website Baazeecom. They arrested Rai Raj, a student of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, who had allegedly put up the clip for sale the class XII boy who had shot his sexual escapade with a classmate and Baazee.Com CEO Avnish Bajaj under a section of the Information Technlogy Act Banning Tarnsmission of obscene material through electronic media. Another double murder which gave Delhi Police sleepless nights was that of octogenarian retired Lt General Harnam Singh Seth and his wife Roop Seth in June in their house in Vasant enclave in south-west Delhi. Shocked by the incident, Lt Governor B L Joshi summoned Police Commissioner K K Paul and pulled him up for perceived "slackness" of police to ensure safety of senior citizens. On the same day, Paul announced the setting up of a special unit to monitor security of senior citizens. Though a former servant of the couple, a Nepalese national, was soon arrested for the murder, this did nothing to deter other attacks on elderly persons especially in posh south-western localities where most of them stay alone as their wards have moved to other cities or abroad. There was another high-profile murder which had Delhi Police teams scampering - that of an aide of member of Parliament from Assam Mani Kumar Subb in the lawmaker’s Vasant Kunj farmhouse in September. After days of investigation conducted under intense media scrutiny, police finally arrested the MP’s brother-in-law Narendra Limboo in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri’s district where he had fled to after committing the crime. The lawmaker’s wife Jyoti was also arrested for allegedly trying to sheild her brother and destroy evidence. Limboo had allegedly murdered Milan Subba after a drunken brawl as he was envious of the latter for handling the MP’s affairs in Delhi. While these heinous crimes kept policemen on their toes, something they apparently considered less serious continued to plague city denizens. Almost every second day, cases of vehicle lifting were reported, mostly from the posh colonies in south Delhi or the deserted stretches in the south-west. Though several gangs were smashed, some of which had interesting members like a former body builder who had won the Mr Amritsar title, this did little to deter criminals who stole cars and motorcycles to sell mostly in the north-east and even Nepal and Myanmar. What caused the greatest embarrassment to the Delhi Police, however, was the sensational escape from the high-security tihar jail of Rana, the alleged murderer of dacoit-turned-MP Phoolan Devi. Rana simply walked out of prison in February escorted by a man who claimed to a policeman from Uttaranchal who had come with a warrant to produce the convict in a court. The ruse came to light only an hour later when a real policeman reached tihar jail armed with the original production warrant. Despite a manhunt across many states for several months, police are today no closer to nabbing Rana, though the incident made authorities realise the importance of "producing" criminals in court through video conferencing. (PTI) |
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Mulayam meets EC; asks for 2 months for organisational polls NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Samajwadi Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh today met the Election Commission and sought two months additional time to complete the process of organisational polls. "Our party constitution provides for a three-year tenure for its office bearers which would be completed on January 4, 2005. Keeping in view of Assembly polls in Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand, we have requested the commission to give two months additional time to complete the process", Yadav told reporters after an hour-long meeting with the EC. Accompanied by party general secretary Ramgopal Yadav, the Chief Minister thanked the Commission for ensuring "free and fair" polls in the recently held by-elections in Mainpuri and Akbarpur Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. "We thanked the Commission for ensuring free, fair and peaceful polls. These have also exposed those baseless parties which were raising fingers at the State Government", he said. Referring to the poll outcome in Mainpuri, Yadav said it has once again exposed BJP and Congress nexus who went to the Commission for repolling. "Congress got merely two per cent votes, BJP 12 and sp 62 per cent", he said and ignored BSP saying it was not a party to be mentioned. Taking a dig at the remarks made by UPCC chief Salman Khurshid during the byelections that he would try to cancel Mainpuri Lok Sabha polls not once but hundred times, Yadav said "let me thank Congress president Sonia Gandhi" for providing opportunity for free and fair elections. Asked whether his party wanted similar arrangements in Bihar and other states going for Assembly polls as was in operation in UP, Samajwadi Party chief said "everybody knows that there are irregularities in elections in Bihar. There is need for legal restrictions on this". On the question as to how many seats his party would contest in Bihar and Jharkhand, he said the state units of the Samajwadi Party have been authorised to decide strategies in their respective states. With regard to the recent statement made by SP general secretary Amar Singh daring Congress to withdraw support, Yadav, skirting a direct reply, said "we have extended support to Congress-led UPA Government based on our principles despite humiliation. We will continue our support till communal forces are not finished". He was also critical of the UPA Government for not releasing Rs 11,000 crores for the state saying "perhaps Congress and BJP do not want development of the state". (PTI) Bge techies help dist admn in relief work using technology CUDDALORE (TN), Dec 29: When the magnitude of the Tsunami that hit the Tamil Nadu coast became known by Sunday afternoon, two software engineers working for an it firm in Bangalore did not think twice as they packed their bags and landed in Caddalore. During the last two days, they are assisting the district administration in coordinating the relief work using the power of Information Technology. Sriram Raghavan, president of Conmat Technologies and his colleague Sudhakar Chandra are helping the Cuddalore district administration in creating a database of the requirements of various areas in the relief activities, besides updating the stocks of clothes, food, water and medicines that are coming from various places. "One of the major problem an administration faces during a calamity of this nature is in coordinating and streamlining the relief activities. We are assisting the administration in preparing the data base of the stocks at the disposal, by feeding it into the computers," said Chandra, who works as `chief evangelist’ (Government services) at Conmat technologies, an it firm in the e-governance space. "The database will help the administration to know from time to time, where the medicines, food and other requirements are needed the most. The software will help the officials to identify the areas where the goods have been sent. This will also help them in knowing the inventory level they have at a given point of time," Chandra told PTI. The duo, who did their studies in Tamil Nadu, had an inner urge to involve themselves in relief activities in the state, immediately after the scale of the calamity dawned on them. "We both had our studies from the Annamalai University (in Tamil Nadu). This was a main inspiration to come to Tamil Nadu for relief activities," he said. As for one week’s leave from the company, it was not an issue at all. "When you have the president of the company himself leading the way, leave is no problem at all," Chandra said. (PTI) |
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Fear of epidemic looms over villages COLACHAL (TN), Dec 29: The air is thick with the stench of human flesh. The fear of outbreak of epidemic looms large over the villages. Rescue workers are making last-ditch efforts to trace bodies in the debris of collapsed houses. People in a string of fishing hamlets, who bore the brunt of the ocean’s fury in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, are yet to reconcile themselves to the loss and destruction spawned by the calamity. What has been left untouched by nature’s wrath are a few stone-walled Churches, built centries back. The death toll has officially been put at 806. But many believe that the count could be much higher, as about 700 persons are reported missing. According to local people, more bodies were washed ashore since yesterday afternoon. Old timers say this is a sign of the sea regaining normlacy after remaning abnormal for three days. According to officials, the calamity affected one lakh people in 33 villages in Kanyakumari district. Over 26,000 people are still in 45 relief camps. Over 7690 houses were damaged and about 2250 livestock have perished. Gearing up relief measures, the Government has pressed into service, a 22-member mobile team of doctors, which is doing the rounds of the affected areas. A few cases of fever have been reported from some villages. There were also complaints of vomiting. The medical teams are taking all efforts to check spread of diseases, an official said. The country’s southern tip, Kanyakumari, until that black Sunday, full of tourists from far and wide, now wears a deserted look. Only a few local people could be seen moving in the vast many-coloured sandy stretch, washed by Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea— revered as ‘Thriveni Sangam.’ The area is closed to visitors. The boat service to the Vivekananda rock memorial, where the venerable sage meditated before his epoch-making journey to the world religious conference of Chicago over a century back, has been suspended. Amidst the splashing, restless sea stands the towering statue of sage Thiruvalluvar, unruffled by the vagaries of nature and the human tragedies they spawn. (PTI) |
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Telgi scam: Recalcitrant accused add to CBI’s problems PUNE, Dec 29: Recalcitrant accused, playing the game of one-upmanship, coupled with manpower shortage added to problems of the Central Bureau of Investigation probing the infamous multi-crore fake stamp paper scam during 2004. These two factors confronted the apex investigating agency which tried to come to grips with Nitty Gritty of the racket, spread across several states, during the year. Despite the Supreme Court’s direction to the CBI to complete the probe into the case at the earliest, the agency’s job was held up due to manpower shortage and some accused playing the game of one-upmanship. The CBI took over investigations into the scam, aided and abetted by the high and mighty, from the Special Investigation Team of Maharashtra Police this year. On December 18, the CBI submitted before a special court in Pune, holding the trial in the case, that some accused in the stamp paper scam had refused to give their voice samples, necessary for investigations, despite the October 12 order of the Bombay High Court. So far, 65 chargesheets have been filed in the case including against prime accused Abdul Karim Telgi but there seems to be no end in sight to the on-going probe. "We are not through with investigations into the case and need some more time," CBI sources said. Of the 65 accused, four of them are on bail including former Mumbai Police Commissioner R S Sharma and ex-deputy Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, Pradeep Sawant. Telgi’s lawyer Harshad Nimbalkar said the case had not yet reached the trial stage, adding it would take years for that to happen because first the investigations have to end somewhere. The racket first came to light in Nasik in 1999-2000 and it became Sharma’s Nemesis under whose tenure as Pune Police Commissioner, fake stamps with Rs 56 lakh of value embossed on them were seized from a car parked in the city on June seven, 2002. All the 65 accused including Sharma, Sawant, former special IGP of Maharashtra Police Shridhar S Wagal, Telgi, ex-minister of Andhra Pradesh Krishna Yadav and ex-MLA of Samajwadi Party Anil Gote have been charged under stringent provisions of MCOCA. Telgi, affected with hiv and a diabetic, created sensation in the court on december 18 when he alleged that there was a conspiracy to eliminate him. He submitted before the court that he was being slow poisoned, subjected to untold misery and tortured as part of the conspiracy to eliminate him. Earlier, the court had allowed telgi to be supplied with hygienic food, considering his health condition. The accused allegedly continued with their game of taking the investigating agency on the Garden path by making charges of varied kind. One of them related to a signed statement made by Telgi on October 30 before the special court stating that the kingpin in the fake stamp paper case was not him but a businessman from Kolkata. Telgi had claimed he was just a tool while the kingpin was Mohammed Sayeed Mohammed Yasin who was involved in printing and sale of fake stamp papers. Meanwhile, Telgi is planning to approach the Bombay High Court to challenge the rejection of his application by the special court seeking fresh narco-analysis test and brain mapping. On October eight, Telgi’s lawyer, during the hearing, submitted that fresh narco-analysis test and brain mapping should be done on Telgi as the earlier one was "false and fabricated". (PTI) 2004- Naxal violence, Mainpuri bypoll countermanding dominate LUCKNOW, Dec 29: Upsurge in Naxalite violence, sacking of Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri, countermanding of Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll bringing the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Election Commission at Loggerheads, rout of BJP in Parliamentary elections in the state, and change of guard in BJP and Congress kept the state in the news in the year that passed by. The year also saw the rise in numerical strength of ruling SP in the State Assembly giving it a majority on its own following impressive victories in the Assembly by-elections for 12 seats. The party also regained the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat in the bypoll and wrested the Akbarpur Lok Sabha seat from its arch rival BSP. The Mainpuri bypoll had however been marred by controversies earlier forcing the EC to countermand the October 13 polling following charges of large-scale rigging and misuse of official machinery by the ruling party, triggering a war of words between the EC and SP. The year also saw an upsurge in Naxalite violence in parts of Chandauli district and 20 policemen lost their lives when ultras blasted their vehicle and set ablaze a police outpost in October. The Rajya Sabha biennial polls also witnessed controversy following rejection of nomination papers of two Congress candidates. The year 2004 also saw the unceremonious exit of Governor and senior BJP leader Vishnu Kant Shastri, who was sacked by the UPA at the Centre after he refused to resign. The year was not good especially for BJP whose electoral fortunes continued to nosedive in the general elections in May. It could win only 10 seats as against 29 in the last Lok Sabha elections despite the return of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh to the party-fold. Singh, who had parted ways with the saffron party following his removal from the top post and used every expletive for the top party leadership including former Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee, later said he had uttered the remarks in "anger". The massive defeat forced the saffron party to reshuffle the organisational set-up in up and young leader Vinay Katiyar was replaced by veteran Kesri Nath Tripathi. Though Congress fared well in most other states, it once again failed to register a comeback in this crucial state and could win only nine Lok Sabha seats. Even the presence of Nehru-Gandhi family’s prominent face Rahul Gandhi could not help the party even though he kept himself confined to Amethi, his own Lok Sabha constituency, and a few other areas. The Congress High Command too was forced to effect a change of guard in the state and Jagadambika Pal was replaced by an articulate Salman Khurshid known for his tongue-lashing of SP chief and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. The year witnessed a new low in Congress-SP relations and the spat between the two parties hogged limelight ever since the latter found itself politically isolated even after having 38 MPs in the Lok Sabha. The SP also brought its own nominees for the post of the speakers of the State Assembly and Lesgislative Council. The multi-crore Taj expressway scam took its toll in the year gone by when senior IAS officer and former Environment Secretary, R K Sharma, an accused in the case, was sacked after a departmental inquiry. Former State Chief Secretary D S Bagga, who was suspended along with six other officials in the case, retired early in the year but his pension and other benefits were frozen in view of the ongoing case. The legal wrangles over the vexed Ayodhya issue continued to haunt the top BJP leadership with president L K Advani, senior leaders M M Joshi, Uma Bharti and Katiyar being issued notices by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on a criminal revision filed by the CBI challenging the special CBI court’s order dropping proceedings against them and some others in the Ayodhya demolition case. The year also saw Kanpur hitting the civil air map of the country with the inaugural flight at the fag-end of the year. (PTI) TN’s largest fishing village tries to recover the lost pieces CUDDALORE (TN), Dec 29: Villagers in Devanampattinam, Tamil Nadu’s largest fishing village with over 3500 families, which was devastated by the Tsunami on Sunday, are yet to recover from the shock as they try to rebuild homes and continue with their lives, despite losing dear and near ones. The fishing village has the highest casualty of about 110 deaths in Cuddalore district, where over 530 deaths have been reported. It would take at least 4-5 months for them to start venturing out into the sea again to earn a living. Hundreds of fishing boats lie scattered more than 800 metres away from the beach, all fully or partially damaged. "We lost everything, in the sea, we encounter big waves. But, the waves on Sunday morning were bigger than the biggest we have ever seen," says R Marsivakamani, a 57-year-old fisherman, whose hut and fishing boat was washed away. The fate of Marsivakamani’s brother Natarajan, who was staying in a nearby house on the beach, was even worse.He lost his wife Krishnavani and daughter Ilavarasi in the waves, that hit the coastal regions of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala on Sunday. Natarajan had just returned from a pilgrimage to the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala on that day, after seeking blessings for his daughter’s marriage, which was fixed for the coming days. "Sir, tell me what wrong have I done to deserve this, " Natarajan, who is accommodated in a nearby relief camp, asks. Ilavarasi, a 60-year-old woman, is among the few women searching through debris of their homes as the waves roars in the background, not completely settled from Sunday’s Tsunami. "We are yet to receive food packets and clothing still," she complains. "This was my home," she said, pointing to a small pile of debris. Cuddalore District Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi said the deaths in the district was smaller compared to neighbouring Nagapattinam. The district, which was a cyclone-prone area, had been training the villagers on disaster management and this has helped in reducing the casualties, he told PTI. The next task ahead of the district administration was to pull back the boats, which have been thrown far and wide away from the beach, to the seaside. "We have asked for cranes from the Neyveli Lignite Corporation. We hope to get back the boats to the sea in a couple of days," he said. On complaints that food packets were not reaching the site of the disaster, Bedi said, it was decided that the food packets would be distributed only in relief camps. (PTI) Filling HC vacancies, judicial reforms given top billing NEW DELHI, Dec 28: With over 20 million cases pending in courts across India, a priority of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government was to fill 222 judicial vacancies it inherited in mid-2004. Efforts to tackle communal violence, give daughters equal rights to ancestral property, turn Tehelka probe over to investigators and scrap controversial anti-Terrorism law were among Law and Justice Ministry’s other priorities, a year-end Government review recalled. India’s 21 High Courts have an approved strength of 719, but only 489 judges were in place in High Courts by the end of June 2004, the statement said. Experts have long attributed the high pendency to the shortage of judges in India. The Law Commission of India held as early as 1987 that considering population the number of judges in the country was among the lowest in the world. The country’s senior and subordinate judiciaries between them have about 13,000 officers dispensing justice at District, State and National levels. They include Munsifs, Sub-Judges, Civil Judges, Judicial Magistrates and District Magistrates, Session Judges and High Court and Supreme Court Justices and the Chief Justice of India. The judges to population ratio in India was placed by the commission at 10.5 per million people as against 50.9 in Britain, 57.7 in Australia, 75.2 in Canada, and 107 in the United States. Observing that India was persisting in a pattern of conscious judicial understaffing followed by the British rulers in keeping with their colonial interests, the Law Commission recommended a nearly five fold increase, raising the judiciary strength to 50 per million people. While no such increase has been effected, experts point out that even the existing strength has not been filled, hence the priority accorded by Law and Justice Minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj to appointing judges. The statement said that during the last six months as many as 79 judges were appointed in various High Courts and the Government "hopes to fill the remaining 143 vacancies by the end of 2005." This may also provide a backdrop to advice rendered by Chief Justice of India R C Lahoti to High Court Chief Justices to look out for competent women lawyers in their courts to elevate them as judges. Noting that judicial reforms being essentially a management exercise, the statement said the Government "has pledged to pool all its resources to streamline the system." The Government also decided to give priority to upgrading infrastructural facilities by making more funds available for building court rooms and appointment of additional staff. Bhardwaj has insisted that the increased funding should continue for six years to overcome problems plaguing the subordinate judiciary, the statement said. It also cited steps taken to "drastically" cut delays in High Courts and Lower Courts. With three million cases pending in 21 High Courts alone, the Government and the Supreme Court jointly launched a drive to speed up disposal of cases. Steps were taken to introduce computers and internet system in almost all the courts to ease updating of records and facilitate intra-court and inter-court communication. In October, the Law and Justice Ministry convened a conference of High Court Chief Justices and States Chief Ministers on improving the functioning of the system. It was addressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Justice Lahoti. The last meet was held 13 years ago. Recalling that the UPA’s Common Minimum Programme pledge to preserve, protect and promote social harmony and enforce the law without fear or favour, the statement cited the Government steps to enact a model comprehensive law to deal with communal violence. It said states were being encouraged to adopt that law for generating faith and confidence in minority communities. The Government also decided to set up an administrative reforms commission to prepare a detailed blueprint for revamping the public administration system and pledged to enact into law the Lok Pal bill. Elaborate discussions have taken place on whether to bring the president and the Prime Minister within the ambit of this law. In moves to remove gender discrimination, the Government introduced in Parliament the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Bill 2004 and prevention of Child Marriage Bill 2004. The proposed law would give equal right to daughters in ancestral property, the statement said. Another commitment the Government kept, it pointed out, was the abolition of the prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 and the passasge by Parliament of the Unlawful Activities (prevention) Act, 2004 strengthening the 1967 law. An ongoing probe into the Tehelka affair was given a new direction by dissolving the Phukan Commission and turning the tapes and other matgerials over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Government also "initiated action for proper functioning" of the legal service authorities which exist in almost all states. (UNI) |
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