Ø The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the responses of BJP leader L.K.
Advani and 19 others on a petition that sought their trial on charges of
conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid in 1992. The Central Bureau of
Investigation that investigated the case had accused them all, but a trial
court discharged them in a decision upheld by the Allahabad High Court in 2010.
The apex court intervention following a petition by Haji Mahboob Ahmad, a
petitioner in the mosque demolition case, could revive the latent but
inconclusive questions about the role of the senior leaders of the ruling party
in the demolition that triggered violence across the country and polarised it.
A Bench led by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu issued notice to BJP veterans Mr.
Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Union Minister Uma Bharti and Himachal Pradesh
Governor Kalyan Singh. The Supreme Court also asked the CBI to explain
why it unduly delayed the appeal against the HC order.
Ø Revisiting the disputed anti-terror legislation brought in by former
Chief Minister Narendra Modi , the Gujarat Assembly on Tuesday passed the
landmark Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime Bill 2015. The
new Bill is a re-worked version of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Bill
(GUJCOC), 2003, which was earlier rejected twice by the President due to some
of its contentious provisions. The State government passed the Bill amid
strong opposition from Congress members, who staged a walk out. Citing
past terror attacks in Gujarat, Rajnikant Patel, Minister of State Home, raised
concerns over Pakistan’s attempts at cross-border terrorism, Gujarat’s
vulnerable coastline and the proliferation of criminal gangs, while
underscoring the need for a strong law. GUJCOC was respectively returned
twice to the State legislature in 2004 and 2008 by then Presidents A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam and Pratibha Patil.
Ø Indian courts handed down at least 64 death sentences last year but no
executions took place, largely as a result of court rulings, new data from
Amnesty International shows. Globally, executions fell by a fifth, and
two-thirds of the world has abolished it.
Ø Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari
has said that besides Swachh Bharat, the Centre aims to make India a
pollution-free country by encouraging the use of alternative fuel on a large
scale.
Ø Indian courts handed down at least 64 death sentences last year, but no
executions took place, largely as a result of court rulings, new data from
Amnesty International shows. Globally, executions fell by a fifth, and
two-thirds of the world has abolished the death penalty. China continues
to execute the most people globally — thousands every year, the human rights
group said in a new report published early on Wednesday — but does not publish
any data. Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounted for nearly three-quarters of
the rest of the world’s executions in 2014. The United States of America
executed 35 people, its fewest in 20 years. In India, which saw the
execution of Ajmal Kasab in late 2012 and Afzal Guru in early 2013 after a gap
of eight years, several executions scheduled for 2014 were put on hold. In
January, a landmark Supreme Court ruling laid down guidelines for death
sentences, including classifying delay in the disposal of mercy petitions as
grounds for commutation, as also mental disability. Information reported by the
Death Penalty Research Project of the National Law University in Delhi
indicated that 270 people were on death row in various Indian prisons, and
eight mercy petitions were rejected in 2014. Pakistan lifted a six-year
moratorium on executions after the Peshawar school massacre. Seven people were
executed in 2014. As of Tuesday, 66 people have been hanged since the lifting
of the moratorium, and Amnesty estimated that 8,000 more persons were on death
row.
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