Government has decided to set up a National Tribal Advisory Council for effecting monitoring and implementation of various tribal welfare schemes. This was announced by Union Tribal Affairs Minister Shri Jual Oram while addressing the conference of Principal Secretaries/Secretaries of Tribal Welfare from States/UTs held in New Delhi today to discuss and evolve strategies for the overall development of tribal communities. The council will be chaired by the Prime Minister and will meet once or twice in a year.
The Minister stressed the need for more effective community participation for the success of various tribal welfare schemes. He said “We can not achieve significant results unless we involve members of the society in the implementation process of various schemes. The conference should have special focus on this issue”. He said though there has been significant improvement in terms of infrastructure in education sector for tribals but the quality of education has not improved in the same way. Shri Oram said the same is true with reference to primary health care for tribals. He said these issues require urgent attention. Referring to the problems of sixth scheduled states of northeast, Shri Oram said their problems are quite different in nature and we should hold a regional conference for them in Guwahati. The Minister directed his Ministry officials to release 50 per cent of the tribal welfare funds to the states in the first quarter of the next financial year. He said by third quarter of the financial year 80 per cent of the funds should be released to the states. The Minister urged the state governments to release the funds received from the centre in the same way for various tribal welfare schemes.
The daylong conference had detailed deliberations including power point presentations by the state representatives on various issues concerning the tribal welfare schemes.
The Hon'ble Supreme Court directed the Government of India and the State of Arunachal Pradesh to finalise the conferment of citizenship rights on eligible Chakmas and Hajongs Tribals who migrated to India in 1964-1969 and were settled in the State of Arunachal Pradesh.And also to ensure compliance of order for protection of their life and liberty and against their discrimination in any manner.
COMMITTEE FOR C.R. OF C.A.P. & ORS. v. STATE OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH & ORS. WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO.510 OF 2007
Judgment dated : 17/09/2015
CORAM : ANIL R. DAVE .J , ADARSH KUMAR GOEL .J
Do read a mythological Anecdote in para 17 of the judgment.
The Government today notified the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 and the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 for bringing in a change in the existing system for appointment of Judges in Supreme Court and High Courts.
Two Bills titled 'The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty First Amendment) Bill, 2014' and 'The National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014' were passed unanimously by the Lok Sabha on 13.08.2014 and Rajya Sabha on 14.08.2014 respectively. Subsequently these Bills were ratified by the required number of State legislatures before getting the President’s assent. The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty First Amendment) Bill, 2014 enacted as the Constitution (Ninety Ninth Amendment) Act and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 were published in Gazette of India on 31st December 2014.
Both the Acts were to come into force on such date as the Central Government would notify them in the Official Gazette.
Accordingly, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 1 of the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014, the Central Government appoints the 13th day of April, 2015, as the date on which the said Act shall come into force.
Further, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 1 of the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 (40 of 2014), the Central Government appoints the 13th day of April, 2015, as the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force.
The Constitution (Ninety Ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 provides for the composition and the functions of the proposed NJAC.
The Acts provide for a transparent and broad-based process of selection of Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts by the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). The NJAC would be chaired by the Chief Justice of India as in the earlier collegium system. The NJAC membership would include two senior most Judges of the Supreme Court, the Union Minister of Law and Justice, two eminent persons to be nominated by a committee of the Prime Minister of India, the Chief Justice of India, and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People, or if there is no Leader of the Opposition, then the Leader of the single largest Opposition Party in the House of the People. With a view to ensuring that the composition of the National Judicial Appointments Commission is inclusive, the Act provides that one of the eminent persons shall be nominated from amongst persons belonging to the Scheduled Caste, the Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Minorities or Women. The NJAC will frame its own regulations.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued orders on revision of the items and norms, in respect of the Centrally notified disasters like floods, cyclones, drought, hailstorm, tsunami, earthquake etc.
The revised orders include various aspects of response and preparedness like ex-gratia to the next of kin of persons who may lose their precious lives, ex-gratia in cases of persons suffering severe disability, gratuitous relief for families whose livelihoods may seriously be affected due to disasters, agricultural input subsidy to farmers, replacement of different categories of animals, procurement of search, rescue, evacuation and communication equipment, etc.
The Government of India has permitted upto 10% of allocation under the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) to be spent on equipment. A maximum of 5% of SDRF allocation can be spent on capacity building. The State Governments can also use upto 10% of their SDRF allocation on 'local disasters', for which the State Executive Committees have to work out the modalities and criteria.
The Government of India has also simplified the procedure for adjustment of available balances under SDRF, while releasing assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) in case of severe disasters. The Government has also enabled automatic annual updation of the norms by referencing with the movement of wholesale price index.
A nitrogen gas cylinder with pressure-relief devices (Wikimedia)Michael Copeland has a unique resume: former Assistant Attorney General of the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau, professor of criminal justice at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma—and now, the proponent of a new execution method he claims would be more humane than lethal injection.
Copeland is one of the brains behind House Bill 1879 proposed by Oklahoma State Representative Mike Christian. The bill, passed by the Oklahoma House last week, would make “nitrogen hypoxia” a secondary method to lethal injection. Oklahoma State Senator Anthony Sykes will be introducing it to the senate shortly.
Copeland explained the execution method last September to the Oklahoma House Judiciary Committee at Christian’s invitation. Copeland says that Christian had been suggesting the firing squad, but Copeland thought there might be a better way. Along with two other professors from East Central University, Christine C. Pappas and Thomas M. Parr, he is drafting a white paper about the benefits of nitrogen-induced hypoxia over lethal injection.
This isn’t Oklahoma’s first time engineering new execution methods. The modern lethal-injection protocol was first proposed by an Oklahoma state medical examiner named Jay Chapman in 1977. But Copeland, who spends most of his time teaching criminal justice policy, procedure, and research methods, has no background in medicine. This is his first foray into execution technologies.
Hypoxia occurs when a person lacks an adequate supply of oxygen. “Normally, the air we breathe is 79 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen,” Copeland explains. Nitrogen hypoxia during an execution “would be induced by having the offender breathing a gas mixture of pure nitrogen.” Copeland points out that “nitrogen is an inert gas, and therefore doesn’t actually cause the death. It is the lack of oxygen that causes death.”
According to Copeland, death from nitrogen hypoxia is painless. “In industrial accidents, it often happens because the victim does not know they are in a hypoxic environment,” he said. “That suffocating feeling of anxiety and discomfort is not associated with hypoxic deaths.” He says nitrogen-induced hypoxia is well-researched, although the ideal delivery system for an execution has not yet been established. Two ideas include a medical-grade oxygen tent around the head or a facemask similar to those used by firefighters.
The condemned person might not even know when the “the switch to pure nitrogen occurs, instead he would simply lose consciousness about fifteen seconds after the switch was made,” he added. “Approximately thirty seconds later, he would stop producing brain waves, and the heart would stop beating about two to three minutes after that.”
Since the botched execution of Clayton Lockett last April, Oklahoma’s death row has been in the national spotlight. Lockett died forty-three minutes after the process began—far longer than a typical lethal injection—and appeared to writhe in pain. The Supreme Court is now reviewing the state’s lethal-injection protocol to determine whether or not it is humane. Meanwhile, three scheduled executions in the state have been postponed.
Copeland says that conditions for lethal-injection executions will only get worse. States are scrambling to find the drugs and the health professionals to use them, and both are required for lethal injection to take place. “You have anti-death penalty zealots around the globe that protest, that bring attention to the manufacturers of these drugs,” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told a local chamber of commerce last summer. Pruitt said that as long as activists pressure manufacturers, there will be supply issues.
As more drug manufacturers create end-user agreements that prevent states from using their drugs for executions, departments of corrections are searching for other ways to carry out death sentences. The situation is acute. Last week, Akorn became the latest drug company to make rules about how certain drugs are used, South Carolina announced it had run out of drugs, and Texas said it had only one dose of pentobarbital remaining.
Oklahoma is not alone in its quest for new execution methods. The electric chair is Tennessee’s new backup method, while Utah will use the firing squad if lethal injection is not possible. Other states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, are researching methods involving gas. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, four states have gas chambers as backups to lethal injection: Arizona, California, Missouri, and Wyoming.
From its first use in the execution of Gee Jon in Nevada in 1924 to its link to Nazi gas chambers, lethal gas as method of execution has a problematic history. American lethal-gas executions typically used hydrogen cyanide as the mechanism of death. Inmates were strapped to chairs in gas chambers and the ensuing chemical reaction would cause visible signs of pain and discomfort: skin discoloration, drooling, and writhing.
But nitrogen hypoxia would likely not produce the gruesome deaths that resulted from cyanide gas executions. Copeland says that “you don’t have to worry about someone reacting differently.” The condemned person would feel slightly intoxicated before losing consciousness and ultimately dying.
Other death-penalty experts are more skeptical. “It’s only been partially vetted, superficially researched, and has never been tried,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “Using it would be an experiment on human subjects.” State death rows would be strapping someone down without any idea what would happen next, he feared.
“We’d need testimony from the best experts on this,” Dieter says. “Right now, this is sailing through a legislature and not a peer-review process. I’m no doctor, but let’s hear from them. I don’t completely dismiss the idea that this could become approved or that it’s as good as they say because lethal injection is in a bind.”
If the bill becomes law and Oklahoma successfully executes someone using this method, it could spread from to state very quickly, Dieter says. Older methods like firing squads are a little too brutal for the American public, but something new could be accepted. If so, he says, “it could lead to an awkward spurt of executions.”
Copeland says he is not a death penalty absolutist. “I think the state has a unique obligation for justice—it’s the state’s obligation,” he explains. “But I don’t think the death penalty is a deterrent compared to life without parole.” If we must have the death penalty, he argues, it should be humane.
Christine C. Pappas, one of Copeland’s co-researchers, echoes this point. In an email exchange, she said that if the Supreme Court invalidates lethal injection as an execution method, it would not necessarily mean the end of the death penalty. States could find other ways to kill. “If we are to have the death penalty, which is something that Oklahomans really want, I believe it should be as painless as possible,” she argues. Pappas is opposed to capital punishment and says she’s faced criticism from abolitionists who think she’s in league with death-penalty advocates.
“What’s missing is the question of whether or not we should be executing people at all,” said Ryan Kiesel, the executive director of the Oklahoma ACLU and a former three-term member of the state House of Representatives. He argues that the state legislature is missing the big picture. “Instead, we’re having this bizarre academic exercise with professors playing doctors dressed up as executioners. Behind all of those masks, there’s no legitimate expertise to help legislators consider this method.”
Kiesel says they need to step back and take a look at facts that are, in his words, an indictment of the death penalty itself. He points to the central role that race and class play into death sentences and to Oklahoma’s ten death-row exonerations. Those factors, he argues, should give legislators pause. “It’s a fool’s errand to inject humanity into something that at its very core is a brutal act,” he added. “You can’t make it more humane.”
But Copeland thinks that it is death penalty abolitionists who have made executions inhumane by restricting access to drugs. It will only get worse. Some corrections officials at the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections agree. On February 18, they submitted a report to the state House of Representatives proposing the use of nitrogen-induced hypoxia and cited Copeland’s forthcoming paper.
Copeland says that it’s a logical and humane next step. “Nitrogen is ubiquitous. The process is humane, it doesn’t require expertise, and it’s cheap,” he explained. “I think of it as a harm-reduction thing—like you’d rather people not use heroin, but if they do, you want them to use clean needles.”
The Supreme Court directed that Application under Section 156(3) CrPC to the Magistrate is mandated to be supported by an affidavit duly sworn by the applicant who seeks the invocation of the jurisdiction of the Magistrate.
Mrs. Priyanka Srivastava and Anr. v. State of U.P. and Ors. CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.781 OF 2012 Judgment Date : 19/03/2015
CORAM :Dipak Misra .J , Prafulla C. Pant .J
REASON FOR SUCH STRICT STEP:
1. The warrant for giving a direction that an the application under Section 156(3) be supported by an affidavit is that the person making the application should be conscious and also endeavour to see that no false affidavit is made.
2. It is because once an affidavit is found to be false, he will be liable for prosecution in accordance with law. This will deter him to casually invoke the authority of the Magistrate under Section 156(3).
3. There has to be prior applications under Section 154(1) and 154(3) while filing a petition under Section 156(3).
The Supreme Court today upheld the retrospective operation of Sec.143(1A) of the Income Tax Act,1961 and thereby avoided the conflicting judgments of various high court.
COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, GAUHATI & ORS. v. M/S. SATI OIL UDYOG LTD. & ANR CIVIL APPEAL NOS.9133-9134 OF 2003
Judgment Dated : 24/03/2015
CORAM : A.K. Sikri .J , R.F. Nariman .J
ISSUE INVOLVED : Constitutional validity of the retrospective amendment to Section 143(1A) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
CATCHPHRASE:
1. Both the Single Judge and the Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court have held that the retrospective effect given to the amendment would be arbitrary and unreasonable inasmuch as the provision, being a penal provision, would operate harshly on assessees who have made a loss instead of a profit, the difference between the loss showed in the return filed by the assessee and the loss assessed to income tax having to bear an additional income tax at the rate of 20%.
2. The same provision in its retrospective operation has been upheld by the Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Madras High Courts.
3. Section
143 (1A) can only be invoked where it is found on facts that the lesser amount
stated in the return filed by the assessee is a result of an attempt to evade
tax lawfully payable by the assessee. The burden of proving that the assessee
has so attempted to evade tax is on the revenue which may be discharged by the
revenue by establishing facts and circumstances from which a reasonable
inference can be drawn that the assessee has, in fact, attempted to evade tax
lawfully payable by it.
