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Friend cheats and got arrested on a way to write Supreme Court Exam

Sunil Kumar, 22-year-old got arrested on charges of impersonation and cheating, as he was found writing the exam for the post of junior court assistant to the Supreme Court of India on behalf of his friend. He was arrested on a complaint from the invigilator at the Supreme Court. Moreover, he was allegedly impersonating his friend and lookalike Pradeep Kumar.

Police said the observers noticed Pradeep, who was accompanying the accused, bore a closer resemblance to the photo identity card produced by the candidate writing the exam.

The complaint stated that Sunil was not carrying the admit card sent by the Supreme Court registry, instead, he had taken a print of the admit card from the website and affixed a photo attested by principal of CRA College, Sonepat. The photo on the admit card, however, seemed to be that of Pradeep, giving reason for doubt, the complaint said.

Sunil was asked to produce the registration certificate of his motorcycle as additional proof and then provisionally allowed to take the computer-based test, the complaint said. During the next test, Sunil was asked to provide his driving licence as proof.

“In the presence of observers from the SCI in the computer lab, the candidate said he does not have a driving licence. This strengthened our suspicion, as how can a person having an RC in his name not possess a driving licence. It was sufficient to believe that the person may be trying to hide his true identity,” the complaint said.

Sunil was questioned about when the previous written test was held, to which he gave an incorrect reply, police said. While the test had been conducted in February, Sunil said he appeared for it in November last year.

Cornered, Sunil offered to show the observers his marksheets as proof and called up Pradeep to bring the documents. When Pradeep came in, the observers realised that he was in fact the person whose photo was on the admit card, police said.

“We asked both of them to produce some identity card, which they failed to do. It was later found that Pradeep Kumar, the maternal cousin who was accompanying the impersonator, was the original candidate,” the complaint said. Sunil and Pradeep were handed over to the police.

“We have registered a case of cheating, punishment for criminal conspiracy, cheating by impersonation, using a forged document and forgery against the accused,” a police officer said.

SC Judge Justice Dalveer Bhandari to be elected as Permanent Judge

Supreme Court Judge who has become the second Indian in over two decades and now to be elected as Permanent Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a position based at The Hague, Netherlands.

He got the support of 13 out of the 15 members of the Security Council.Justice Bhandari, expected to resign from his SC post before his scheduled retirement on September 30, is the first Indian in 21 years to get a permanent term at the ICJ, with the last one being Justice R S Pathak.

The ICJ post had fallen vacant after Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh resigned in October last year to take over as Prime Minister.

Rajya Sabha approves amended Central Educational Institutions Act

The Rajya Sabha passed amendments to the Central Educational Institutions Act, 2006, exempting some central institutions from implementing the other backward castes (OBC) quota.

The amendment is applicable to institutions where implementation of the Act exceeds the 50 percent reservation limit fixed by the Supreme Court.

The move seeks to balance state and central reservation policies. The amendment says that if seats reserved for Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes in a central educational institution exceed 50 percent of the annual strength permitted, the institution need not make any reservation for OBCs.

According to the amendment, if such an institution is located in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Assam’s tribal areas, the percentage of seats reserved for SC/ST candidates will not be reduced from the level obtaining on the date immediately preceding the date of the Act’s commencement.

In case the institution is in any other area, the percentage of seats reserved for SC/ST candidates will be reduced to 50.

SC Orders Spectrum Auction by Aug 31

India’s Supreme Court has fixed a date for the government to complete an auction of basic mobile-phone bandwidth i.e., Aug. 31, and allowed companies affected by a cancellation of licenses to operate until Sept. 7, rather than June 2.

The court on Feb. 2 ordered the scrapping of 122 licenses issued to several companies following complaints of corruption in their 2008 allotment. It also directed that state assets such as spectrum should be allotted through auctions, and asked the telecom regulator to frame rules for the auctions.

Following the February order, the government petitioned the court saying the bandwidth auctions could take as much as 400 days to complete. It also drew a timeline to complete the process by March 2013.

Some of the affected companies had demanded the government to complete the auction and bandwidth allotment process by June 2.

Tuesday’s ruling was given by a two-judge bench that was hearing the government’s petition.

SC rejected PIL challenge

Supreme Court has rejected a PIL challenging Bikram Singh’s appointment that was supposed to be the next army chief and had been placed before the cabinet committee on appointments.

The petitioners included retired Admiral Ramdass and former poll panel chief N. Gopalaswami cited the fake encounter case involving Singh in Kashmir and the Meerut court of inquiry relating to his stint as a UN peacekeeper in Congo.

Their lawyer Kamini Jaiswal argued that these cases would be affected if Singh were made army chief after General V.K. Singh’s retirement on May 31. The two-judge bench clarified that its rejection of the petition would not affect the two cases.

Solicitor-general R.F. Nariman alleged the petition was “only for V.K. Singh” and that it aimed to reopen the row over his age and tenure. “The rest is a sideshow.” The court said it would not reopen a “settled” issue.

Jaiswal insisted that Bikram Singh was at the scene of the 2001 “fake encounter” and was also party to the cover-up, involving a false FIR. “Can you prove the encounter took place at his instance? The allegation against him is one of lodging a false FIR. There is a world of difference between ordering an encounter and this,” the court said.

Supreme Court dismissed PIL against Lokpal drafting committee

The SC dismisses a PIL challenging constitution of Lokpal Bill drafting committee saying that task is over and the matter has become infructuous.

“Since the joint drafting committee has already completed the work and has submitted the report, the petition has become infructuous,” a bench headed by Justice A K Patnaik said.

The bench was hearing a PIL challenging the Constitutional validity of inclusion of five civil society members in a committee to draft a Lokpal Bill.

The petitioner had submitted that the notification constituting the 10-member Joint Drafting Committee, was contrary to the Constitutional provision of Article 53 as the power to issue such notification belonged only to the President of India.

It said the notification was also violative of Article 118 of the Constitution under which only Parliament has the privilege of setting up a committee comprising MPs.

According to the petition, no politician, committee or social worker have a right to take part in the drafting of the bill though every citizen’s view ought to be ascertained by way of notification at the time of drafting a Bill.

Judge Elevated to Supreme Court of India Bench

In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President has appointed Shri Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India with effect from the date he assumes charge of his office.

Centre informs SC, Haj will be “once in a lifetime affair” now

The Centre has decide and informed the Supreme Court to restrict Haj pilgrimage at government subsidy to Muslims only as a “once in a lifetime” affair as against the existing policy of “once in five years “.

Now according to the new guidelines, it should be assured that priority is given to those applicants who have never performed Haj and the priority will be given to those who are in the 70 plus category and those who had unsuccessfully applied thrice earlier for the subsidy.

The apex court frowned at the practice of sending official delegations to accompany the pilgrims and had asked the Centre to furnish entire details regarding Haj subsidy, as also to the criteria adopted.

The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by the Centre challenging a Bombay High Court judgement which had directed the Ministry of External Affairs to allow certain private operators to operate the services of 800 of the 11,000 pilgrims earmarked under the VIP quota subsidised by the government.

Earlier, the bench had pulled up the Centre’s practice of “politicising” the annual Haj pilgrimage by permitting official delegations to accompany the pilgrims, for which the government offers huge subsidy, saying, “It’s a bad religious practice.”

Apex court slams misuse of leniency for minor accused

Supreme Court said that now no accused will be forgiven for attempting a rape and the accused will have to face a court for juvenile delinquents as there was ambiguity over his age in school records.

The statutory protection provided to minors should not be allowed to be misused by accused and trial courts should take into account the medical opinion on the age of an accused in case there was ambiguity about his date of birth in school records.

Vijay Kumar, a Rajasthan resident who allegedly raped a minor in 2007, was allowed by the trial court to be tried under benevolent legislation Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. His co-accused was convicted in a normal criminal court.

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Right to Education Act constitutionally valid, says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court upheld the various provisions of the Right to Education Act, 2009.The apex court ruled that the RTE Act would apply to all categories of public and private schools except unaided minority schools. The SC judgement makes it clear that all schools will have to keep aside 25% of seats for poor children.

The SC said the RTE Act will not apply to those institutions run by minority organizations and which do not receive a single penny as aid either from the government or local bodies.

The apex court also said that the RTE Act would not apply to boarding schools. A bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swantanter Kumar, which had reserved its verdict on August 3 last year, pronounced the verdict on the RTE Act.

The main petitioner Society for Un-aided Private Schools, Rajasthan, and a host of associations representing various private schools questioned the validity of the Act on the ground that it impinged on their rights to run the educational institutions.