News India Times
February 12, 2016
20
– that’s all you need to know
India
– BENGALURU
ive people suspected of
assaulting a Tanzanian
woman were arrested
Feb. 11, Police
Commissioner N.S.
Megharik said.
“We have arrested the five
accused after interrogating them
onWednesday night under
detention in the case registered
on the victim’s statement in a
road rage incident,” Megharik
told IANS here.
The commissioner, however,
did not disclose names and age
of the five accused.
In a case of mistaken identity,
a mob assaulted the victim, Lina
Martin, 21, suspecting her to be
a friend of a Sudanese student,
Mohammad Ahad, whose car
ran over a woman pedestrian
(Shabana Taz) fatally while driv-
ing drunk on the same (Feb. 6)
night.
“Arrest of the accused has
been made on the basis of eye
witnesses’ account and from the
video footage from closed circuit
television cameras (CCTV) in the
area. We will produce them in a
local court for custody and fur-
ther interrogation,” Megharik
said.
Denying reports in a section
of media that the victim was
stripped and paraded, Megharik
said in her statement that she
was only assaulted and molested
in which her T-shirt was torn off.
“Though the car mishap was
30 minutes before the victim
reached the spot in the other car,
the mob thought she was Ahad’s
friend and assaulted her,”
deputy police commissioner T.R.
Suresh told reporters Feb. 10.
Ahad was also arrested on
Sunday night for the fatal
mishap involving his car and
drunken driving.
Police did not register the
case soon after the road mishap
and the mob attack, as the vic-
tim was not in city for two days
since Sunday to record her state-
ment.
– IANS
Five Arrested For Assaulting TanzanianWoman In Bengaluru
– NEWDELHI
A
five-judge constitution
bench of the Supreme
Court will hear the cura-
tive petition by NGO Naaz
Foundation and others seeking a
relook at its verdict upholding
the validity of Indian Penal
Code’s section 377 that crimi-
nalises homosexuality.
A bench of three senior-most
judges – Chief Justice T.S. Thakur,
Justice Anil R. Dave and Justice
Jagdish Singh Khehar – referred
the curative petition to the larger
bench as senior counsel Kapil
Sibal said the issue involved con-
stitutional questions of far-reach-
ing importance and must be
heard by a five judge bench.
“Since several constitutional
issues are sought to be agitated
in these petitions, let the matter
be placed before the Chief Justice
of India for posting to the five
judges bench,” ordered the
bench after a brief hearing of the
curative petition Feb. 9.
The court did not issue any
notice, leaving it for the larger
bench to take a call.
At the outset, Sibal said that
the issue before the court con-
cerned the most private right, the
most precious right of the people
– the sexual right and argued that
if it is being exercised with con-
sensus and within four walls,
then no one should have any
objection.
Faulting the December 12,
2013 apex court judgment and
subsequent January 28, 2014
order in a review petition
upholding the validity of section
377, he said the issue involved
the rights of the gay people who
are facing indignity and stigma
by the judgment of a two judge
bench. Telling the court that the
issue before it was within four
corners of the right to privacy
under the constitution’s article
19(1) guaranteeing freedom of
speech and expression, Sibal said
that it should be heard by a five-
judge bench.
As senior counsel Anand
Grover appearing for one of the
eight petitioners seeking a relook
at the apex court verdict sought
to address the court, Chief Justice
Thakur asked: “Is there anyone
opposing it?”
The court was told that an
organization representing the
church, the All India Muslim
Personnel Law Board and a few
individuals were opposing the
plea. The apex court by its
December 12, 2013 order and on
the review petition on January
28, 2014, upheld the validity of
section 377, finding no constitu-
tional infirmity in the penal pro-
vision that criminalises homo-
sexuality.
It had set aside the Delhi High
Court’s July 2, 2009 verdict read-
ing down section 377 and
decriminalising consensual sex
between the adults of same gen-
der. The then bench of Chief
Justice P.Sathasivam, Justice
R.M.Lodha, Justice H.L.Dattu
and Justice S.J.Mukhopadhaya
(all retired since then) had on
April 3, 2014, directed hearing of
the curative petition in open
court after they considered the
plea by Naz Foundation in their
chambers.
The NGO had moved the
Supreme Court seeking to cure
“gross miscarriage of justice” in
its judgment upholding the
validity of section 377.
It had contended that 2013
amendment to section 375, deal-
ing with rape, had held consen-
sual sex between an adult male
and woman was not an offence,
and by implication, no longer
prohibited. Thus section 377 now
effectively only criminalises all
forms of penetrative sex, includ-
ing, penile-anal sex and penile
oral sex, which makes it ex facie
discriminatory against homosex-
ual men and transgender per-
sons and thus violative of the
consarticle 14 of the constitution.
It had said that the amend-
ments were carried out after the
judgment in the gay sex case was
reserved and the parties did not
have a chance to address the
court on the issue, and the court
ought to have heard the parties
on the effect of the amendments.
The impugned judgment, it
said, “reflects an issue bias
against the LGBT persons, as evi-
dent from such observations like
“the so-called rights of LGBT per-
sons” and “miniscule fraction of
the country’s population” which
vitiates the judgment and ren-
ders it a nullity.
– IANS
Supreme Court Refers Homosexuality Plea To Constitution Bench
F
BySanjeevMiglani
I
ndia ratified an interna-
tional convention on
nuclear energy accident
liability, the government said
on Thursday, the final piece in
its efforts to address the con-
cerns of foreign nuclear sup-
pliers and draw them into a
market worth billions of dol-
lars.
Nuclear reactor makers
such as General Electric
(GE.N) have been reluctant to
set up plants in India because
of a 2010 liability law that
makes equipment suppliers
potentially accountable for
accidents, not just the plant
operators as is the global
norm. Since then, India which
wants to ramp up the share of
nuclear power from barely 3
percent to 25 percent by 2050
has been trying to assuage the
fears of the nuclear suppliers.
Last year it launched an
insurance pool with a liability
cap of 15 billion Indian rupees
($225 million) to cover the
suppliers’ risk of potential lia-
bility.
On Thursday, the Indian
Foreign Ministry said it had
submitted the document to
ratify the Convention of
Supplementary
Compensation for Nuclear
Damage, which seeks to
establish a uniform global
legal regime for the compen-
sation of victims in the event
of a nuclear accident.
“This marks a conclusive
step in the addressing of
issues related to civil nuclear
liability in India,” the Foreign
Ministry said after the docu-
ment was handed to the
International Atomic Energy
Agency inVienna.
Energy-starved India plans
to construct about 60 nuclear
reactors and has been in talks
withWestinghouse Electric Co
LLC, GE as well as France’s
Areva (AREVA.PA) for setting
them up at sites already
selected around the country.
Russia is separately build-
ing six reactors in southern
India and is in talks for anoth-
er six. The total size of the
Indian market is estimated at
$150 billion dollars, making it
equal to or just behind
China’s.
India expects to seal an
agreement withWestinghouse
to build six reactors by the first
half of this year, a government
official said in December, after
it ratified the international
convention on compensation.
– Reuters
India Ratifies Nuclear Liability Convention,
Hopes To Win Foreign Investment
