India legal 11 September 2017

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Marital Rape:
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Aadhaar Push:
Security Scare
McDonald’s:
The War Within
September11, 2017
GurmeetRamRahim’sDeraownsvastsprawlsofproperty,includingan
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residentialcomplexes,afleetofluxurycarsandmuchelse.Aninsidelook
THEEMPIRE

ASHINGTON DC: For many Ameri-
cans, cutting across geographical, eth-
nic, linguistic and racial barriers,
President Donald Trump has done
the unpardonable by pardoning
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona. Even though the Pre-
sident has almost untrammelled authority to pardon
anybody for any federal crime, except impeachment,
before, after or during a trial under Article II of the
constitution, the chief executive must exercise it with
due diligence and restraint in the larger interests of
natural justice. It must be an act of compassion and
mercy which should not sacrifice the larger interest of
public order at the altar of a private political agenda.
And that is precisely what Trump did, prompting
former Vice-President Joe Biden to remark that “we
are living through a battle of the soul of this nation”.
Strong, stirring words, indeed, but these passionate
expressions of outrage are fairly commonplace today
as Trump continues to defy all established norms of
presidential propriety with each passing tweet and
public utterance. His Charlottesville performance at
which he virtually condoned a violent, white supre-
macist neo-Nazi march and then condemned the
media as “fake” and America-haters for having
reported his words live seemed to be the lowest point
of his incumbency.
Then came the Arpaio pardon. Biden remarked
that Trump’s “contempt for the US constitution and
willingness to divide this nation knows no bounds.
Now he’s pardoned a law enforcement official who
terrorized the Latino community, violated its con-
stitutional rights, defied a court order to stop,
and ran a prison camp so rife with torture
and abuse he himself called it a ‘concen-
tration camp’.”
He openly defied a judicial order to
cease and desist from his illegal activi-
ties and was held guilty of contempt of
court. Trump pardoned him a week before
his sentencing could be announced. Techni-
cally, by strict legal interpretation, Trump did
nothing legally impermissible. He acted
within his jurisdiction. But the larger issue now
being debated is that what is technically legal
is not necessarily ethical or even in the larger
interest of the common good which the
President is sworn to uphold.
But first, consider the irony. Sheriff Arpaio was a
true blue Trumpist all the way. He eagerly spread the
vicious “birther” lie, propagated by Trump during the
election campaign that former President Obama was
not born in the US and had falsified his birth certifi-
cate. He championed Trump’s racist anti-immigration
policies which held, among other beliefs, that
Mexican and Latino immigrants were criminals and
rapists and that a 1,300-mile-long, impenetrable wall
should be built along the US-Mexico border to keep
Mexicans out and that Mexico would be made to pay
for it. Arpaio gained Trump’s admiration and friend-
ship not only because of his political support and
ideological kinship but also because of his brutal
special talent for rounding up innocent people on a
mere hunch—it is called “racial profiling”—and put-
ting them in chains regardless of their legal immi-
grant status. These were the people to whom
Trump had referred to as “bad hombres” during his
campaign last year.
The irony: To gain maximum viewer ratings for
his pardon announcement, Trump chose the evening
before Hurricane Harvey bombarded Houston, Texas.
It would give him maximum mileage with his core
constituency to which he panders and clings on hard-
er as his popularity ratings continue to plummet.
None put it more succinctly than The New York
Times’ Charles M Blow. He quoted Trump as saying:
“Actually, in the middle of a hurricane, even though it
was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be
far higher than they would be normally.”
Blow commented: “Imagine what this man is say-
ing. He used the horror and anxious anticipation of a
monster storm menacing millions of Americans—
particularly Houston whose population is 44 percent
Hispanic—in a political calculation to get more rat-
ings and more eyeballs on the fact that he was using
the power of the presidency to forgive, and thereby
condone Arpaio’s racism.”
I
mmigrants. Racial profiling. Charlottesville.
Arpaio. They all followed carefully connected
dots. The final dot was Trump’s televised pro-
nouncement during the same speech that if Congress
did not appropriate the estimated $10 billion to pay
for the wall (now that Mexico had flatly refused to
IMMUNISING LAWLESSNESS
Inderjit Badhwar
Letter from the Editor
W
| INDIA LEGAL | September 11, 2017 3

pay for it, much to the President's embarrassment),
he would not sign the annual debt ceiling increase
(roughly equivalent to getting a vote on account to
continue to pay for the expenses of running the gov-
ernment) and he would shut down the government!
But Hurricane Harvey, which he had used as his
TV ratings multiplier to appeal to his core consti-
tuency, washed away whatever political brownie
points Trump hoped to gain by threatening to bring
the government to a halt if Congress did not release
the money to build the wall. The wall would be a
symbol of his anti-immigration policies, championed
by heroes like Arpaio, designed to “make America
great again”.
Such unprecedented havoc did Hurricane Harvey
wreak—destroying America’s fourth largest city and
oil capital—that any attempt by Trump to shut down
the government would have destroyed whatever rem-
ains of his political career. Countless billions are now
needed in government-spending to restore the dam-
age and rebuild the businesses and lives of people.
Not only that. Because of America’s negative demo-
graphic profile, there are acute labour shortages,
especially in the blue collar sector, and the need to
double and triple the number of workers needed to
rebuild and re-construct will be paramount. There
are an estimated 11 million undocumented alien
immigrants in America right now. And Trump’s tough
anti-immigrant policy will have to bow before the
realistic need for the increased labour force needed to
reconstruct the devastated south-west of the country.
And in view of the nearly limitless outlays in fed-
eral spending which will be required in terms of sub-
sidies, grants, and lending, conservative Republican
economics of tax cuts for the rich and cutting back on
health and welfare schemes will have to fly out of the
window if Republicans want even half a chance of
retaining their majority in the Congress in 2018.
E
ven so, Trump’s pardon of Arpaio does not
necessarily mean that he is holding all the
constitutional aces. Whatever his motives,
and even with Hurricane Harvey acting as a spoiler,
speculation is rife that Trump may have had a double
motive for the pardon. Special counsel Robert
Mueller and various Congressional committees inves-
tigating Trump campaign’s collusion with top Russian
operatives to influence an anti-Hillary outcome of the
2016 presidential election are turning on the heat.
They are following financial and money laundering
trails, one of which has led directly to the doorstep of
former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort,
whose premises the FBI recently raided in a pre-
dawn operation.
Manafort, with close commercial ties to Ukranian
government officials associated with Russian Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin, was one of the persons who
attended a June 16, 2016 meeting at Manhattan's
Trump Tower. It was attended also by Trump’s son,
Donald Jr, and his son-in law Jared Kushner and
organised by Russian operatives who had promised
them “dirt” on Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
More recent revelations
include details of mails bet-
ween Trump’s close financial
advisers and Russians close
to Putin regarding building
a Trump Tower in Moscow
even as Trump had begun
his presidential campaign.
The Arpaio pardon, ana-
lysts, believe could also dou-
ble as a dry run for Trump.
He has tangled acrimonious-
ly several times with the
judiciary, starting with his
crude criticism of judges
Letter from the Editor
WRONG SIGNAL
By pardoning Sheriff Joe
Arpaio, President Trump has
conveyed that law enforcement
officials can treat suspects any
way they want
4 September 11, 2017
UNI

who refused to uphold his
blanket anti-Muslim trav-
el ban. His pardon is
another executive chal-
lenge to the judiciary. He
has virtually snubbed a
sitting judge by pardon-
ing a police chief found to
be in criminal contempt
of court even before the
sentencing.
Presidents have exer-
cised their power pardons
before. But there is usual-
ly a five-year cooling peri-
od after the sentencing,
and usually after inten-
sive consultation with a special office created for this
purpose within the Department of Justice. Also,
most pardons come toward the end of a President’s
term. Trump followed none of these eminently con-
servative precedents.
His exercise of this prerogative came barely seven
months after his swearing-in. There is no gainsaying
that this is a signal to law enforcement officials across
the country to abandon restraint in their treatment of
suspects. He will pardon them.
T
he gambit is not without risk. The American
system of checks and balances and its aver-
sion to abuse of power— especially obstruc-
tion of justice—does not lie down and play dead with-
out a fight. Already, Special Counsel Mueller has
opened up lines with state-level prosecutors who
could bring state-level charges and indictments. The
President’s power of pardon is limited to federal
offenses and not to prosecutions at the state level.
And the President could open himself up to impeach-
ment if enough pressure mounts on Republican
members of the House from their constituents.
Philip Allen Lacovara, a former solicitor general in
the Justice Department who helped in the Watergate
prosecution wrote in the Washington Post:
“As with any other presidential power, the power
of pardon is constrained by the ordinary require-
ments of federal law applicable to all federal officials.
For example, if representatives of a pardon seeker
arrived in the Oval Office with a bundle of cash that
the president accepted in return for a pardon, there is
little doubt that the president would be guilty of the
crime of bribery.... If Trump were to pardon any of
the figures in the current Russia investigation, his
action would certainly impede or obstruct the due
administration of justice, as the courts have broadly
construed that standard.
“It would not be difficult to imagine Mueller mak-
ing the case that the motive behind such interference
was ‘corrupt.’ As the Founding Fathers made plain,
the purpose behind the pardon power is to extend
mercy to those who have offended and have demon-
strated remorse. Using the pardon power to protect
the president’s own interests against embarrassment
or exposure is not legitimate. Rather, a crassly self-
interested exercise of presidential power to impede
the due administration of justice is the very antithesis
of the president’s most solemn oath—‘to take care
that the laws be faithfully executed.’”
As Ron Fein, Legal Director of Free Speech for
People summarised it, no president can use the
power of pardon to immunise lawless officials
from consequences for violating people’s constitu-
tional rights.
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
SheriffJoeArpaioof
ArizonagainedTrump’s
admiration and
friendshipnotonly
becauseofhispolitical
supportandideological
kinshipbutalso
becauseofhisbrutal
specialtalentfor
roundingup
innocentpeopleona
merehunch.
FormerVice-President
JoeBidensaid that“we
arelivingthrougha
battleofthesoulofthis
nation”andthatTrump’s
“contemptfortheUS
constitutionandwilling-
nesstodividethisnation
knowsnobounds”.

ContentsVOLUME. X ISSUE. 43
SPETEMBER11,2017
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Technical Executive Anubhav Tyagi
The Lost Empire
With the flamboyant head of the Dera Sacha Sauda behind bars, the focus is his multi-billion
dollar empire. From malls to hospitals and stadiums, Gurmeet’s property was boundless
14
LEAD
Justice, Real Time
Video-recording and live-streaming trials will make them accessible to the common man
and give full expression to the right to speech and opinion, says senior lawyer Indira Jaising
COLUMN
Until the Cows Come Home
With cattle smuggling still thriving along the Indo-Bangladesh border, facilitated by a
corrupt BSF, the judiciary has stepped in with measures to curb the practice
20
18
SUPREMECOURT

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Contact:editor@indialegallive.com
Ringside............................8
Delhi Durbar......................9
Courts.............................10
National Briefs................12
International Briefs..........35
Media Watch ..................41
Satire ..............................50
Cover Design: ANTHONY LAWRENCE
The Legal Loophole
It is the absence of a single franchise Act that is inhibiting service
sector growth in India as a plethora of laws creates confusion
28
LEGALEYE
ACTS&BILLS
Stop Forced Conversions
Alarmed by the spread and influence of missionaries,
Jharkhand has passed a stringent anti-conversion law
24
The Toilet
Revolution
A new movement for sanitation in villages
of north India has taken wing.
Spearheaded by women, it deserves
funding and support, and requires a
mindset change
HEALTH
ENVIRONMENT
47
Extremely Dubious Consent
The historic right to privacy judgment has left several aberrations in our law open
to scrutiny and vulnerable to abolition. Marital rape is one among them
COURTS
36
Miss You McDonald’s
There’s no end in sight to the four-year battle between the food
giant and CPRL. Forty-three outlets have shut, more may follow
26
The Hills Are Dying
The centre has told the National Green Tribunal that the definition of the Aravallis
must be broadened to better protect them from unbridled real estate activity
38
Regulatory Failure
Despite government efforts to simplify compliances and issue
faster approvals, enterprises report a bad business environment
29
COMMERCE
The Aadhaar Experiment
Will digital safety be ensured before bank accounts and mobile
numbers are linked up with over a billion UIDs?
32
CYBERSECURITY
SOCIETY
A Gambling Nation
Hypocrisy rules here, as the huge ruckus over an illegal casino bust in a south Delhi
farmhouse shows, ignoring our strong culture of betting
42
Didi’s Genius Act
A case against Gorkha Janmukti Morcha
leader Bimal Gurung is the West Bengal
chief minister’s answer to the Gorkhaland
threat and the BJP’s power games
STATES
44

“
RINGSIDE
“If I was there (as Attorney General), I would
have said we have lost the case. As lawyers, we
are used to winning and losing cases. Because
the fact is, we haven’t won this case. The
eight-judge bench (ruling of 1954), has been
overruled and the Aadhaar issue has been left
unresolved. Where is the question of winning?’’
—Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi referring to the
recent Supreme Court ruling that the right to privacy
is a fundamental right, in The Indian Express
“When there is a crowd of
50,000-1 lakh and they
have devotion towards
Babaji, tab unmen ek
natural gussa aata hai
(they become naturally
angry). Wo gussa aya (the
anger came), it remained
for an hour or two, but
the government
controlled that.”
—BJP MLA and Haryana
minister Manish Grover,
speaking to Wire.in
“Folks, it is not lost on me
that the choice I have faced
was to keep quiet, not raise
these questions, and let the
company suffer or to stand
up and ask questions. While
keeping quiet may make me
seem gentle and “good”, it
had the potential to
mortally wound the
company in the long-term.”
—Infosys founder Narayana
Murthy, addressing investors
on the tussle in the company
“I have no words. It’s
been really upsetting
because anybody would
aim for the gold, and that
last moment just changed
everything. I’m happy
with silver, but that feel-
ing is always there.”
—Badminton player PV
Sandhu, on settling for a
silver medal after a nail-
biting World Cup final,
in The Times of India
“People have forgotten
how to read. Most people
don’t even read the news-
papers they subscribe to.
Often when I am passing
Salman’s (his son Salman
Khan) door, I knock on
the door and ask his staff
to take in the papers.”
—Eminent script writer
Salim Khan, attributing
the poor quality of films to
the decline of reading
habit in the film industry,
in Scroll.in
“Agar Bihar ki dharti rath
rok sakti hai to BJP ko
bhi rok sakti hai (If Bihar
could stop the rath (of
Advani), it can also stop
the BJP).”
—SP leader Akhilesh
Yadav, at a mega rally of
Lalu Yadav for a maha-
gathbandhan, in Patna
“The more I think the
more I am convinced that
you have been the worst
Foreign Secretary ever….
It is more worrisome
(that) your heart is not in
the right place. May God
help Pakistan when peo-
ple like you are at such
important positions.”
—Former ambassador to
India Abdul Basit, in a
letter to Pakistan’s US
envoy Aizaz Ahmad
Chaudhry, blaming him
for Pakistan’s foreign
policy disasters

An inside track on
happenings in Lutyen’s Delhi
Delhi
Durbar
VOLTE FACE
Recently, the Congress party has been
bereft of the presence of the Gandhi fami-
ly. First, Rahul flew off to Oslo, on the invi-
tation of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, skipping the all-important rally of
Opposition leaders in Patna organised by
Lalu Prasad Yadav. Party President Sonia
Gandhi could not make it since she has
been unwell for some time and Priyanka
landed up in hospital, laid low by a bout
of Dengue. Rahul returns but is off again,
this time on an invitation from the
University of California, Berkeley to speak
on 70 years of Indian Independence. His
absence means crucial organisational
changes, such as the one demanded by
Himachal Pradesh chief minister
Virbhadra Singh, will be delayed.
Does taking U-turns come
easily to lawyers-turned
politicians? Well the recent
volte-face by two legal
eagles—Kapil Sibal and
Ravi Shankar Prasad—has
been the talk of the town.
The former, who represen-
ted the All India Muslim
Personal Law Board and
had argued for retaining
triple talaq changed his tune
after the Supreme Court ver-
dict abolished the pernicious
practice. Journalists who
rushed for Sibal’s presser
were surprised when he wel-
comed the judgement and
said that he was “glad” that
the court had set aside a
“sinful practice.” Ravi
Shankar Prasad, the Union
law minister, was Sibal’s fel-
low traveller when he gave
his thumbs up to the apex
court upholding the citizens’
right to privacy. “The
Narendra Modi government
has always been in favour of
privacy being recognised as
a fundamental right,” he
said. This came as a volte-
face out of the blue for many
in his own ministry since the
government had all along
argued that privacy was not
a basic right.
Self-styled Godman,
Gurmeet Ram Rahim,
now behind bars, is actu-
ally a very sick man liter-
ally. Much of his appeal
lies in his macho, dare-
devil public persona,
heightened by his action
hero roles in the movies
he features in and pro-
duces. However, going
by his statement during
the hearing by the CBI
court, he has serious
health problems. At the
start of the hearings, he
gave a recorded state-
ment which said he was
suffering from hyperten-
sion, acute diabetes and a
severe backache problem.
This was backed up by
medical certificates and
the plea that he was
impotent and incapable of
having sex.
His counsel further reit-
erated that he was suffer-
ing from severe diabetes
and a disc problem and
that a long incarceration
would affect his client’s
health adversely. Rahim, it
seems, is very sick man,
and one can interpret that
in many ways.
More intrigue on the drama-
tics involving the arrest of
Gurmeet Ram Rahim. The
custom-fitted Westland heli-
copter in which he was flo-
wn out, along with Honey
preet, was provided by the
Haryana government. Many
news outlets were quick to
report that it belonged to
Gautam Adani, and was the
same chopper used by
Narendra Modi to campaign
in Haryana in October 2014.
This one, however, turned
out to be owned by real
estate major DLF, and the
company offers it for hire to
selected clients. The
Haryana government had
hired it to ferry Modi around
on his campaign tour, and
again last week, to transport
the man Modi had praised
during his Sirsa stopover,
now a disgraced criminal.
HELICOPTER
SHOT
THE FAMILY
MISFORTUNES
THE “SICK”
GURU

The Supreme Court struck down a 2012 ver-
dict of the Gujarat High Court order asking
the state government to bear the repair and
reconstruction costs of Muslim religious struc-
tures damaged during the post-Godhra riots in
2002. The apex court concurred with the
Gujarat government’s counsel that the state
can’t be compelled to use public money for the
job, as it would be unconstitutional and against
the secular fabric of the country.
Article 27 of the constitution says that “No
person shall be compelled to pay any taxes,
the proceeds of which are specifically appro-
priated in payment of expenses for the promo-
tion or maintenance of any particular religion or
religious denomination”.
The apex court passed a state govern-
ment scheme to give ex-gratia amount up to
`50,000 to all religious structures affected by
violence and meeting certain criteria laid down
by the government.
Islamic Relief Committee of Gujarat got the
High Court verdict in its favour after it pleaded
for repairing and rebuilding mosques, dargahs
and graveyards. It had alleged that these were
damaged due to the state government’s inabili-
ty to maintain law and order during the riots.
The state government challenged the order in
the top court.
Incidentally, it was the first verdict given by
the newly-appointed chief justice of India,
Dipak Misra, who headed the two-judge bench.
The National Investigation
Agency probe into the
Hadiya case will no longer be
done under the supervision of
former Supreme Court judge RV
Raveendran. He was appointed
by the apex court to oversee the
investigation in August.
Raveendran refused to lend
his services and the reason was
yet to be ascertained. According
to media reports he only said
that it was “a matter between
the court and myself”.
The case was related to the
conversion and marriage of a
Hindu girl, Hadiya, from Kerala
to a Muslim. The Kerala High
Court had struck down the mar-
riage on the plea of the girl’s
father that she was forced to
embrace Islam and marry a
Muslim. The husband, Shafin
Jahan, later challenged the High
Court verdict.
Before appointing Raveen-
dran for the job, the Court had
zeroed in on another former
judge KS Radhakrishnan, but
Jahan held that nobody should
be selected from Kerala in the
interest of a fair probe.
Maharashtra
govt pulled up
for misleading
chief justice
Courts
The Maharashtra govern-
ment was taken to task
by the Bombay High Court
recently for withdrawing
its allegations against senior
judge Justice Abhay Oka
after approaching the High
Court chief justice with a
complaint.
The state government
had earlier requested Chief
Justice Manjula Chellur to
take away all matters from
Justice Oka-headed bench
on noise pollution during
festivals. The government
felt that he was biased
against it. Justice Chellur
accepted the request and
did the needful. Later, the
government again went to
the chief justice, withdraw-
ing the allegation, and she
recalled her order transfer-
ring the case.
The case was again
heard by the Justice Oka-
headed bench. It was upset
by the flip-flop of the gov-
ernment after its advocate
general professed “uncondi-
tional withdrawal of allega-
tion of bias” against the
judge and tendered an un-
qualified apology. The ben-
ch demanded that the apol-
ogy be filed in an affidavit
stating the name of the per-
son behind the allegation.
Nobody can be allowed to
play with the dignity of the
Court, it observed. Saying
that the chief justice was
misled, it also called for an
inquiry into the matter.
Guj not to pay for restoring shrines?
Former SC judge
refuses to head
Hadiya probe

The Supreme Court took strong objection to
the rampant practice of state governments
doling out land to their favourites—including
current and former lawmakers, bureaucrats and
judges—in the garb of various schemes. The
state governments use their discretionary power
to grant the land.
The Court said that it would examine the ini-
tiatives and set rules in this regard so that such
land can be distributed at rates below the mar-
ket price to the needy. All decisions already
taken on land allocation would also be legally
examined, the Court ruled.
The centre also supported the Court’s move
and wanted it to come up with guidelines. Arg-
uing for the petitioners, Prashant Bhushan said
that the practice was unconstitutional.
Aquestion-markonland
allocation
The Supreme Court will again begin hearing
on the 20-odd petitions questioning Aadh-
aar’s validity in the first week of November. A
three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of
India (CJI) Dipak Misra gave this indication after
the centre informed that those seeking govern-
ment welfare schemes will have to compulsorily
produce their Aadhaar card only from Decem-
ber 31. Earlier, the deadline was September 30.
The petitions have questioned the validity of
linking Aadhaar to government sponsored wel-
fare schemes.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan had requested
the Court that an earlier hearing on these peti-
tions had become critical in the light of a nine-
judge bench of the Court declaring privacy as a
fundamental right. The centre suggested that a
five-judge bench be formed for the purpose.
SCtohearAadhaarpleas
inNovember
— Compiled by Prabir Biswas
The Supreme Court pulled up the
Gujarat government for the delay
in concluding the trial of self-styled
godman Asaram Bapu. It wanted to
know why the woman who had
accused him of rape was yet to be
questioned, and sought an explana-
tion from the state government. It
asked the government to submit the
reasons and state what progress had
been made so far, in an affidavit.
The godman is imprisoned in a
Rajasthan jail since August 2013 on
rape and illegal confinement charges
in two cases.
The Court was reacting to a plea
from the godman’s counsel that the
prosecution was delaying the case.
The Gujarat government cited figu-
res on the number of prosecution
witnesses examined. More than 40
witnesses are yet to be questioned
in the case.
The Supreme Court had in April
asked the concerned trial court to
examine the witnesses and finish the
hearing as soon as possible.
The apex court has refrained from
granting bail to the godman. The mat-
ter has been posted after Diwali.
The Supreme Court did
not accept the req-
uest of BJP leader Sub-
ramanian Swamy that
the media rights for IPL
matches (2018-22) be
granted through e-auc-
tion, by doing away with
the current method. The auction was
scheduled to start from September 1,
this year.
The apex court went by the stand
of the Chairman of the Committee of
Administrators (CoA) running the
BCCI, Vinod Rai, that the current
tendering process was fine and fair
enough. Rai even stated that the
prevailing system was “better than
the e-auction” and this conclusion
was reached after extensive delibera-
tions by the CoA.
However, the Court will later take
a call on the conflict of interest issue
raised by Swamy involving IPL Chair-
man Rajiv Shukla. He was asked to
file his objection in an affidavit.
Swamy had insisted in his petition
filed before the apex court in July
that the current process of doling out
media rights by BCCI be junked to
make the method non-discriminatory
and transparent and in sync with the
best practices adopted worldwide.
The colossal money and commercial
motives entail the need for an auction
process that is “robust”, “maximizes
revenue”, and keeps away vested
interests, he had argued.
No e-auction
for IPL
media rights
Expedite
Asaram trial

Briefs
After ordering madrassas to
videograph Independence
Day celebrations conducted by
them, the Uttar Pradesh govern-
ment has now ordered they be
geo-tagged through GPS. It has
asked all madrassas across the
state to share the map of their
classrooms, photographs of the
building and banking details of
their teachers. The Yogi govern-
ment has launched a portal
under which all madrassas of the
state have to be registered and
the Aadhaar details of all their
employees have to be furnished.
The government has cited devel-
opment and improving education
as the reason behind this move.
However, Muslim organisations
have objected to this move.
Geo-tagging of
madrassas in UP
—Compiled by India Legal Team
Collegiummeetingsnotaspernorms,
saysJusticeChelameswar
The parliamentary standing
committee on finance
could not adopt two reports on
demonetisation and a revised
formula for calculating growth
following opposition from the
BJP and others. The reports
were critical of the govern-
ment; one on demonetisation
revealed that that it had cost
the economy one percent of
GDP. The other report pointed
out that the National Sample
Survey Organisation’s new cal-
culation of the GDP had
resulted in inflated growth fig-
ures. But the BJP members
claimed the report to be
incomplete as it did not have
the response of the RBI.
BJP MPs halt report critical of demonetisation
The Central Bureau of Investigation has
arrested eight policemen in Himachal
Pradesh, including an Inspector General, a
senior IPS officer and a DSP regarding the
custodial death of Suraj Singh, a key
accused in the Kotkhai rape case. On July 4,
a minor girl was brutally raped and mur-
dered in Shimla district’s Kothkai region,
which led to heavy protests. Singh, a
Nepalese labourer, was arrested along with
five others for rape. The senior IPS officer
arrested by the CBI, Zahoor Zaidi, was the
head of the Special Investigation Team
formed to probe the rape and murder.
People had alleged that the police adminis-
tration was trying to shield the real cul-
prits and destroy evidence in the sordid
rape case.
Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the senior-
most judge of the Supreme Court has
said that informal meetings at ex-CJI JS
Khehar’s residence were passed off as col-
legium meetings. In a letter to the CJI, he
has pointed out collegiums selecting judges
on personal requests and how CJIs in the
past had treated members of the collegium
as supplicants. He has also accused Khehar
of having superseded the norms that govern
meetings for selecting judges for the consti-
tutional court. He pointed out that coffee-
table meetings at Justice Khehar’s residence
were passed off as collegium meetings.
Justice Chelameswar had not been attend-
ing the collegium meetings since September
1, 2016 and was submitting comments on
the minutes of the meetings.
CBI nabs IG, DSP and 6 other
cops for custodial killing
The Navy wants one of its sailors
to be discharged under the
SNLR (service no longer required)
provision, the reason being a sex
change surgery undergone by the
sailor. The Navy has been confront-
ed with such a case for the first
time and after much deliberation
has decided that the sailor cannot
continue with the service because
she has violated the terms and con-
ditions under which she joined
the navy. Although induction of
women in armed forces had
started in the 90s, only men
are appointed as soldiers,
airmen and sailors.
Navy wants sailor to exit
after sex change surgery

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People of Indian Origin Top
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Triple Talaq Verdict:
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September4, 2017
SUPREME
COURT GETS
IT RIGHT
...ON PRIVACYRIVVVVVVVVVVVVVVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACY
Ashistoricajudgmentastheapex
courthaseverdelivered,itdefines
therelationshipbetweencitizens
andthegovernmentandwill
impactthelivesofeveryIndian
Ram Rahim:
Trial by Fire

Lead/ Dera Assets
N Olympic-size stadium, a
mall-cum-multiplex, a
state-of-the-art hospital,
luxury hotels, specialty
restaurants, a residential
complex, massive halls
and acres of farms, including a dairy,
form part of the Dera headquarters of
Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram
Rahim. In addition, there is a heavy
guarded and prohibited “Gufa” which
was his residence. All this was spread
over 700 acres in Sirsa, Haryana.
The sprawling complex, with multi-
ple but secured entrances, was the ven-
ue of a monthly sangat (community of
followers) meeting attended by thou-
A
ThestunningarrestofSachaSaudachiefGurmeetRamRahim
andtheassessmentofhisassetshasshownawell-oiled
machineryinsidethe700-acrecomplexinSirsaandnumerous
assetsabroad.Whowillinheritthisnow?
By Vipin Pubby in Chandigarh
The Fall
of an
Empire
A GLIMPSE OF
OPULENCE: The
Dera premises
in Sirsa

UK, Germany and Australia.
Punjab has come out with a tentative
figure of the Dera assets at `200 crore
in the state. However, it would take a
lot of time to arrive at the estimated
figures. So far, the government has
provided figures from nine of the 22
districts. As per the report given to the
High Court, the assets identified so far
are worth `58 crore. Haryana too is in
the process of evaluating. Given the fact
that the headquarters of the Dera is in
this state and that it has many more
Nam Charcha Ghars here, the total
worth of assets is estimated to be more
than double at least of what is in Pun-
jab. It is also a fact that the Dera was,
sands of mesmerised supporters from
various parts of Punjab, Haryana,
Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar
Pradesh. There would also be a sprin-
kling of devotees from abroad.
Not far from the Dera complex is the
old complex housing Ram Rahim’s close
relatives, besides memorials for his two
predecessors, Mastan Singh and Satnam
Singh. The complex also houses a school
and training centres for women.
The worth of these two complexes is
anyone’s guess. As per an unconfirmed
report a couple of years ago, the average
deposits in the Dera accounts per day
was about `16 lakh daily. Incidentally,
nothing is free inside the complex, exc-
ept the community langar at special
occasions. The Dera, of course, paid no
income tax due to exemption granted to
it under Income Tax laws.
W
hile the government has been
asked by the Punjab and
Haryana High Court to assess
the total worth of the Dera, including
properties, bank accounts and other
investments, what has come to light so
far is that there were 103 Dera Nam
Charcha Ghars (community halls for
prayers) in Haryana and 98 in Punjab.
Those in other states have not yet been
included. Besides, the Dera had such
Nam Charcha Ghars in the US, Canada,
LARGER THAN LIFE: Gurmeet Ram
Rahim on his designer vehicle

of late, extending its reach in central
and south India. It had set up some
community centres there but the details
of these assets are known only to the
Dera administration.
I
nterestingly, the Dera took no time
in taking off the page detailing its
centres as soon as the Punjab and
Haryana High Court ordered sealing of
all properties and accounts. The Court
had directed that the damage to private
and public properties caused by the vio-
lence unleashed by the Dera followers
must be paid by the Dera. If necessary,
the properties of the Dera would be sold
to raise money for compensation. The
Dera shall also have to compensate for
the expenditure incurred on security
forces deployed for law and order.
The luxury in which Ram Rahim was
living in his so-called “gufa” has now
been revealed through video shots that
have gone viral on social media. The
gold-plated furniture and dining sets
and opulence inside his living area are
now in public domain.
One aspect of the luxurious life of
Ram Rahim that has so far attracted lit-
tle notice is his fetish for luxury cars.
There is hardly any top luxury car bra-
nd, including Mercs, Audi and BMWs,
which was not in his Dera for personal
use. In fact, he had at least half a dozen
Mercs. Not even his security guards
knew in which car he would sit before
Lead/ Dera Assets
A
ll evidence
suggests that
the Dera chief
and his supporters
were either hopeful
of an acquittal or a
short sentence. No
one was prepared
for the 20-year jail
sentence for him. Hence, no succession
plan was made and the Dera manage-
ment is in a state of confusion.
It was finally decided that his only
son, 33-year-old Jasmeet Insan (above),
would be the Karajkari parbandhak
(executive manager). Significantly, he
has not been made successor or given
the gaddi in place of Ram Rahim. He
had been maintaining a low-profile. The
only time he came into the limelight was
when he married the daughter of former
Congress legislator Harminder Singh
Jassi in 2003.
He has two sisters, Charanpreet
Insan and Amanpreet Insan, who are
married and again shun the limelight
even though they remain associated
with the Dera. His wife, Harjeet Kaur,
too has maintained a low-profile. All of
them moved to his village in Ganga-
nagar, Rajasthan, after his conviction.
The second person in contention to
succeed Gurmeet was Honeypreet
Insan (next column) whom he had
“adopted”. She was the only person
who would accompany him all over and
had acted as his heroine in his movies.
She was also with him when he was
convicted and had accompanied him in
the helicopter to Rohtak jail.
Her antecedents, however, are dubi-
ous. Her original name was Priyanka
Taneja and Gurmeet had got her mar-
ried to Vishwas Gupta, a disciple, about
a decade ago. He recently came out
with a startling disclosure that his wife
had “illicit relations” with Gurmeet and
that he was a witness to it. Indeed, the
manner in which Gurmeet had been
treating her even in public, has raised
eyebrows.
The third person
who could be in the
race for succession
is again a low-key
person, Vipassana,
who had been run-
ning the show at the
Dera. It is believed
that she grew up at the Dera and had
been heading the 250-member man-
agement committee for the last seven
years. She knows the inside out of the
Dera, but it is unlikely that she would
find favour with the followers.
Incidentally, the succession as chief
of the Dera has not been hereditary.
The first chief was Mastan Singh and
the second, Satnam Singh, nominated
Gurmeet Singh. The first letters of the
three formed the acronym MSG.
Successionbattle

driving out on a particular day. He was
regarded as an “expert” at “redesigning”
vehicles by re-placing some of the exter-
nal features. He had even painted some
of these cars with the gaudy colours
associated with him. One of the hun-
dreds of attributes he claimed was that
of a self-taught engineer!
There were two wealth-generating
projects that he had started recently.
The first one was to produce feature
films starring, who but himself, as the
lead hero! The films gave him two dis-
tinct advantages: One that he could
project himself as larger-than-life with
almost supernatural powers and second,
that it was compulsory for his followers
to watch them. While for non-believers
these films would be torturous and
dreadful, the devotees paid for watching
these. Most of these films ran “House
Full” for several weeks. He also took
credit for acting, direction, dialogues,
music, playback singing and production.
The first film, MSG: The Messenger,
was made with a budget of `30 crore.
While the industry estimate was that it
grossed `16.65 crore, the film’s produc-
ers claimed that it earned `126 crore.
Four other films followed. One of these
was a sequel to the first film, while the
other three, The Warrior Lion Heart,
Hind Ka Napak Ko Jawab and Jattu
Engineer, were also claimed by the Dera
to be “huge successes”. Each of these, as
per the Dera’s claim, had grossed over
`100 crore.
The other money-spinner was pro-
ducing consumer products. Following in
the footsteps of Baba Ramdev, he intro-
duced 151 products under the MSG
brand last year. These included soaps,
toothpastes, pulses, atta, rice and other
eatables, oils and organic fertilisers and
some other products. Only some of the
products were made inside the Dera
complex. The rest were outsourced but
after “strict quality control”.
The number of stores exclusively
dealing with MSG products have now
grown to over 50 and there were plans
to increase these to 500. All premis, as
the followers are known, were asked to
make all their purchases from these
stores. At the launch ceremony of the
products, managed by a company called
MSG All Trading International Pvt Ltd,
it was announced that they would open
outlets across the country as well as in
Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia
and the US. A website, MSG my God
and your choice, gave details of the
products. Again, figures of the turnover
and profits are not in the public domain.
It was an empire few can envision.
SPIRITUAL EXTRAVAGANZA: A mega hall
of the Dera, where congregations were held
LIFESTYLE CATALOGUE: (L-R) The Dera
compound in Sirsa; conference hall at the
Dera hospital; the magnificent hospital
building; the spacious cricket stadium; a
car refitted and painted by Ram Rahim; his
residence in Panchkula; a product launch
on the lines of Patanjali

Column Indira Jaising
hat would it be like to
get your information
about the Supreme
Court straight from
the judges and law-
yers arguing the case
in real time and not from Twitter? With
the Supreme Court seeking an opinion
from authorities regarding steps for
audio and video recording of court pro-
ceedings, this could become a reality.
After 70 years of Independence, our
judges and lawyers in the Supreme Co-
urt have matured, have been exposed to
jurisprudence worldwide and what they
say in court has great educational value,
not all of which is captured in the judg-
ment. The great advantage of the new
system will be that a bystander will get
both sides of the picture and can make
up her mind on the rights and wrongs of
the argument.
Take the US. Listening to the judges
who dealt with the travel ban imposed
by President Donald Trump was sheer
pleasure. We learnt of the questions
Law
at Your
Doorstep
AmoveforvideorecordingoftheSupreme
Courtwillmakeproceedingsaccessibletothe
commonmanandgivefullexpressiontothe
fundamentalrightofspeechandopinionas
guaranteedunderArticle19(1)(a)
Streamingwouldhaveeducated
aninformation-hungrynation
ofissuesthataffectthem
intimately.Theywouldhavewit-
nessedhistoryinthemaking.
W
that state attorneys could not answer
and the exchange between the judges
and lawyers was direct and to the point.
There was no sycophancy, but only
respect and firmness.
EMPOWER CITIZENS
Live streaming of the Supreme Court in
cases of constitutional and national
importance, which have an impact on
the public at large, will empower and
provide access to the ordinary citizens
who cannot personally come to court
due to constraints of time and distance.
In these circumstances, it is a shame
that we do not make use of modern-day
technology and still keep our courts
cloistered from public view. Allowing
the public to enter with a pass is simply
not good enough. Even when the press
is allowed entry, they are not allowed to
carry their cell phones. The media has a
duty to communicate developments in
court rooms accurately to the general
public and they would be assisted in
their task if they were permitted phones
in the court. After all, lawyers are. We
get live tweets from court anyway, so
why not live streaming?
Two recent examples support this
stand—the hearings in the triple talaq
case and in the right to privacy case. Str-
eaming would have educated an infor-
mation-hungry nation of issues that aff-
ect them intimately. It would bring law
to their doorstep, make it user-friendly
and provide educational value, as we
would witness history in the making.
Surely it would also promote trans-
parency and accountability in the
administration of justice and will inspire
the confidence of the public in the judi-
ciary. As has been said by the Court lit-
erally on several occasions, justice must
Anil Shakya

allows for the broadcast of proceedings
via the permanent camera equipment
installed in the courtrooms. The cases
which come before the UK Supreme
Court do not involve interaction with
witnesses or jurors and it is rare for evi-
dence to be adduced which may then be
heard in other courts.
In the Supreme Court of Canada, all
hearings of appeals are recorded on
video. Most courtroom proceedings are
webcast live and are later televised by
the Canadian Parliamentary Affairs
Channel. Anyone wishing to obtain a
video recording for an educational, non-
commercial purpose must fill an on-line
request to use Supreme Court of Canada
photographs, videos or webcasts. If
approval is granted, the requestor will
be required to sign an undertaking set-
ting out the terms of use and will be
required to pay a fee to obtain a copy of
the tape. Note that certain appeals may
be subject to a publication ban. If a
request for a video recording is granted,
it is the responsibility of the person or
entity broadcasting the appeal to ensure
that the publication ban is respected.
In my opinion, other than criminal
cases and family law where the privacy
of an accused is compromised or a
family dispute is required to be protect-
ed by privacy, all other cases of constitu-
tional importance are required to be
live-streamed.
Significantly, the Lok Sabha and the
Rajya Sabha allow live-streaming of the
proceedings of the House. That being
said, there is no reason why an organ of
the state denies the general public the
right to access court proceedings
through live streaming.
At the end of the day, openness of the
courts is the ultimate guarantee that
justice will be done. Sunshine, as they
say, is the best antiseptic for injustice.
—The writer is a senior
advocate of the Supreme Court
not only be done but seen to be done.
Live streaming would help build con-
fidence in the court, avoid misreporting
and gossip-mongering in the corridors
about who said what. Surely the public
has a right to receive information of the
developments in court in real time.
The right to direct first-hand infor-
mation on case proceedings of constitu-
tional and national importance which
have an impact on the public is a pre-
requisite to the full expression of the
fundamental right of speech and opin-
ion of citizens guaranteed under Article
19(1)(a) of the constitution. In the
Secretary, Ministry of Information
Broadcasting v. Cricket Association of
Bengal 1995 SCC (2) 161vide, a three-
judge bench has held in Para 122 (ii):
“The right to impart and receive infor-
mation is a species of the right of
freedom of speech and expression guar-
anteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the
Constitution. A citizen has a fundamen-
tal right to use the best means of
imparting and receiving information
and as such to have an access to tele-
casting for the purpose.”
Persons who are unable to physically
access the Supreme Court due to socio-
economic factors or disability and have
failed to get justice shall at least be able
to have first-hand information in case of
proceedings on issues of constitutional
importance that affect them directly or
indirectly.
CASES ABROAD
Constitutional courts in other jurisdic-
tions allow for live streaming of select
cases as they acknowledge that it is
essential to access courts. The Supreme
Court of the United Kingdom Practice
Directions 8 provides that the president
and the justices of this Court have given
permission for video footage of proceed-
ings to be broadcast where this does not
affect the administration of justice. Also,
the recording and broadcasting is con-
ducted in accordance with the protocol
which has been agreed with representa-
tives of the relevant broadcasting
authorities. The president or the presid-
ing justice may additionally impose such
conditions as he or she considers appro-
priate, including obtaining consent from
all parties involved in the proceedings.
The policy on live text-based communi-
cation from the UK Supreme Court
OF INTERNATIONAL INTEREST:
The proceedings of the International Court of
Justice in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case were
viewed across India and Pakistan
twitter/CIJ_ICJ

Supreme Court/ Cattle Smuggling
HILE the Supreme
Court in July stayed
the contentious rule
of cattle trade (no
slaughter) restrictions
that the Centre had
sneaked in through the environment
ministry, in early August the top court
of the country also took cognisance of
the fact that cattle markets within 20
km of the India-Bangladesh border do
promote cattle smuggling. The court
directed the Centre to ensure that such
markets are not allowed.
Interestingly, this case was brought
to the top court by the Akhil Bharat
Krishi Goseva Sangh. Many such gau
seva organisations had wreaked havoc
across the country, killing 29 people in a
spate of lynchings that provoked the
court’s stay on the contentious cattle
market (no slaughter) rule in the first
place. On this count, though, the Akhil
Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh got it right.
Unofficial estimates—there exists no
official figure—say that about 3,000
cows are smuggled across the borders
illegally each day. Put this against the
unofficial estimate of 650 humans traf-
ficked across the border into India each
day from Bangladesh, and you can get a
picture of the scale of this operation.
Methods used by cattle smugglers are
many. They include the following:
Create a night stampede of a huge
herd of cows across unfenced areas of
the 4,096 km border, forcing the Border
Security Force (BSF) to yield.
Tie the legs of the cows to wood logs
and simply raft them across the river
(used mostly to cross the Brahmaputra
in Assam) in a rather cruel way.
Use an improvised tunnel. One such
80-feet tunnel was discovered by the
BSF in April in Kishanganj, Bihar. The
BSF believes it was to smuggle cattle.
Just let the animals swim across the
river, with smugglers swimming and
guiding them with sticks.
Bribe BSF personnel to look the
other way.
Use the influence of corrupt politi-
cians and arrange a peaceful passage.
There is no end to innovation and,
often combined with brute force, they
grow in numbers each day.
However, the source of almost all
such cattle driven across, are cattle mar-
kets—semi-legal and illegal—located
roughly within the zone as described in
the Supreme Court directive. The direc-
tive is based on intelligence reports.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of
Milking
Security
Loopholes
Ascattlesmugglingthrivesalongthe
Indo-Banglaborderwiththeconnivanceof
securityforces,theapexcourtintervenes
toissuedirections
By Sujit Bhar
W
THE CATTLE RUN
The 57 BSF Battalion seized around
100 cows at the Assam-Bangladesh
border in Dhubri district; (below) A
section of the border where illegal
cattle trafficking takes place

such temporary “markets” sprouting,
making deals and disappearing into the
darkness each day near the border. The
20 km distance marker is an approxi-
mation, considering surreptitious trans-
port logistics.
According to Banshi Dhar Sharma,
IPS and recently-retired Director
General of Police for West Bengal, the
Supreme Court ruling is “a very good
one, and in good time too”. Speaking to
India Legal over phone, he said: “These
cattle haats are a nuisance and are not
only a security threat, but also a sure
place where cattle smugglers take their
pick of cattle, then run them across the
border. This order has come at the
right time.”
W
hat is the modus operandi of
these haats? “The trade is in
cash and the cattle are mostly
of non-milch variety,” he said. Milch
cows form no more than 12 percent of
the overall cattle smuggled. The prefer-
ence is for bulls or oxen, for better taste.
And why are security forces not being
able to stop such a largescale opera-
tion—across West Bengal, Assam,
Meghalaya and Mizoram (these are the
border states)? “You have to first under-
stand that the Indo-Bangladesh border
(it is the fifth longest border in the
world),” said Sharma. “The border is not
all fenced, and cannot be. Twenty per-
cent of the border is riverine, and there
is little the security forces can do once
you are midway across the river. This
presents a huge logistical problem.
“Also, there is a huge amount of cor-
ruption within the security forces, main-
ly the BSF,” he said. Incidentally,
Sharma was a Special Director in-
charge of Eastern Command, BSF,
Kolkata from May 28, 2012 to August
13, 2014. Hence he should know, and
accepted that a section of the force he
once headed (he was even, for a time
with the BSF headquarters in Delhi)
does itself often provide the smugglers a
route through the border, obviously for a
consideration.
The trade both ways is massive.
Twitter/@peteralextodd
NBCC

Supreme Court/ Cattle Smuggling
Bangladesh’s beef export business is
huge (vis-a-vis the entire GDP of that
country). The entire beef business
(domestic plus exports) in Bangladesh
runs upwards of $3 billion a year and
hundreds of thousands are employed in
the process of slaughtering, providing
cold storage facilities, packaging, trans-
porting, loading, shipping et al. The
demand, especially from the West Asian
markets, is large and with Indian
exports falling due to intervention from
extreme right-leaning groups, the
Bangladesh business is picking up.
Moreover, the difference in cattle prices
is a factor. A bull will be often less than
a third the price in India as it would be
in Bangladesh, making it more tempting
a business prospect.
This business aspect has also seen
corrupt politicians move into the fray,
says Sharma. Hence those are two estab-
lished holes in the entire scheme of the
prevention of cattle smuggling.”You see,
the smugglers get themselves and their
cattle into the waters of the river. They
drive them across the river with sticks
and what can the security forces do? It
is not possible to shoot them and it is
not possible for the BSF to go after them
into the water,” says Sharma. The smug-
glers are winning too. Each smuggler
can benefit by up to `3,000 for deliver-
ing a pair of bovines.
“It is best to cut off the source of
such smuggling, which are these cattle
haats,” he says. “Now, with the court’s
directive, it becomes that much easier
for the forces to intercept and dismantle
such haats. They have a legal handle.”
How does one pinpoint these cattle
haats, most of them held in the shadows
of jungles and on the quiet? From 2014,
the year the BJP came to power, data
has been accumulated on seized cattle
intended to be smuggled across the bor-
der. As per published reports, the data
says that 1.5 lakh to 1.75 lakh cattle were
seized every year, between January 2014
and December 2016. More than the
numbers, the place of such seizure
becomes important as the possible place
of secretive haats. These will be under
surveillance.
A
lso in focus now are “cattle corri-
dors”, established zones of move-
ment for big herds. These have
been identified by the BSF on the
Indian side, as well as by the Bangla-
desh Border Guards on the other. These
exist around the towns of Khulna,
Kustia, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Rangpur,
Mymensing, Sylhet, Comilla and
Chittagong on the Bangladesh side,
while many have been identified on the
West Bengal side, which shares the
longest part of the border (2217km).
“Cattle from Nepal are also in this
trade,” said Sharma. “That number is
not that high, because Indian cattle
fetch better prices in Bangladesh, but it
does add substantially to the overall
smuggling process.”
Interestingly, till the cruel process
was banned, the festival of the Hindu
deity Gadhimai (goddess of power) in
Nepal, held every five years, used to see
the slaughter of over 3,00,000 cows.
Cows were illegally brought in by the
thousands from India. That used to be
the other smuggling route that now
operates in the reverse, going all the way
to Bangladesh.
“Overall, it is not just the cow smug-
gling, but the court order will positively
affect the security environment,” Sharma
said. “Human trafficking is difficult to
determine in the area (ethnicity and
language on either side is similar), and
often the trafficked not only lie to get
themselves through, but also help in the
cattle smuggling, keeping the observant
eyes of the BSF away.”
Overall, a win-win judgment.
“Thesecattlehaats
are asecurity
threat,andasure
placewherecattle
smugglerstaketheir
pickofcattle,then
runthemacross
theborder.”
—BDSharma,
ex-DGP,WBengal
NATIONWIDE SENTIMENT
Activists in Delhi protest against the Nepalese
Gadhimai festival where animals are sacrificed
Anil Shakya

Controversy/ Land Allotment
FTER Baba Ram Rahim
and Baba Rampal, it may be
Baba Ramdev in the dock,
or at least his organisation.
A big question mark hangs
over the allotment of 4,500 acres of
land, including a 455-acre plot in Sector
22B, Greater Noida, along 120 metres
of the Yamuna Expressway. The land
was given by the erstwhile Akhilesh
Singh government of Uttar Pradesh to
Patanjali Yoga Sansthan for the setting
up of a food and herbal park there.
A division bench comprising Justices
Tarun Agrawal and Ashok Kumar of the
Allahabad High Court has stayed all the
ongoing work at the site; however, hun-
dreds of trees belonging to an orchard
planted by a farmer, Asaf Khan, have al-
ready been felled between the first week
of March this year when the land trans-
fer actually took place under the super-
vision of Yamuna Expressway Industrial
Development Authority (YEIDA), and
the date of the order on August 30.
Khan, along with a few other farmers
from Kadalpur and Rilkha villages, is a
petitioner in the case. His orchard lies
on 200 bighas of the land. He has said
he has a 30-year lease for the land and
that it was given to the Sansthan even
before his lease expired. A few farmers
have, however, accepted monetary com-
pensation in exchange for their plots
from YEIDA.
On November 30, 2016, then UP
chief minister Akhilesh Singh handed
over the allotment letter to Patanjali
Yogpeeth in Lucknow. The foundation
stone was laid on December 1, 2016.
The land allotted is spread over sec-
tors 24, 24A and 22B. Of the 455 acres
earmarked for the food-and-herbal park,
430 acres is meant for industrial use
and 25 acres for institutional use. Rep-
orts say that Ramdev has plans of con-
structing a university on this land. The
university construction work has been
stalled by a separate lawsuit.
According to Patanjali Yogpeeth, the
university will be “first of its kind, as it
will provide education that is a blend of
western and eastern schools of thought”.
It is slated for opening in five years.
The food-and-herbal park project
entails an initial investment of `1,600
crore by Patanjali Group and promises
to create 8,000 jobs for local youth. It
purportedly aims to produce 250 tonnes
of biscuits, 750 tonnes of wheat powder
and 100 tonnes of oil per day.
“We will procure the supply of milk
and other raw material for food prod-
ucts such as ghee and oil from farmers,”
SK Tijarawala, spokesperson for Patan-
jali Yogpeeth, has said.
However, the project will also involve
the cutting down of 6,000 trees. Delive-
ring its order on August 30 enforcing
status quo on the work till the next date
of hearing on September 4, the High
Court bench said: “The government
cannot justify its act of cutting down of
trees on the basis that it will give ade-
quate compensation to an affected indi-
vidual.... Environment is for the whole
society. The government can compen-
sate an individual but how will it com-
pensate the entire society?”
“The farmers were leased their land
in 1994-95. It was a 30-year lease. This
allotment is, therefore, illegal. Also,
YEIDA has submitted in court that no
permission was taken from it before cut-
ting the trees. About 5,000 trees have
been cut already, resulting in huge losses
to the Kadalpur farmers,” the advocate
representing the petitioners, Prem
Chaurasia, said.
Ramdev’s Food Park
Courts Trouble
LocatedinGreaterNoida,itisunderthescanneraftermany
treeswerefelledwithoutpermissionbyPatanjaliYogaSansthan
By India Legal Bureau
A
TheHighCourtsaidenvironment
isforthewholesociety.The
governmentcancompensatean
individualbuthowwillitcompen-
satetheentiresociety?
wikimedia Patanjali Yogpeeth in Haridwar

Acts Bills/ Jharkhand/Religious Bill
ROM all accounts, it would
appear that anti-conversion
laws in India are a race to
woo, win and occupy the trib-
al soul. The string of seven
states—MP, Rajasthan,
Chhattisgarh, Himachal, Arunachal,
Odisha and now Jharkhand—which
have enacted anti-conversion laws are
home to almost 90 percent of the tribal
population of the country and also
where Christian missionary activity is
supposed to be at its peak. Besides these
states, Gujarat, Andhra and Tamil Nadu
have also enacted similar anti-conver-
sion bills, but these have since been
either repealed or put in abeyance due
to lack of gubernatorial consent.
The most recent case has been in
Jharkhand where the assembly passed
what has been called the “Religious
Independence Bill 2017”. The Bill has
provision for a fine up to `1,00,000 and
a four-year prison term for those who
convert others through force, fraud or
allurement. It also states that a person
converting willingly must give a notice
to the respective collector of the district
with details of time, place and name of
the person administering the conversion
at least 15 days in advance. Without this
notice, the administration will be free to
interpret the conversion as having been
done by “force, fraud or allurement”, all
of which have been defined in the Act.
MISSIONARY JUGGERNAUT
There is little doubt that the Act is
aimed at stopping the missionary jug-
gernaut which rolled into the Chota
Nagpur plateau almost a century ago.
The BJP is making little effort to hide
the purpose behind the Act and opposi-
tion by church leaders and former Chief
Minister Stephen Marandi has drawn
the lines more clearly. The Archbishop
of Ranchi, Telesphore Toppo, of the
Roman Catholic Church, has gone on
record rejecting the necessity for such
an Act and stating that provisions under
Section 295 of the IPC are enough.
Some telling figures explain why the
BJP government under Raghubar Das
may have felt compelled to act. As per
the 2011 census, the Christian popula-
tion in Jharkhand has risen by a whop-
ping 29.7 percent in the last 10 years,
followed by that of Muslims at 28.4 per-
cent, while the Hindu population has
been the slowest at 21 percent.
Remarkably, the overall incidence of
Christianity amongst the tribals is only
at 4-5 percent. An overwhelming major-
ity of tribals practise nature worship.
The struggle to smother missionary
activities in Chota Nagpur is almost a
century old. Kunkuri in the neighbour-
ing district of Jashpur (Chhattisgarh)
houses the biggest church in Asia. The
Jashpur royals, led by Dilip Singh
Taking on the Church
Inabidtostopthemissionaryjuggernautintribal-dominatedareas,Jharkhandbecamethe
seventhstatetopassananti-conversionlawwithstiffpenaltiesandajailterm
By Neeraj Mishra in Ranchi
RIGHT TO FAITH
Devotees attend mass on the eve of
Christmas in Ranchi, Jharkhand
F
Photos: UNI

Judeo, have made a place within the
RSS-BJP leadership with their re-con-
version dubbed as ghar vapasi activities
for almost 50 years now. Ranvijay Singh
has taken over the mantle from his
uncle Dilip and is now the youngest
Rajya Sabha member from Chhattis-
garh. But even before that, in the 1930s,
Raigarh and Sarguja states ordained
anti-apostasy laws to check the spread
of Christianity amongst the tribals.
What is it then about the church that
intimidates the defenders of the Hindu
faith? Though the law covers all reli-
gious expansionism anywhere in the
state, it is primarily directed at the
church and the tribals. For one, the
church is the most organised. It has a
faithful following and they generally do
the church’s bidding and this includes
committed en masse voting.
ORGANISED RELIGION
The infrastructure around each
church—schools, colleges, hospitals and
more importantly, the committed who
serve in these institutions—is something
any organisation would be proud of.
Though the Christian population of
Jharkhand is only 4 percent, it has been
accused of fanning the rebellion against
the land acquisition acts that Das’ gov-
ernment tried to bring in through the
Chota Nagpur land tenancy reform bill.
The government realises that the church
uses every opportunity to become the
defender of the rights of tribals. And
though an overwhelming number are
not practising Christians, the focal point
can only be provided by an organised
institution like the church with its own
pecking order. Thus, whether it’s the
Archdeaconry or the Rashtriya Isai
Mahasangh (RIM), the church leaders
frequently meet the decision-makers
and put forward their stand.
Another striking feature of these reli-
gious freedom acts has been the abysmal
number of times that people willing to
get converted have approached the
administration. The police have been lax
whenever a mass conversion drive like
Dalits converting to Buddhism takes
place. “I have yet to receive an applica-
tion for conversion under the provisions
of the Act in my four years of collector-
ship in tribal areas,” said an MP cadre
IAS officer. It is estimated that only 15
cases have so far been registered under
the MP Act since 2006.
What is the point of the Act and the
heated debate? “It is to create a hostile
environment against the minorities who
can be threatened, investigated and held
on the simplest pretext,” said a member
of the Bhopal Church, also affiliated to
the RIM.
SC STAND
Article 25 of the constitution guarantees
the right to practise any religion of
choice. The Supreme Court in the case
of Ratilal Panachand Gandhi v. State of
Bombay clarified this provision by say-
ing that every person has a fundamental
right not merely to entertain such reli-
gious belief as may be approved of by his
judgment or conscience but to exhibit
his belief and ideas in such overt acts as
are enjoined or sanctioned by his reli-
gion and further to propagate his reli-
gious views for edification of others.
In another landmark case of Rev
Stainislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh,
the court examined whether the right to
practice and propagate one’s religion
also included the right to convert. The
Court upheld the validity of the earliest
anti-conversion statutes: the Madhya
Pradesh Dharma Swatantraya
Adhiniyam, 1968, and the Orissa
Freedom of Religion Act, 1967. The
Court found that “restrictions on efforts
to convert are constitutional because
such efforts impinge on ‘freedom of con-
science’ and ‘public order’.” It held that
the right to propagate did not include
the right to convert any person.
Thus, while each state is free to make
its own acts of restraining certain reli-
gions from forcible conversion, in prac-
tise we have yet to see a just and proper
use of the law which appears to defeat
its very purpose.
ThereislittledoubtthattheAct
isaimedatstoppingthe
missionaryjuggernautwhich
rolledintotheChotaNagpur
plateaualmostacenturyago.

Legal Eye/ McDonald’s Tussle
UNGRY kya? If you are one
of those dreaming of succu-
lent burgers dripping with
melted cheese, crispy fish
fillets or crunchy fries, there
is some unappetising news.
As many as 43 of McDonald’s outlets
downed their shutters in June and more
could follow.
A four-year legal tussle between
Vikram Bakshi, the managing director
of Connaught Plaza Restaurants Ltd.,
(CPRL), which is in a 50:50 joint ven-
ture (JV) with McDonald’s India Pvt.
Ltd (MIPL), the local arm of the US fast
food giant, is threatening to shut down
169 of its restaurants. Over 10,000 may
be rendered jobless. At a hearing on
August 30, MIPL told the National
Company Law Appellate Tribunal
(NCLAT) that it does not want an out-
of-court settlement with Bakshi.
Earlier, the Tribunal had asked both
parties to settle their disputes so that
the food outlets could be operational.
Hong Kong-based Barry Sum, Director,
Asia Foundational Markets, McDonald’s
Corp., told India Legal: “We have
informed NCLAT that we wish to pro-
ceed with the appeal. NCLAT has sched-
uled the next hearing on September 21
for us to present the arguments of the
appeal. We also informed NCLAT that it
has come to our understanding that
Vikram Bakshi has recently caused
CPRL to make some unauthorised pay-
ments to himself.”
TERMINATED AGREEMENT
SJ Mukhopadhaya, chairperson of
NCLAT, which is hearing the two sepa-
rate appeals, remarked that there does
not seem to be a chance of any amicable
Not Lovin’ ItTheMNCanditsIndianpartner,CPRL,havebeenlockedina
legalbattleforfouryearsandattemptstocometoatrucehave
failedatarecenthearingoftheNationalCompanyLaw
AppellateTribunal
By Ramesh Menon
UNSAVOURY BATTLE
Over 10,000 people stand to lose their jobs if
McDonald’s outlets continue to shut down
H
Facebook/McDonaldsIndia

es. Among the four directors of CPRL,
two are foreigners. The other two are
Bakshi and his wife, Madhurima. Bakshi
wrote to the two foreign directors that
he was not contemplating renewal as
there were serious issues of unsafe food
with some of the outlets. The two for-
eign directors washed their hands off
the responsibility of day to day opera-
tions that would examine hygiene and
quality. Bakshi’s stand was that he could
not be held responsible as he had been
removed as the managing director.
The ugly corporate spat has hit the
growth of McDonald’s, allowing com-
petitor Domino’s which was far behind
five years ago, to race ahead. In 2011,
McDonald’s notched up sales of `1,143
crore. After the JV showed cracks,
Domino’s has surged ahead with annual
sales of `2,502 crore. With a huge popu-
lation, India is a captive market for fast
food which is estimated to be about $1.5
billion and has the potential to annually
grow by about 15 percent.
Newspapers in the US say that
McDonald’s is looking for a new partner
in north and east India. Bakshi suspects
that the US food major is planning to
give it to an operator who presently runs
its outlets in south India. Even if there is
peace, which at the moment seems
highly unlikely, it is going to be difficult
for McDonald’s to regain its position in
north and east India. And it will not be
easy for consumers to forget that there
were numerous instances of foreign
objects being found in its fast food items
in the last few years. This included
worms and even a fried lizard!
Today, the consumer has many other
fast food options. Only a marketing
miracle can bring the Big Mac back to
the Indian palate and get people to say:
“I’m Lovin’ it.”
settlement. Bakshi is now saying that he
hopes for a fair evaluation as he holds
half of the stake.
CPRL had a license from McDonald’s
to run restaurants in east and north
India for 20 years, but the JV has run
into trouble. In the last week of August,
2017, McDonald’s terminated its fran-
chise agreement with CPRL. This means
that CPRL will no more be able to use
McDonald’s names, food recipes, trade-
marks, branding, designs or its opera-
tional and marketing strategies.
According to Ron Christianson, the
global head at McDonald’s Corp., the
termination took place as CPRL had
violated agreements and not paid royal-
ty for two years. This means that it will
have to shut the 169 outlets that it runs.
However, McDonald’s operations in
west and south India will not be ham-
pered as it is managed by Westlife
Development Ltd., another franchisee.
Bakshi took his case to the Company
Law Board in India, while McDonald’s
has been involved in arbitration in the
London Court of International
Arbitration. The verdict is expected
sometime this year. In mid-July 2017,
the National Company Law Tribunal
ruled that the August 2013 proceedings
by the Board of Directors of CPRL
where it had ousted Bakshi was illegal
and reinstated him. The Tribunal also
appointed retired Justice GS Sanghvi of
the Supreme Court to try and break the
deadlock. Bakshi said he is vindicated
and McDonald’s said it is contemplating
other legal options.
In August 2017, McDonald’s shot off
a notice to CPRL cancelling its franchise
agreement for allegedly breaching the
contract. As the license was for 20 years,
Bakshi is likely to challenge the termi-
nation notice. CPRL did not respond to
queries by India Legal.
HYGIENE ISSUE
Due to the tussle between Bakshi and
McDonald’s, CPRL shut down 43 rest-
aurants in June 2017 as it did not get
the mandatory regulatory health licens-
Inmid-July2017,
theNational
CompanyLaw
Tribunalruledthat
theAugust2013
proceedingsbythe
BoardofDirectors
ofCPRLwhereit
hadoustedBakshi
(left)wasillegal
andreinstatedhim.
MAKING HAY
The corporate spat resulted in competitor
Domino’s to race ahead of McDonald’s
dominos.co.in

Legal Eye/ McDonald’s Dispute
RANCHISE, the largest busi-
ness model within the service
industry—sometimes within
the manufacturing industry
as well—has developed into a
fine-tuned system across the world,
especially in the US. Backing this sys-
tem are equally fine-tuned legal enact-
ments that ensure quick legal recourse
and justice.
However, even within the slow legal
framework of India, this is the worst-
attended area. After years of franchise
systems embedded in the Indian econo-
my, the country still does not have any
specific legal enactment to control and
enable the growth of franchise.
Franchise generally means a right or
privilege. In business, it refers to a me-
thod that involves licensing of trade-
marks and methods of doing business.
Black’s Law Dictionary (seventh edition,
1999), defines “franchise” as, “the sole
right granted by the owner of a trade-
mark or trade name to engage in busi-
ness or to sell a good or service in cer-
tain area.”
In India, chapter 5 of the Finance
Act defines “franchise” as “an agreement
by which the franchisee is granted rep-
resentational rights to sell or manufac-
ture goods or to provide service or
undertake any process identified with
franchisor, whether or not a trademark,
service mark, trade name or logo or
any such symbol, as the case may be,
is involved.”
The most dominant form of franchis-
ing, which is Business Format Franchi-
sing, includes a franchise relationship
based on a formal contract, a successful
business format of the franchisor, which
is identified with a brand name, trade-
mark, service mark and/or trade name,
formal training to franchisee, support of
franchisor in operation of the business,
franchisee's ownership of business, pay-
ment to franchisor, etc. Chain stores,
which share a brand and central man-
agement, are perfect examples of fran-
chise. McDonald’s is one.
I
n India a plethora of laws of the
land come into play while dealing
with franchise, generating massive
complications, especially in the franchis-
ing of foreign brands, such as McDon-
ald’s. This is still a pretty unregulated
method in India.
Franchisors in India are governed by
a number of different statutes. Prima-
rily, a franchise agreement is a con-
tract between the franchisor and the
franchisee.
The first law which comes into the
picture is the Contract Act of 1872
which governs contracts in India. A
franchise agreement will be governed by
the 1872 Act, and the Specific Relief Act,
1963, which provide for both specific
enforcement of covenants in a contract
and remedies in the form of damages for
breach of contract. Laws relating to
intellectual property, (this includes
copyright, trademark, patent, etc), taxa-
tion, sale of goods, property, insurance
and labour also apply to franchise
transactions. Additionally, laws apply-
ing to specific sectors of goods and
services will also apply depending on
the franchise.
Many nations across the world, espe-
cially in developed markets, have enact-
ed such laws (governing franchise). This
deficit stands out starkly in India,
because the overall economy of India is
tilted towards the service industry. The
service sector needs franchising regula-
tions the most, because of the many
intellectual properties that are in play.
Business Format Franchising was
what should have governed the specifics
in the McDonald’s Indian joint venture.
Every detail format will have been speci-
fied, such as the cleanliness standard,
the decor, the food processes and qua-
lity, storage, and even the dress code of
the employees. Any deviation would
have been deemed a breach.
Now each of those failures, as have
been pointed out in many reports—such
as a fried lizard—would have been
regarded as a breach. This would have
to be dealt with by another act, The
Specific Relief Act, 1963, provides for
both specific enforcement of covenants
in a contract and remedies in the form
of damages for breach of contract.
All that is time-consuming.
Franchise Flaws
AbsenceofaFranchiseActlimitsitsgrowthinIndia
By Sujit Bhar
F
news.franchiseindia.com

Commerce/ Survey on Business Reforms
All Hype,
Few Reforms?
Despitethecentralandstategovernments’effortsatsimplifyingcompliancesandissuing
fasterapprovals,manymanufacturingenterprisesreportedlittleornochange
By Vivian Fernandes
NEGLECTED LOT
With firms trying to cut
corners, most factory
workers endure
inhospitable conditions
F advertising is to be believed, there
has been a regime-change in India
since Narendra Modi took over as
prime minister. Those who believe
that civil liberties are being crim-
ped, would endorse the veracity of
that claim. But the government says
things are changing for the better in the
economic sphere. India is touted as the
fastest-growing economy, albeit one that
has difficulty creating jobs. “We are now
engaged in transformational change,”
stated Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of
State for Commerce and Industry.
If that is true, it is not showing. A
survey of 3,276 manufacturing enter-
prises by IDFC Institute on ease of
doi-ng business found 59 percent of
them saying that the regulatory environ-
ment for setting up businesses was
I
Bhavana Gaur

Commerce/ Survey on Business Reforms
less likely to use self-certification under
the Minimum Wages Act and the Pay-
ment of Wages Act than capital-inten-
sive enterprises. More of them reported
that finding skilled workers was a
“major or very severe obstacle” to doing
business.
The share of such enterprises report-
ing difficulty in hiring contract labour
was a third higher than respondents in
power-intensive industries. They also
complained of greater difficulty in lay-
ing-off workers.
PROBLEM AREAS
Overall, they reported more difficulty in
setting up business than those in other
industries. A larger proportion of
power-intensive industries said they had
difficulty in getting an electricity con-
nection. Most of them also complained
of outages. Scarcity of water troubled
many of them.
Since India is dominated by very
small enterprises (those employing less
than eight workers) is it possible that
the preponderance of such firms in
labour-intensive sectors constrains their
ability to cope with laws and rules, said
Arun Maira, a member of the last Pla-
nning Commission. But IDFC Institute
said it had taken the sample from enter-
prises registered under the Factories
Act, and each employed 20 or more per-
sons. So enterprises in the informal sec-
tor were ignored. In all, 1,846 were
labour-intensive firms belonging to 12
sectors, and 1,430 were power-intensive
enterprises from nearly 11 industries.
On the basis of the responses, it was
calculated that the average time taken to
set up a business in India was 118 days
with wide variations. In Tamil Nadu and
Andhra Pradesh, the time varied
between 60 and 70 days; in Kerala and
Assam, it was upwards of 200 days.
The top 25 percent of the respondents
unchanged or had worsened. Thirty-
eight percent said that the conditions
had improved.
The study was commissioned by
NITI Aayog, the successor to the erst-
while Planning Commission and was
released on August 28. Unlike the World
Bank’s ranking of countries on ease of
doing business, this one does not cover
services. It obtained feedback from
enterprises across 104 districts in all
states, except Arunachal Pradesh,
Mizoram, Andaman Nicobar Islands
and Lakshadweep. The World Bank sur-
veyors talk to industry leaders, char-
tered accountants and lawyers in
Delhi and Mumbai; they do not quiz
enterprises at all.
An interesting finding of the survey
is that labour-intensive industries are
Labour-intensiveindustries
reportedthatfindingskilled
workerswasa“majoror
verysevereobstacle”to
doingbusiness.
SWEEPING CHANGES REQUIRED
Smoke billowing out of a factory in
Ghaziabad; (below) Prime Minister
Narendra Modi wooing Indian industry
with his “Make in India” initiative
Anil Shakya

said it took them between 150 and 320
days to get land allotted by the govern-
ment. The average time taken was 156
days. The Himachal administration took
the least amount of time, just 23 days.
Since the process of obtaining land and
construction permits was vitiating the
environment for establishing enterpri-
ses, Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary,
Department of Industrial Policy and
Promotion (DIPP) said it might help to
do away with them. Applicants should
be able to upload their site maps; these
will be accepted only if the compliances
are observed.
Random inspections would help
detect false declarations. Chhattisgarh
takes just five days to give construction
permits, he said.
Summing up the report, Rajiv Lall,
Managing Director of IDFC Bank, said
that the ease of doing business and reg-
ulatory simplicity were necessary for
faster growth. India was moving in the
right direction on easing, he said, with-
out stating that the pace could quicken.
A lot of simplification had been done,
but only 20 percent of the respondents
who had started operations during or
after 2014 said that they had used the
single-window system, which is one of
the 98 reforms that state governments
had agreed to undertake as part of the
“Make in India” initiative of 2014.
This spoke of the need for better overall
communication.
Obtaining land was a big problem
and it forced firms to remain small.
Addressing the extreme informality of
Indian businesses was a challenge.
Ninety-five percent of enterprises in
India employed 2 or 3 persons. Perhaps
they wished to avoid dealing with the
government, and preferred to remain
unorganised, he said.
DIPP RANKINGS
In order to improve its continued low
score in the World Bank’s rankings on
ease of doing business, DIPP has begun
its own rankings. India ranked 130 in
2017 and 2016, 142 in 2015, 134 in 2014
and 132 in 2013 in the World Bank
rankings. DIPP based its findings by
talking to secretaries to state govern-
ments, (and as Sitharaman observed,
they have an obvious interest in prettify-
ing their state’s score).
Abhishek found that “after the online
ranking of states, the political owner-
ship of ease of doing business has
increased”. There was healthy competi-
tion among states. Sometimes they
wanted others pulled down a couple of
notches and gave reasons.
But there was cooperation too.
Andhra was helping Kerala to improve
its business environment, and Uttara-
khand was assisting Mizoram. In the
assessment of states implementing busi-
ness reforms, Gujarat topped in 2015. In
2016, Andhra Pradesh took pole posi-
tion. This year, DIPP will take feedback
from business enterprises for whom the
easing is being done.
REASON FOR RED TAPE
Abhishek said that the obduracy of the
bureaucracy alone may not be the rea-
son for red tape. Often, government
departments do not have the capacity or
skills to cope. When the trademarks
office was short-staffed, it used to take
Thestudyobtainedfeedback
fromenterprisesacross104
districtsinallstates,except
Arunachal,Mizoram,
AndamansandLakshadweep.
13 months to register one; now it takes
about a month.
The customs office has gone com-
pletely online, but at one time found
itself short of printers and scanners.
PAN and TAN numbers are now given
to companies in one day after a back
office was set up in Manesar in Haryana
to quickly process such applications,
and to avoid backlog.
“This is an Indian exercise,” said Ravi
Shankar Prasad, Minister for Law and
Justice Information Technology, as if
western countries conspired through the
World Bank to deter investments to
India by giving it a low rank.
“When we rank high in innovation
and competitiveness how is it that we
are shown low down in other areas?”
he asked.
More than half of the respondents
saying things have not changed or have
worsened since 2014 seems to have
chafed the government. It issued a clari-
fication through the Press Information
Bureau on August 29 that the enterprise
survey does not reflect the views of the
government or NITI Aayog and does not
take into account the reforms that have
happened after the survey was complet-
ed in April 2016.
Mercifully, it refrained from saying
the respondents were wrong or the
surveyors were biased!
RameshAbhishek,
Secretary,Depart-
mentofIndustrial
PolicyandPromo-
tion,saysthat
aftertheonline
rankingofstates,
thepolitical
ownershipofease
ofdoingbusiness
hasincreased.
RajivLall,
ManagingDirector
ofIDFCBank,says
thattheeaseof
doingbusiness
andregulatory
simplicityare
necessaryfor
fastergrowth,and
alotofsimplifica-
tionhasbeendone.

Cyber Security/ Aadhaar Database
LARM bells have been ring-
ing in the ministry of elec-
tronics and information
technology (MeitY). This
was ever since Union
finance minister Arun
Jaitley announced on August 28 that the
linking of one billion Aadhaar IDs with
bank accounts and mobiles is very much
on the cards. The minister, speaking at a
A Risky
RevolutionThegovernment’smovetolinkonebillionof
thesenumberstobankaccountsandmobilesis
fraughtwithsecurityrisks.Studiessaythatdigital
securitymustbebeefedupbeforethishappens
By India Legal Bureau
A
Response Team (CERT-In) which deals
with hacking and related crimes. More
importantly, it is also directly responsi-
ble for the functioning of the Unique
Identity Authority of India (UIDAI)
which operates the Aadhaar database. It
will have an important role to play once
the linkage referred to by Jaitley covers
all Aadhaar cards—virtually the entire
adult population in the country.
STOLEN DATA
A MeitY official told India Legal: “The
finance minister has talked about a
social revolution but we will need a
cyber security revolution if the grand
plan has to take off without floundering
and losing its way. As things stand now,
there are too many holes in the security
set up which are being exploited by
hackers. We have to prepare ourselves
for a flood of cyber-related crime once
the linkage happens. To make matters
worse, no one is clear about the volume
of Aadhaar data that has already been
stolen or accessed by the wrong people.”
function to mark the completion of
three years of the Pradhan Mantri Jan
Dhan Yojna, said that the linkage would
ensure “financial inclusion” which will
be “nothing short of a social revolution”.
Officials in MeitY, are a worried lot.
The ministry has been entrusted with
the onerous task of ensuring cyberspace
security in the country and managing
the Indian Computer Emergency
A MANDATORY BURDEN
Aadhaar is a tempting pool of data for
cyber criminals

structural change is recommended to
make cyber security effective, up to date
and relevant.
Shree Parthasarathy, partner, risk
advisory services, Deloitte India,
explained in a note: “While businesses
are accelerating their adoption of digital
and other emerging technologies, crimi-
nals and organised crime are not far
behind. They are going digital too and
they seem to have far more at stake.
This is validated by the increase of
cybercrime/fraud and breaches… India
still does not have a cyber security
framework and its National Cyber
Security Policy lacked an implementa-
tion framework and is yet to be adopted
by industry. Which leads to the next
question: Is our cyber space safe? While
we go Digital, India Inc and the
Government have to embrace the fact
that Cyber Security is not an option. We
need to accelerate the pace of imple-
mentation of security measures before it
is too late and before citizens start los-
ing trust in the system.”
Jaitley did not specify any date when
the great Aadhaar revolution will hap-
pen. But as things stand, a finance min-
istry notification of June 1, 2017 (No2/F.
No P. 12011/11/2016-Es Cell-DOR)
makes it compulsory for all bank
account holders (including corporate
accounts) to link their accounts with
their PAN and Aadhaar numbers before
December 31, 2017. On August 30, the
government told the Supreme Court
that pending hearings on the matter, it
will extend the deadline to furnish Aa-
dhaar details to avail benefits from Sep-
tember 30 to December 31. So, the last
day of 2017 will see Jaitley’s revolution
unless the court rules against the inte-
gration of Aadhaar at multiple levels.
DEMONETISATION DEMONS
The Deloitte report did not factor in the
Aadhaar aspect since it is yet to happen.
But other studies with MeitY have
According to him, there are several
reports with the ministry which point to
the urgent need for a complete overhaul
of the cyber security apparatus in the
country. This will be a time-consuming
process, but he feels it nevertheless ne-
eds to be done before any major three-
way linkage is even attempted. “A new
financial division of CERT-In has been
promised. It has to be set up and tested.
No system is fool-proof. The basic prob-
lem with Aadhaar is that the safety of
data was not thought through when it
was launched. Much of what is being
done is a post facto response,” he added.
MeitY sources also point out that
according to official data, 164 govern-
ment websites were hacked during 2015.
There have also been instances where
government departments have placed
Aadhaar numbers in the public domain.
The problem, they say, has several
dimensions. And laws alone cannot
deter the criminals. Prevention and
detection are key aspects in any fight
because the cyber-criminal floats in
cyberspace and may operate from a for-
eign land outside India’s jurisdiction.
MASSIVE LEAKAGE
International consultant Deloitte’s
August 2017 report on Cyber Regulation
in the Asia Pacific is the latest that has
come to the notice of the ministry. The
report makes a pertinent point: “Even
though India is making leaps and
bounds on the ‘Digital India’ initiative, it
still does not have a cyber security
framework.” It records that in 2016,
hackers accessed and leaked details of
3.2 million customer cards from several
Indian banks.
The report recommends a ten-fold
path that must be implemented to make
the security system well-oiled and in
tune with the times. This includes devel-
oping a cyber risk culture that goes
beyond the IT department and is incor-
porated into the management frame-
work of financial service providers and
in the government. It also talks about
developing a dynamic contingency plan
and keeping various arms of the govern-
ment and financial services companies
informed about developments across the
world. It stresses the need to innovate
through exchange of information. In
short, a major attitudinal and infra-
UNSAFE APPS
In Vijayawada, CPI (M) activists burnt an
effigy of Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma
“Therearetoomanyholesin
thesecuritysetup...afloodof
cyber-relatedcrimeswilltake
placeoncethelinkagehappens.”
—MeitYofficial
nyoooz.com

India legal 11 September 2017

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India legal 11 September 2017