#MeToo Exposing the Predators As a growing number of working women come out with shocking and painful stories of sexual harassment, it signals a major turning point for Indian society and gender sensitivity

1. NDIA EGALL STORIES THAT COUNT
` 100
I
www.indialegallive.com
October 22, 2018
As a growing number of working women come out with shocking and painful
stories of sexual harassment, it signals a major turning point for
Indian society and gender sensitivity
Exposing
the Predators
Rafale Deal: Spoke
in the wheel
Chief Justice Gogoi:
Man in a hurry

3. A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL
HAT started off as political spar-
ring between the Opposition and
the Modi government over the
Rafale aircraft deal could well
turn into a Bofors-type knock-
down and dragout which brought the Rajiv Gan-
dhi government to its knees. While I am not pre-
dicting that this defence arrangement, which has
raised alarms of crony capitalism and shady quid-
pro-quos, may be the ultimate spoke in the
wheels of the Modi juggernaut, there is scarcely
any doubt that its shadow will loom over the
upcoming state polls as well as the general elec-
tion in 2019.
The matter took an unexpected turn last week
when the Supreme Court examined a petition
questioning the bona fides of the transaction.
While the apex legal body refused to delve into
the price and related technical specifications of
the contract, or to issue notice to the government
in the matter, it nonetheless asked the centre to
provide details of the decision-making process in
a sealed cover. The petition had sought a directive
from the apex court asking the centre to reveal
details of the Rafale deal along with price
comparisons.
The government had sought dismissal of the
PILs filed in the case, citing politics as the motive
behind the challenge. Attorney General KK Venu-
gopal, stressing national security as the main rea-
son to preserve secrecy, argued that the Court was
being misused in order to gain political benefit
for the forthcoming elections.
The Rafale deal is a defence agreement bet-
ween the governments of India and France for
the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in fly-
away condition. It is part of the upgrading pro-
cess of Indian Air Force equipment.
The bench consisting of Chief Justice of India
Ranjan Gogoi, Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph
clarified that it did not want details of pricing and
other such technicalities of the deal. “We want to
satisfy ourselves on the steps taken in the deci-
sion-making. We are not going into the issue of
suitability keeping in mind the sensitivity of the
issue,” said the Supreme Court.
Specifically, petitions by two lawyers had
requested a Court-monitored investigation into
the `59,000-crore deal for 36 fighters from
France’s Dassault. The Rafale deal was ann-
ounced in 2015 after Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s talks in Paris with then French president
Francois Hollande.
The Opposition has accused the government
of going for a not-so-favourable contract to bene-
fit Anil Ambani. Both the government and the
business tycoon have denied the charge.
The Rafale controversy soared sharply after
Hollande’s comment in an interview in France
last month that his government was virtually
arm-twisted into the selection of Anil Ambani’s
start-up, Reliance Defence, as India offset partner
for Dassault. As part of the offset clause, Dassault
has to ensure that business worth at least half the
amount—`30,000 crore—is generated in India.
S
everal months ago, well before this contro-
versy hit the headlines, an India Legal edi-
torial, painting on a larger but related can-
vas, called Prime Minister Modi’s “Make in India”
initiative “a bit of flop”. The editorial cited the
new Rafale deal as a prime example of bad tid-
ings for India’s attempts at becoming a self-suffi-
cient manufacturer of armaments for its defence.
The defence sector, anointed as the lead
agency in what could have been a laudable sch-
eme, “envisaged to galvanise manufacturing,
continues to languish at the altar of procedural
delays and has failed to demonstrate its
true potential”.
This is not criticism from some opposition
party or language from the recent petition before
the Supreme Court, but rather, the words of
India’s own Ministry of Defence which has writ-
ten a stinging indictment of the lethargy that so
often overtakes and stymies otherwise praisewor-
thy enterprise.
In particular, the report, addressed to the
Inderjit Badhwar
Letter from the Editor
W
Themattertookan
unexpectedturn
lastweekwhenthe
SupremeCourt
examinedapetition
questioningthe
bonafidesof
thetransaction.
| INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 3

4. prime minister, says that the “desired level of
indigenization and self-reliance in defence
manufacturing research and development and
timely equipping of Service are some of the
areas where the situation continues to be far
from satisfactory”.
P
erhaps the prime minister himself has
something to answer for on this subject.
India has hardly been transformed into a
“come hither” nation during the last three years
of Narendra Modi’s governance. The ease of doing
business, notwithstanding official statistics, is no
easier than before. The corruption index, high
taxation, countervailing duties and protectionism
remain high. There is a loss of confidence in the
banking system. Consumer buying has ebbed
since demonetisation. News investments are not
even worth talking about and Chinese goods are
literally swamping the marketplace.
At a sectoral level—defence—the continuing
Rafale purchase for the Air Force appears to be
eating into Modi’s grandiloquent design. For
more than two decades, defence experts have
been predicting a virtual existential crisis for the
Indian Air Force. Its frontline fighter strength
has inexorably depleted, with the inevitable
phase-out of obsolescent aircraft, scientifically
predicted according to their age, airframe fatigue,
outmoded systems and laughable armament
avionics. The much ballyhooed “two-front war”
would be nothing short of a disaster under
these circumstances.
The points elaborated below explain the
Rafale controversy in a condensed but compre-
hensive chronological perspective:
More than 20 years ago, IAF planners began
identifying options to keep their strength at the
sanctioned 42 combat squadron level, specifically
to replace the 20 squadrons of MiG-21 variants
plus 10 squadrons of MiG-23/27s which consti-
tuted the bulk of the IAF combat force, with next-
generation multi-role fighters.
In fact, this situation was well understood much
earlier, when in 1983, the Government of India
constituted the Aeronautical Development Agen-
cy to manage, fund and monitor progress of the
light combat aircraft (LCA) to be indigenously
designed, developed and manufactured in India
to meet the IAF’s expected MiG-21/27 replace-
ment requirements from the late 1990s.
This programme has tragically floundered for
over three decades. The handful of Tejas LCA
Mark-IIs produced by HAL for the IAF have fun-
damental flaws in their essential design due to
inexperienced engineers at ADA and inadequacy
of production infrastructure at HAL, Bengaluru.
In consequence, instead of some 200+ LCAs serv-
ing with the IAF already, there is today just one
LCA squadron under raising, equipped with just
a handful of LCAs which too have doubtful oper-
ational capability.
The possibility of this situation had alarmed
IAF planners in the late 1990s when the govern-
ment was urged to hedge against continued
delays in the LCA programme and efforts made
to induct 126 Mirage 2000s to supplement the
50-odd Mirage 2000s already in IAF service,
which were considered the most effective multi-
role fighters extant. This requirement was accept-
ed by the government and was the basis for for-
malisation of the “Medium Multi-Role Combat
SHROUDED IN
MYSTERY
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi with
French president
Francois Hollande
in Paris in 2015 where
he announced the
Rafale deal
4 October 22, 2018
Letter from the Editor
UNI

5. Aircraft” programme, with the IAF shortlisting
four fighter aircraft types that best met its requi-
rement. These were the Dassault Mirage 2000,
Lockheed Martin F-16, Saab Gripen and MiG-
29M (later re-numbered MiG-35).
The initial request for information (RFI) was
sent to the four companies in 2004 but, inexpli-
cably the follow-on request for proposal (RFP)
was delayed till 2007. When it was finally made,
amazingly, it included far heavier, complex and
very expensive aircraft types such as the Euro-
fighter Typhoon, Boeing F-18 Super Hornet and
Dassault Rafale.
This was considered by experts as being most
unprofessional since the very purpose of having a
“medium” multi-role fighter to replace the MiG-
21/27s (by implication also affordable in large
numbers) was now completely defeated. The
MMRCA competition became farcical as, even
though six different fighter types were strenuous-
ly evaluated, and included flight-testing and ar-
mament-firing, the shortlisted types were not
only 50 percent heavier than the MMRCA specifi-
cations, but at least twice as expensive to procure
and multiple times more expensive to operate. As
a wag put it: “Some termed this as comparing
apples with pineapples!” Inevitably, the Dassault
Rafale was chosen in January 2012, but the con-
tract was not formalised for its procurement and
licence production in India (a total of 126 air-
craft) floundered till the change of government in
2014. Why?
The new prime minister’s flash announcement
while visiting Paris in mid-2015, ordering 36
Rafales directly from France with no follow-on
transfer of technology or production in India,
took the community by surprise as this not only
drastically reduced the IAF’s requirement (from
126 aircraft) but gained absolutely no advantage
for Indian industry and the “Make in India”
bombast was defeated by the very person who
had coined the phrase! Technically too, the
MMRCA tender remained “live” and the other
contender (Eurofighter) was still in the running.
There could have been an international legal dog-
fight over this but the losers did not choose to
pursue it.
The situation in 2018 is very dark for the Indian
Air Force and the only silver lining could be
acceptance of its plea to select a single-engine
fighter and procure/build this type in India in
sufficient numbers to arrest the drastic decline of
the combat fleet. The handful of Rafales will only
equip two squadrons by 2021, while the blighted
LCA will equip perhaps another two by the same
time. By 2021, however, the IAF will have lost all
its remaining 11 squadrons of MiG-21/27s, leav-
ing the service “on par” with its key adversary, the
Pakistan Air Force, which will have about the
same number of combat squadrons.
With China now wielding its next-generation
fighters in Tibet and the situation in Kashmir
remaining explosive, it is imperative that the gov-
ernment pulls out all stops and rapidly proceeds
with the process begun in 2016—to identify a
suitable lighter fighter which is not only of the
next generation but can be procured in large
numbers at affordable cost and within the next
three years.
The sad irony is that instead of “making in
India”, India is today the world’s largest single
importer of arms. And despite this, it cannot even
meet the real defence needs of its air force.
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
| INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 5
REALITY CHECK
India Legal in its
editorial had
criticised “Make in
India” as “a bit of flop”
citing the Rafale deal
much before the
controversy erupted
TheRafaledealbytheModigovernmentdrastically
reducedIAF’srequirementwithnoadvantagetothe
Indianindustry.The“MakeinIndia”bombastwas
defeatedbythesamepersonwhocoinedthephrase!

6. ContentsVOLUME XI ISSUE49
OCTOBER22,2018
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6 October 22, 2018
#MeToo Hits Home
As prominent editors, actors, influencers and politicians are named and
shamed by torchbearers of this new women’s rights movement, the world of
journalism, entertainment and politics is in ferment
LEAD
12
Picking His Priorities
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi’s
obsession with pendency, impatience
with case mentioning and strictness
with deviant behaviour are sure signs
that he will spearhead a change in
the top court
SUPREMECOURT
20

7. The Brexit Effect
REGULARS
Followuson
Facebook.com/indialegalmedia
Twitter:@indialegalmedia
Website:www.indialegallive.com
Contact:editor@indialegallive.com
| INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 7
Cover Design: ANTHONY LAWRENCE
Cover Photo: BHAVANA GAUR
Ringside............................8
Courts ...............................9
Delhi Durbar ...................10
Media Watch ..................45
Satire ..............................50
A survey has found that many United
Kingdom-based Indian companies are
downbeat, and could cut recruitment and
move to Europe
GLOBALTRENDS
48
Waste Not, Want Not
The Chief Information Commissioner has red-flagged the
Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme
for lack of accountability in how funds are utilised
32
FOCUS
STATES
After a constable killed an Apple executive, the Uttar Pradesh
Police is training its members. But is that enough to clean up a
system that is rotten to the core?
37Forced Change
Write It Right
After illegible prescriptions led to fatalities, the
Medical Council of India has amended its regulations
to make readability binding on doctors
28
COURTS
Gangland
Gurus 46
The Haryana government has
ramped up security as Sant Rampal,
found guilty of murder and forgery by
a district judge, awaits sentencing
Indifferent
Performance
The National Human
Rights Commission
commemorates its 25th
anniversary but does it
really have anything to
celebrate?
SPOTLIGHT
Jumbos Have
Right of Way 42
As one more elephant is run
over inside a Karnataka
reserve, conservationists
press for a stricter clampdown
on nightly movement of
vehicles on forest roads
Politics of Migration 40
Are electoral machinations behind the mass exodus of cheap
labour from Gujarat? Given the BJP’s response, this certainly
seems to be the case
Power to the
Elderly
The law empowers senior
citizens to seek the eviction of
heirs, including daughters-in-law,
from ancestral property
30
Seeing is Believing
In a huge relief for homebuyers, the Supreme Court
has made it mandatory for developers to display the
sanction plan of the project at the proposed site
24
34
Corrigendum
In the article titled
“Judiciary and Politics”
published in the India
Legal issue dated October
8, CJP Iftikhar Muhammad
Chaudhry was inadvertent-
ly described as CJI. The
error is regretted.
—Editor

8. 8 October 22, 2018
“
RINGSIDE
“Some kind of discord
remains in every family.
When all five fingers in
our hand are not equal
and there is ‘manmutao’
(discord) between two
brothers in my family,
then the RJD is a very
large family.”
—RJD MP and Lalu
Yadav’s daughter, Misa
Bharti, on differences
between her brothers, Tej
Pratap Yadav and
Tejashwi Yadav
“Me and politics don’t mix
at all. I am too outspoken,
I am not diplomatic. I
don’t even know what
diplomacy is. I would
cause a third World War.
Don’t do it.”
—Indra Nooyi, former
CEO, PepsiCo, on joining
politics in the US
“The community’s current population in the
country is about 50 lakh. If there are only one
or two children per family, the population will
reduce to 25 lakh in the next 50 years and then
plummet to six lakh in the next four decades.
You may build temples, but there should be
worshippers from the religion.”
—Jain monk Acharya Nirbhay Sagar while
addressing members of his community in MP
“It’s about time everyone
learns to treat women
with respect....I’m glad the
space for those who don’t
is closing....”
—Congress President Ra-
hul Gandhi on the #MeToo
movement
“This release is a great
hope for freedom of
expression and freedom of
press. Nakkeeran’s work
will continue.”
—R Gopal, editor, Nakkee-
ran, after being let off by a
Chennai court
“I cannot understand the
intention behind holding
the bypolls since general
elections will be held in
four or five months. None
of the political parties in
Karnataka are enthusias-
tic about this election.”
—Karnataka BJP Pres-
ident BS Yeddyurappa on
the Election Commission’s
decision to hold bypolls to
three Lok Sabha seats in
Karnataka
“I am aware that many
crime investigative shows
have come up in the past
years. But I need to revive
my show. Earlier it was
not possible because from
being the man who crac-
ked criminal cases from
across the country, I be-
came a crime accused. I
want to...tell the stories
of the inmates that I met
at Tihar....”
—Suhaib Ilyasi, the host of
crime show India’s Most
Wanted after his release
from Tihar jail
“...I will make efforts for
the formation of the third
front at the Centre so
that the daughter (Maya-
wati) of a poor man
could become the prime
minister.”
—Former Haryana CM Om
Prakash Chautala at a
public meeting in Sonepat

9. Courts
| INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 9
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
—Compiled by India Legal Team
SC seeks RBI
response on plea
Amid a raging contro-
versy over the final
draft of the National
Register of Citizens (NRC)
for Assam, the Supreme
Court issued notices to
the centre and the
Election Commission on a
petition which urged
updating the NRC for
Tripura. The petition, filed
by the Tripura People’s
Front, referred to the high
incidence of continuing,
high, and uncontrolled
illegal immigration by
Bangladeshi nationals into
Tripura for the past five
decades and demanded
that the illegal immigrants
be deported at the earli-
est. The petitioners had
also sought fencing of the
Tripura-Bangladesh border
to prevent further influx of
illegal immigrants.
While hearing a PIL which prayed
for setting aside the West
Bengal government’s decision to
give a grant of `10,000 each to
Durga Puja organisers in the state,
the Supreme Court refused to stay
the decision. However, the Court
asked the state government to sub-
mit a detailed affidavit within six
weeks. Earlier, the Calcutta High
Court had refused to hear a PIL on
this matter, saying it was not main-
tainable on technical grounds.
No stay on Durga
Puja grants: SC
The Supreme Court came
down heavily on the UP gov-
ernment, directing it to implement
its August 2016 judgment and
ensure that former CMs and
NGOs vacate government bungalows within
four months. A three-judge bench headed
by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the
state chief secretary to file a compliance
report within four months. The bench said:
“One should remember that public property
cannot be disposed in favour of anyone
without adequate consideration. Allotment
of government property to someone with-
out adequate market rent would also be bad
in law because the state has no right to frit-
ter away government property in favour of
private persons or bodies without adequate
consideration.” In August 2016, the Court
struck down the UP government’s 1997
decision to allot official bungalows in
Lucknow to former UP CMs, including
Rajnath Singh, Mayawati and Mulayam
Singh Yadav, and ordered their eviction.
This was followed by another judgment
which struck down the allocation of gov-
ernment bungalows to NGOs and social
organisations in posh localities in Lucknow.
The Supreme Court directed the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to
respond to a petition alleging that
banks were adopting a tardy
approach in passing on the benefit of
lower interest rates to consumers,
who have taken loans at floating
interest rates, despite the central
bank’s decision on the repo and
reverse repo rates. The Court asked
the RBI to communicate its response
within six weeks to the petitioner,
Moneylife Foundation, a public trust.
The Court also granted liberty to the
petitioner to approach the Court
again if it were not satisfied with the
RBI’s response.
Speed up
eviction of
ex-CMs,
says SC
SC admits plea on
NRC for Tripura
Athree-judge bench of the Supreme
Court indicted the centre for setting up
only 11 special courts to try criminal cases
involving MPs and MLAs, and observed
they were “grossly inadequate”. After
perusing an affidavit filed by the centre, the
bench asked why two courts had been set
up for Delhi which had 38 cases, and only
one for Kerala which had over 200 cases.
In response, the ASG, Atmaram Nadkarni,
argued that the states had to establish
these courts in consultation with the
respective high courts and the centre could
only provide funds. Nadkarni also informed
the bench that 11 states and 3 high courts
had not submitted information on the status
of the criminal cases against MPs/MLAs in
their jurisdiction. The bench directed them
to file their response within four weeks oth-
erwise the chief secretary of the concerned
state and the registrar general of the con-
cerned high court will be held liable.
States told to set up more special courts

10. 10 October 22, 2018
An inside track of
happenings in Lutyens’ Delhi
The triumvirate is now complete. After
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP
chief Amit Shah, the most powerful man in
India is National Security Adviser Ajit
Doval. The former IPS officer, as head of
the newly revived Strategic Policy Group
(SPG), will now have the chiefs of the
three services reporting to him, along with
the RBI governor, Cabinet Secretary and
the secretaries of external affairs, home,
defence, finance, defence production, rev-
enue, atomic energy, space, vice-chair-
man of Niti Aayog and heads of the
Intelligence Bureau and RAW. Till last
week, the SPG was headed by the
Cabinet Secretary.
Doval’s elevation comes immediately
after the Chief of the Joint Intelligence
Committee, RN Ravi, was redesignated as
deputy national security adviser, to join two
other deputy NSAs—Rajinder Khanna, for-
mer head of RAW, and diplomat Pankaj
Saran. This followed another security policy
decision to establish a defence planning
committee, a think-tank on strategic issues,
also under Doval, which will formulate
national security and military strategy and
oversee major defence acquisitions. It was
in that capacity that Doval was in Wash-
ington to brief his coun-
terparts in the White
House just before the
Modi-Putin summit in
Delhi where the multi-
billion-dollar deal for
the S-400 Triumf missile
system was signed,
defying US sanctions
against buying arms
from Russia.
FIRST AMONG EQUALS
That there has been simmering tension,
born out of an intoxicating cocktail of
ambition and insecurity, between Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and Union trans-
port minister Nitin Gadkari for several
months is widely known
in the national capital’s
power corridors. With
general elections due
in a few months and
Modi’s approval ratings
steadily plummeting,
these tensions are now
pouring out in the pub-
lic domain. In a tele-
vised Marathi talk
show, Gadkari (remem-
ber he is a Maratha
strongman who repre-
sents Nagpur, seat of
the RSS, in the Lok
Sabha) made a candid confession to host
Nana Patekar. Gadkari told Patekar that in
the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls,
his party did not believe that it would come
to power and was advised to make tall
promises to the electorate. The minister
added that the people voted the BJP to
power and now, over four years later, when
they ask about unfulfilled promises, the
leaders have no choice but to “laugh and
walk away”.
While the BJP has been predictably
stunned into silence by the claim, it has
brought much cheer to the Congress
camp, with party president Rahul Gandhi
promptly tweeting a clip of it.
Gadkari’s comment came weeks after
he was forced to cancel last-minute his
participation in the World Hindu Congress
at Chicago and a series of high-profile
foreign engagements, ostensibly due to
a diktat from Modi. Given that Gadkari is
arguably the only member of the Union
cabinet who is unafraid to challenge Modi,
his claim is being seen as a clever political
ploy, with tacit support of the RSS, to
place himself as an alternative to the
Prime Minister within the NDA should the
BJP fall significantly short of a simple
majority in 2019.
It was described as a summit, but the offi-
cial visit of Russia’s Vladimir Putin last
week was shorn of all ceremonies and pro-
tocol, under a request from Moscow.
Putin’s only reason for flying down to India
was to sign the $5bn deal for the S-400
Triumf, one of the biggest signed by the
Russian arms manufacturing sector in
recent years. The Russian ambassador in
New Delhi met with External Affairs Minister
Sushma Swaraj and informed her that the
usual protocol—a ceremonial welcome at
Rashtrapati Bhavan, a visit to Raj Ghat, an
official banquet—should be cut out of the
programme as Putin wanted a one-on-one
with Modi the evening he arrived and
another the next morning and then a joint
statement, nothing more. That was exactly
how it went, a summit but totally business
and no frills. Modi, it seems, was quite
happy to go along since a large part of his
meeting with Putin went in discussing
America, China, Pakistan and oil supplies,
all key areas of concern for India.
THE NON-SUMMIT
SUMMIT
TAKING ON THE PM

11. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 11
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
Delhi
Durbar
GUJARAT REDUX
Raj Bhavans across the country have seen
some colourful occupants who have left an
indelible imprint of their tenures in office.
And none as much as Narayan Dutt Tiwari,
a former Union minister and Uttar Pradesh
chief minister to whom goes the credit for
smuggling in masseuses into the Hyder-
abad Raj Bhavan. He lost his job after one
of the girls captured all the action on her
mobile camera and later leaked it.
Last Tuesday’s arrest of RR Gopal
(far left), the editor of Tamil magazine
Nakkeeran, for allegedly publishing defama-
tory articles on Tamil Nadu Governor
Banwarilal Purohit over a sex scandal in
universities begs the question: whatever
happened to the probe that the Union
home minister had ordered against the gov-
ernor in March this year after complaints
were received against Purohit on whose
behalf sexual favours were being allegedly
sought by a college lecturer from her stu-
dents in Chennai. Though the home min-
istry would only say then that complaints
against the “governor of a southern state”
were being looked into, it was clear that it
was indeed Purohit. Earlier this year, there
were demands for his sacking when at a
public function he behaved “inappropriate-
ly” with a female journalist. Ironically, he did
this at a news conference convened to
refute sexual allegations against him. But
the TN governor, besides hailing from
Nagpur, is close to the prime minister.
Which is as good an insurance as any
against anyone digging into his alleged
murky past and present, probe be damned.
PAST MURKY,
PRESENT MURKIER In what is seen as a huge
embarrassment for Narendra
Modi and his alleged role in the
2002 Gujarat riots, a retired
army officer, General Zameer
Uddin Shah, former vice-chief of
army staff, has said that his
men were kept waiting at an air-
field for a whole day before
transport was arranged to take
them into Ahmedabad city. In a
new book, he writes that he
along with 3,000 troops under
him, landed at Ahmedabad air-
port at 7 am on March 1, the
day after the riots broke out.
The state government was
meant to provide transport and
supplies which never arrived.
He says in the book that at least
300 people could have been
saved had they been sent in
immediately, rather than spend-
ing 34 hours at the airfield. He
also says he visited then Chief
Minister Modi’s residence to
request help and was invited to
dinner but he declined, instead
requesting trucks and police
guides to the trouble spots. He
was given assurances that all
this would be provided—it final-
ly arrived on March 2. The
general says that portions of the
SIT report on the riots were “a
blatant lie”.
Fake pictures may temporarily have the
desired effect but there is no substitute for
the real one. The ruling Marxists in Kerala
have realised this, not for the first time,
when last week they tried to pass off a
picture of a massive march in the state
protesting against the Supreme Court ver-
dict on women’s entry into the Sabarimala
temple as one of farmers in Uttar Pradesh
protesting the agrarian policies of the
Centre and the Yogi Adityanath govern-
ment. Over a lakh men and women had
assembled in Pandalam in central Kerala at
the base of the Sabarimala hill and
marched through the town, without banners
or placards, merely raising slogans
denouncing the verdict and demanding the
CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front govern-
ment file a revision petition in the apex
court on the matter. But, as with all fake pic-
tures, this one too had too many distortions
that even a casual eye would not have
missed (see pics). For one, the rallyists
were predominantly sari-clad women, not
the chosen dress code for women protes-
tors in Uttar Pradesh. Too many hoardings
and billboards in the background, though
hazy, were in Malayalam, advertising prod-
ucts that are sold predominantly in Kerala.
There were too many other glaring discrep-
ancies in the picture which the CPI(M) used
for a poster that was plastered all across
the only state in the country where it is in
power. In the end, even comrades were
convinced that this was a
picture that told a thousand lies.
A PICTURE TELLS
A THOUSAND LIES

12. Lead/ #MeToo
12 October 22, 2018
Aclutchofgutsywomenbreaktheirsilence
oversexualabuseandharassmentbytheirmale
bossesandtriggera#MeToo movementinIndia
thathasfar-reachingimplicationsforworkplaces
andgender-sensitivityacrossthecountry
By Dilip Bobb
AN a hashtag trigger a rev-
olution? Such is the power
of social media that it has
done precisely that.
#MeToo has become a sym-
bol of defiance and fight-
back, a shorthand for We Will Not Take
This Any More. The internet has given
freedom to billions but none more so
than women across the world trapped in
C
Sparking
a Revolution

13. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 13
workplaces, movie sets and hotel rooms
where drunken, rapacious men have
taken advantage of the culture of patri-
archy and fear of losing jobs to prey on
defenseless women. It took one actress
in America to expose powerful movie
mogul Harvey Weinstein and launch the
#MeToo revolution, and now India’s
time has come. For macho predatory
males cocooned in the Old Boys’ Club
and man-oriented social standards, it is
time to be afraid, very afraid.
This is a paradigm-shifting moment
in India’s social evolution, and, like in
America it took one woman, an actress,
to smash open the floodgates. In 2017,
Time magazine’s Person of the Year were
headlined The Silence Breakers, the
group of brave, courageous women led
by actor Ashley Judd who had dared to
speak out and expose Weinstein, then
the most powerful man in Hollywood.
Here, it was a nearly forgotten actress
called Tanushree Dutta who decided to
finally name and shame powerful
Bollywood veterans like Nana Patekar,
and other directors, becoming the cata-
lyst for other women from fields as
diverse as media, entertainment, litera-
ture and even politics, to share their sto-
ries. The most prominent and gut-
wrenching is to do with celebrity editor-
turned-politician and current minister of
state for external affairs, MJ Akbar, being
outed by seven women who worked
under him in various newsrooms, accus-
ing him of being a serial sexual predator.
His affairs, it would appear, were all
internal but it all adds up to a perfect
storm, one where women from all walks
of life and professions have become part
of a movement that has no formal leader,
no formal name, no organisation, just a
hashtag that comes with the power to
give them a voice.
There have been men who have been
charged with sexual harassment at the
workplace before—environment guru
RK Pachauri and editor/author Tarun
Tejpal, but those were isolated cases
which only served to highlight the fact
that the legal process for trying offences
under the Vishakha Guidelines, are a
long and winding road. Where the cur-
rent #MeToo movement differs is that it
has brought together a variety of women
professionals from different cities and
occupations, connected through Twitter,
and given them the power to take on
their tormentors in a unified fashion.
Journalist Priya Ramani was the first to
name her former boss Akbar, and six
other women followed, leading to calls
for his resignation from the cabinet.
Four other senior editors have stepped
down or resigned, two creative organisa-
tions—All India Bakchod and Phantom
Films—have shut down and other
organisations and individuals are scram-
bling for damage control. Here’s the
message #MeToo is sending out to those
men who thought the workplace was a
place of male privilege, a harem, as
Akbar’s accusers have described his edi-
torial style. The #MeToo movement is
real. It matters, and, in the context of
male-dominated Indian society, was
long overdue.
I
t has also reminded us that the
#MeToo movement in a country like
India, where thousands of people,
including women and political parties,
have taken to the streets to protest a
Supreme Court ruling allowing women
of all ages into the Sabiramala temple,
will be a hard fought battle. It is one
that has no ending or closure, just the
collective satisfaction that it has started
and so far, has taken down some serial
offenders. India’s social and cultural
landscape comes with a built-in bias
against women, dominated by men
determined to preserve their power and
pelf. For women to take on the estab-
lishment requires a huge outlay of
courage and sacrifice. Like Bhanwari
Devi, a Saathin working in the Women’s
Development Project of the Rajasthan
government. She took an active part in
the campaign against child marriages
ORDINARY SUPERHEROES
(Clockwise from far left) Sandhya Menon,
Priya Ramani and Tanushree Dutta
IttookactressTanushreeDuttatofinally
namepowerfulBollywood veteranslike
NanaPatekarandbecomethecatalystfor
otherwomenfromdiversefieldstoshare
theirstoriesofsexualharassment.

14. 14 October 22, 2018
and, after trying to stop the marriage of
a one-year-old girl, she was raped by five
villagers in front of her husband for her
resistance to an evil practice. The dis-
trict court acquitted all five accused. The
matter came before the Supreme Court
via a Public Interest Litigation (PIL)
filed by a group of NGOs by the name of
“Vishakha” to make workplaces safer for
women. The Supreme Court laid down
binding guidelines to be followed by
every private and public sector employer
to ensure the dignity and safety of
women in the place of employment—
every organisation with 10 employees or
more should have an Internal Com-
plaints Committee, called a Vishakha
Committee, for women to file com-
plaints of sexual harassment they faced
at workplaces. In 2013, the Vishakha
Guidelines was replaced by the Sexual
Harassment of Women at Workplace
(Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal)
Act, 2013.
Y
et, for all the legal cover, most
workplaces have maintained sta-
tus quo, many have ignored the
directives and some even have set up the
Committees headed by men, mainly
because there are so few women in sen-
ior positions. That is changing, madden-
ingly slowly, but it is a good time to look
at what the guidelines say. They define
led by social butterfly and self-confessed
bon vivant, Suhel Seth, the tables have
literally turned. This is a defining
moment for Indian society and the
Indian workplace, and the true test will
be to see if it can usher in radical change
in gender sensitivity and equality, and,
above all, ridding the office, hotel rooms
and casting couch of lecherous, powerful
men, used to preying on vulnerable
young women, knowing they have the
power of hiring and firing, or as some of
the harrowing stories that have emerged
in the last few days, transfers, night
shifts, or forced resignations.
There is, of course, the danger that
the #MeToo movement can be misused,
that women, for whatever reason, can
use it to target men. That is the problem
with a hashtag; it can also be anony-
mous and allow vindictive women to
hide behind a Twitter handle. The fact
that the main weapon is social media
leaves the question of evidence and
proof with a question mark. Those who
have taken the honourable way out and
quit their jobs or organisations suggest
they are guilty as charged, but many
others could become innocent victims of
a personal grudge or vendetta. The lines
in the hashtag battlefield are blurred
and the old adage of guilt being estab-
lished beyond reasonable doubt comes
into play, or foreplay, as the case may
have been. Now, the government has
said it will set up a four-member panel
of retired judges to conduct public hear-
ings of sexual assault and harassment,
opening another can of worms. Yet, for
all that, India’s #MeToo movement has
the trappings of a revolution, one that
has the power to topple kings and
change the balance of power in the
workplace. For centuries, we have been
saluting symbols of power and national
pride—flags, anthems, burial places and
fighters for freedom. Today, we can
salute an unlikely hero—or heroine, a
ubiquitous hashtag.
violations as sexually determined physi-
cal, verbal, or non-verbal conduct.
Examples included sexually suggestive
remarks about women, demands for
sexual favours, and sexually offensive
visuals in the workplace. The definition
also covered situations where a woman
could be disadvantaged in her work-
place as a result of threats relating to
employment decisions that could nega-
tively affect her working life. This
placed responsibility on employers to
ensure that women did not face a hos-
tile environment, and prohibited intim-
idation or victimisation of those cooper-
ating with an inquiry, including the
affected complainant as well as witness-
es. This was honoured more in the
breach than in observance, leaving
women employees as exposed to preda-
tors than they were earlier. The rate of
accountability, since Vishakha was
introduced in 1997, is almost zero, with
one or two high-profile exceptions.
Most people, including women, will
recall that standard cartoon which
showed a boss chasing his secretary
around the desk. It was seen as harmful
fun then, today, in the wake of the flood
of allegations, resignations and shocked
silence on the part of some accused—
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
Now,thegovernmenthassaiditwillsetup
apanelofretiredjudgestoconductpublic
hearings,openinganothercanofworms.
Yet,forallthat,India’s#MeToo movement
hasthetrappingsofarevolution.
BAD KARMA?
MJ Akbar and Nana Patekar (right) are two of
the big names that have taken a hit
Lead/ #MeToo

16. Lead/ #MeToo
16 October 22, 2018
ONG before the current
#MeToo movement arrived in
India with a bang, Rupan Deol
Bajaj, an IAS officer, outed her
boss, the legendary KPS Gill
for putting his hand where he
shouldn’t have. Since then, the Vishakha
guidelines have seen Tehelka editor
Tarun Tejpal and environment guru RK
Pachauri facing court cases for sexual
misconduct, but it took former actress
Tanushree Dutta to unleash the force of
the international #MeToo movement in
India. Her naming of Vivek Agnihotri
and Nana Patekar was the trigger for
an avalanche of sordid stories about sex-
ual harassment at work. In the space of
three days, scores of women used social
media to name and shame prominent
powerful people, starting with the for-
mer celebrity editor and Minister of
State in the Modi government, MJ
Akbar. Starting with the gutsy Priya
Ramani, at least seven women journal-
ists who worked under him have shown
great courage in reliving painful memo-
ries of how they were treated, or mis-
treated. While Akbar and the Bollywood
celebrities made the headlines, the real
purge was taking place in newsrooms
across the country.
Top heads have rolled. Hindustan
Times' bureau chief Prashant Jha has
Theworldsofjournalism,entertainmentandpoliticsareinturmoilasalistofprominenteditors,
actors,influencersandpoliticiansareexposedbythoseinthevanguardofthe#MeToo revolution
By Sucheta Dasgupta
L
Naming and
Shaming
Gautam Adhikari, journalist
Rajat Kapoor, actor-director
KR Sreenivas, journalist Utsav Chakraborty, comedian Vikas Bahl, filmmaker
Suhel Seth, marketing consultant
Alok Nath, actor

17. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 17
stepped down in the face of allegations
by Avantika Mehta and The Times Of
India Hyderabad editor KR Sreenivas
sent on administrative leave following a
petition by seven women with Sandhya
Menon leading the charge. Former TOI
executive editor and editor-in-chief,
DNA, Gautam Adhikari, too, has just
resigned from the think-tank, Center for
American Progress, based in
Washington, DC. He had been accused
by Menon, Sonora Jha and Tara Kaushal
of lewd behaviour. Manoj
Ramachandran, associate editor with
HT in New Delhi, is another person who
has to answer to Menon. As must HT’s
Dhrubo Jyoti to several of his col-
leagues who have had to suffer his inter-
actions. Celebrity marketing consultant
Suhel Seth is also facing accusations
from three women, including an Indian
Express journalist.
All this takes place at the same time
as financial daily Business Standard
initiates an inquiry into accusations
against its principal correspondent,
Mayank Jain, by freelancer Anoo
Bhuyan of making persistent, unwel-
come sexual advances. Jain has since
resigned. HuffPost’s Anurag Verma is
in trouble for his Snapchats and
“memes” but has apologised. So has
The Quint senior correspondent
Meghnad Bose. But saying sorry did
not wash for All India Bakchod’s Utsav
Chakraborty whose online show, On
Air with AIB, was cancelled by digital
entertainment platform Hotstar, and
whose misadventures have triggered a
breakup of the group. Tanmay Bhat
and Gurusimran Khamba are step-
ping away from it after Khamba, too,
was directly accused of sexual harass-
ment. Bhat faced flak for sitting on the
plaint. Creative writers accused of
harassing women include Chetan
Bhagat and Kiran Nagarkar; the for-
mer has apologised, the latter hasn’t.
Indeed, skeletons are tumbling out of
the proverbial closet with each passing
day and the avalanche is unlikely to stop
anytime soon. Emboldened by western,
and global, precedence, the Twitter-
empowered Network has finally struck
back. It is exactly a year after The New
York Times published its Harvey
Weinstein investigation. The crucial dif-
ference seems to be that, 10 or 20 years
ago, many of the complaints were not
acted upon and the victim herself
received backlash for taking on the pow-
erful and the Old Boys’ Club. Owing to
the lack of a concerted campaign, such
stories of sexual harassment and abuse
went unreported. Take, for instance, the
case of a Newslaundry reporter who in
2007 wrote to her editor-in-chief about
her supervisor’s coercive overtures but
her complaint was dismissed and she
was offered a transfer. In 2009, journal-
ist Padma Priya D reported harassment
at The Hindu to her editor, N Ram. She
was sent on leave and subsequently told
to quit. In 2014, Chameli Devi Jain
Awardee Raksha Kumar wrote a
Sexualharassmentplaintsmayhitlimitationwall
A
s the chorus of sexual harassment complaints grows louder, legal experts
are scurrying to examine whether criminal action can be initiated against
perpetrators who are alleged to have committed sexual misconduct 10 or
20 years ago, without falling foul of the statute of limitations. Under Section 468 of
the CrPC, limitation periods have been prescribed for criminal offences as follows:
Six months where the offence is punishable only with a fine; 1 year where the
offence is punishable with maximum imprisonment of one year; three years where
the offence is punishable with maximum imprisonment of three years; no limitation
where the offence is punishable with more than three years’ imprisonment. This
means that courts can take cognisance of a complaint alleging rape or grievous
hurt, as both offences are punishable with more than three years’ imprisonment.
However, other kinds of sexual harassment complaints would possibly qualify
as assault or insult to the modesty of a woman, offences which are punishable
with less than three years’ imprisonment, and may therefore not pass muster
under the limitation law. Legal experts argue that, in such cases, it may be possi-
ble to invoke Section 437 of the CrPC which enables a court to take cognisance
of an offence after the expiry of the limitation period if “it is satisfied on the facts
and in the circumstances of the case that the delay has been properly explained
or that it is necessary so to do in the interests of justice.”
All eyes will now be on the courts, as many survivors may decide to take their
battles, so far confined to social media, a step further and pursue criminal cases
against alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment.
—Compiled by Vrinda Agarwal
Kailash Kher, singer
Sajid Khan, actor-filmmaker
Mayank Jain, journalist

18. rivetting piece also in The Hindu about
her spiritual sojourn post her unsavoury
encounter with Aayush Soni but
stopped short of naming him. She did
so a few days back after a young free-
lancer told her how she, too, had been
at the receiving end of Soni’s moves.
Soni has since apologised to Kumar, but
is yet to respond to complaints by two
other women. But the bravest of the
early complainants is Nasreen Khan
whose professional harassment at the
hands of her former boss, Satadru
Ojha, at Calcutta Times began in 2013,
quickly took on a sexist veneer, and
continued until she was sacked by
Bennett Coleman and Company
Limited for a false story published
under her name while she was away.
Ojha continues safely in his job. Khan
has since become a lawyer after having
had to quit media.
Still, it seems it’s #TimesUp across
the spectrum and in all professions and
the roll call is only getting louder. In
Bollywood, a young woman’s account of
being masturbated at by Vikas Bahl at a
party has led to the dissolution of the
redoubtable filmmakers’ collective,
Phantom Films. Bahl is even said to have
made unwanted passes at Kangana
Ranaut, as the outspoken actress has
averred. Writer-producer-director Vinta
Nanda has accused “Bollywood’s
favourite babuji”, Alok Nath, of rape
when she was working with him in the
Nineties TV show, Tara. Nath also
allegedly harassed actress Navneet
Nishan on the show, but Nanda’s tweet
has shocked the industry. It has been fol-
lowed by actress Sandhya Mridul’s alle-
gation of indecent conduct against Nath.
Rajat Kapoor, too, has been accused of
behaving inappropriately with three
women in three different incidents. He
had to express regret. Sajid Khan and
Subhash Ghai are the latest Bollywood
bigwigs to have been named, with Khan’s
sister, Farah, expressing solidarity with
victims. Playback singer Chinmayi
Sripaada has accused lyricist
Vairamuthu of intimidating her while
hitting on her years ago. Kailash Kher
and Anu Malik face accusations from
fellow singer Sona Mohapatra and a
female journalist. Music director Gopi
Sundar, too, faces accusations.
The storm, it seems, has now trav-
elled to the Indian National Congress’
IT cell. A woman has accused Chirag
Patnaik of breaching her personal
space. Divya Spandana has been
accused of doing the aiding and abet-
ting. Patnaik has finally been arrested.
Kumar, in her 2014 piece, wrote com-
pellingly about women who “see virtue
in hiding abuse”, and tweeted that “it
is not men versus women, but us ver-
sus a system in which we are all com-
plicit”. Meanwhile, actor-turned-
CPI(M) MLA Mukesh is also facing
heat from Tess Joseph, a Mumbai-
based casting director.
T
he tables have turned. As academ-
ic and feminist scholar Nivedita
Menon tells India Legal: “It’s only
fair that men will now have to learn to
figure out the limits of civil behaviour
and stay within these boundaries when
earlier it was us women who would be
put through worry or worse, character
assassination, for politely smiling at
someone. Now they will get a taste of
their own medicine, or rather the medi-
cine that women have been served up
until now by society and in the serving of
which men have had a hand.” It is a ref-
erence to a meta-paranoia, paranoia
about paranoia, some men have been
complaining of, saying these develop-
ments would make them afraid to inter-
act with their colleagues. However, as
well-known Supreme Court advocate
Indira Jaising told India Legal. “The
silence has been broken. Men have been
put on notice that such behaviour is not
acceptable. Now, institutions and offices
will also be put on notice that they are
liable for the misconduct of their stu-
dents and staff. The judiciary, too, will sit
up and take notice of this pervasive form
of discrimination.”
For many in the media and other
professions swept by #MeToo, this has
been an occasion for plain old
Schadenfreude. For those with bad
karma, however, the fear and anxiety are
very real. The catch is that this second
group numbers many more than one
had previously reckoned. For Indian
society, meanwhile, perhaps a time for
healing has just begun. As the saying
goes, jab jaago, tab savera (whenever
you wake up, your day starts).
Lead/ #MeToo
18 October 22, 2018
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
“Thesilencehasbeenbroken...The
judiciary,too,willsitupandtakenotice
ofthispervasiveformofdiscrimination.”
—IndiraJaising,advocate
“It’sonlyfairthatmenwillnowhaveto
learntofigureoutthelimitsofcivil
behaviourandabidebythem.”
—NiveditaMenon,academic

20. Thenewchiefjustice’sobsessionwithpendency,hisimpatiencewithcasementioningandhis
strictnesswithdeviantbehaviouraresuresignsthathewillspearheadachangeinthetopcourt
By Venkatasubramanian
A Man in a Hurry
Supreme Court/ CJI Ranjan Gogoi
20 October 22, 2018
Anil Shakya

21. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 21
HIEF justices come and go.
A tenure of almost a year in
office makes one ambitious
to leave a mark before retir-
ing on various aspects of
the Supreme Court’s func-
tioning and its history. Chief Justice of
India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, who took
over from Justice Dipak Misra on Octo-
ber 3, is no exception. Right from day
one, he has been making observations
both in and out of court which indicate
that he has a mind of his own on pen-
dency of cases and how to tackle it.
His ban on mentioning of cases by
lawyers in his court at the start of the
day unless they require urgent listing is
one such instance. This has not gone
down well with lawyers and litigants.
According to the CJI, until the “parame-
ters” are worked out, only the most
deserving cases can be mentioned and
relief granted.
Mentioning a case is a
convention which per-
mits lawyers to request
the CJI, as master of the
roster, to direct the Court
registry to let a pending
case jump the queue
because of one reason or the other.
Although most CJIs had been indulgent
about doing so, spending about 20 min-
utes to one hour before hearing the listed
cases, some CJIs have begun to question
the practice.
Former CJI Misra, for instance,
barred senior advocates from mention-
ing cases and restricted this privilege to
junior members of the Bar, and that too,
advocates-on-record. His reasons were
that junior lawyers needed the opportu-
nity to learn professionally and men-
tioning cases offered that platform to
them. This effectively brought down the
time spent on mentioning by the CJI.
CJI Gogoi, on the other hand, seems
to question why some cases deserve to
jump the queue at all, unless there is
some valid reason such as imminent
demolition or loss of freedom caused by
denial of bail or premature release of a
prisoner without sufficient safeguards.
Every pending case will have a sufficient
reason to be heard and decided expedi-
tiously as justice delayed is tantamount
to justice denied and it ultimately
shakes the confidence of litigants in the
justice delivery system. But the huge
pendency of cases imposes its own
dynamics on the policy to be followed by
successive CJIs.
Recently, CJI Gogoi, in a video con-
ference with all the chief justices of high
courts, emphasised the need to expedite
criminal and civil cases to bring down
the number of pending trials from three
crore in courts across the country. He
also advised all chief justices to ensure
punctuality, not to take unnecessary
leave, and be available in courts during
working hours. As more than 400 of the
1,079 judges’ posts in high courts are
lying vacant, he asked the chief jus-
tices—the heads of the high court col-
legiums responsible for recommending
appointment of these judges—to comply
with the mandatory deadlines to fill the
vacancies in time. In the Supreme Court
itself, there are as many as seven vacan-
cies of judges; two will arise before the
year ends as Justices Kurian Joseph and
Madan B Lokur are set to retire in
November and December, respectively.
Concerned with the rising pendency,
the CJI has decided to list criminal mat-
ters every Wednesday and Thursday be-
fore at least five benches of the Supreme
Court for early disposal. Criminal mat-
ters, in contrast to pending civil dis-
putes, need to be given priority because
they mostly involve freedom of undertri-
als or convicts whose appeals have been
languishing for years without being
heard. When the courts take inordinate
time to dispose of their petitions and
appeals, the delay constitutes additional
punishment, not contemplated
by law.
CJI Gogoi’s inability to quickly evolve
the parameters of mentioning cases by
lawyers led to indiscriminate requests
from them, forcing him to express his
displeasure in open court. In the ab-
sence of parameters, lawyers differed on
which cases involved extreme urgency
and thereby merited early listing. When
a lawyer persisted in pleading that his
case be listed prior to the Dussehra va-
cation, the CJI asked whether he should
postpone the vacation itself. Again,
when a lawyer sought early listing of a
matter concerning the BCCI, the CJI
reportedly shot back: “Regardless of our
views on cricket, what will happen if it is
listed after Dussehra? Heavens will fall?
Please go away.”
When more cases were mentioned
for quashing FIRs, etc, the CJI was visi-
bly dissatisfied with what he described
as non-cooperation by the Bar. But
lawyers who were desperate to mention
cases may
justify their behaviour
because till the parame-
ters are worked out, the
old order ought to have
continued. The CJI’s
abrupt break from the
practice of mentioning, without an
alternative in place, created a void,
which left lawyers and litigants helpless.
But it is not as if the CJI disallowed
mentioning completely even if the cases
merited early listing. On October 9, he
agreed to list a case involving acid attack
victims (Chaanv Foundation v the State
of Uttar Pradesh) the next day. The
bench of Justices R Banumathi and In-
dira Banerjee heard the matter and req-
uested the Lucknow bench of the Alla-
habad High Court to take it up at an
early date and dispose it of “preferably
within nine months”. It also asked the
parties to maintain status quo during
the period. The CJI did agree to list sim-
ilar cases meriting urgency early before
appropriate benches.
But the cases in which he refused
immediate relief were indicative of what
one could expect during his tenure.
Thus, he refused to hear the plea for
C
Concernedwithrisingpendency,theCJIhasdecidedtolist
criminalmatterseveryWednesdayandThursdaybeforeatleastfive
benchesoftheSupremeCourtforearlydisposal.Hisimpatiencewith
pendencyofcasesislikelytosharpeninthedaystocome.

22. the time of the incident, thus giving cre-
dence to the defence argument that it
was consensual.
Where both the high court and the
trial court found a rape accused guilty,
the bench was reluctant to grant relief
to the appellant-accused simply because
there were discrepancies in the testi-
monies of the prosecution witnesses or
because the medical evidence was am-
biguous. In its view, contemporaneous
statements of prosecution witnesses car-
ried more weight.
In another case, the rape of a minor
girl, which involved close relations bet-
ween two families, the bench held that a
solitary incident of intercourse between
a couple, if not repeated, would prove it
non-consensual.
While deciding pleas for grant of
bail, the CJI-led bench gave liberty to
the accused to renew their pleas if
their appeals against their conviction
and sentence were not heard within
six months.
In CBI v Paresh Aggarwal etc., the
bench held that the High Court was not
justified in interfering with the trial
court’s order of framing charges against
the accused. “Trial should recommence
from the stage where it was interdicted
by the High Court,” the bench held in
its order.
Not willing to wait endlessly when
advocates of either side failed to appear
in a civil appeal, the bench disposed it of
by passing appropriate orders based on
the facts of the case, setting aside two of
the few directions passed by the high
court in the matter.
CJI Gogoi’s impatience with penden-
cy of cases is likely to sharpen in the
days to come. It is another matter
whether it will have a lasting impact on
the problem.
22 October 22, 2018
restraining the centre from repatriating
seven Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
They were at a detention camp for ille-
gal entry into India and on their release,
the Myanmar government agreed to
take them back as its citizens.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, the
counsel for Rohingya refugees seeking
asylum in India, sought the Court’s
intervention, in the light of internation-
al law on grant of asylum, and the con-
cern of United Nations agencies that
these refugees, if repatriated to Myan-
mar, were likely to face further persecu-
tion and torture. But the CJI-led bench,
also comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan
Kaul and KM Joseph, declined the
prayer on the ground that Myanmar has
accepted them as its citizens, and there-
fore, the question of treating them as
refugees did not arise.
The CJI-led bench also refused to
come to the rescue of Abhijit Iyer Mitra,
the journalist who tweeted disparagingly
about the Konark monument, inviting
the wrath of the Odisha Legislative
Assembly, which sought his arrest for
insulting religious feelings.
When Mitra’s counsel pleaded that
he apprehended danger, and therefore
sought the Court’s protection, the CJI
retorted: “If you apprehend danger,
prison will be the safest place.” Consi-
dering the gravity of the offence alleged-
ly committed by Mitra, the bench
refused to consider his plea for extend-
ing his anticipatory bail.
In Shweta Bhatt v State of Gujarat,
the bench refused to interfere when the
wife of the former police officer, Sanjiv
Bhatt, alleged that he was not allowed to
execute vakalatnama to move the Sup-
reme Court. Bhatt is in judicial custody
in connection with a 22-year-old case
for the alleged offence of planting drugs
on a lawyer in Banaskantha at the time
when he was posted as superintendent
of police. Finding the facts in the case
“highly contentious”, the bench also
found the plea infructuous as Bhatt was
no longer in police custody when the
authorities allegedly refused to let him
meet his advocate.
M
eanwhile, the CJI-led bench
made rapid progress in dis-
posing of pending criminal
cases. It acquitted a rape accused on
October 4 in Ashok v The State of
Maharashtra when it concluded that
the lower courts did not reach a clear
finding that the victim was a minor at
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
RIGHT TO BE HEARD
The freedom of undertrials is also a prime
concern of the CJI
Supreme Court/ CJI Ranjan Gogoi
UNI

24. Supreme Court/ Real Estate Projects
24 October 22, 2018
salesperson convinced her to opt for a
payment plan where she would immedi-
ately have to pay 95 percent of the total
cost of the flat. That was six and a half
years ago. Today, there is no sign of any
flat at the site. A guard, who was sta-
tioned there, has disappeared, the sales
executive who briefed her has quit, the
company’s phones are dead and the
builders are in jail.
Rawat has attended numerous court
hearings in Tis Hazari in Delhi along
with others who had paid for the flats.
But they have only seen the proceedings
HILPI Rawat was just 25
when she put all her sav-
ings and those of her fa-
ther, a retired government
employee, in an Earth
Towne flat in Sector 1,
Greater Noida. She was thrilled to see
the glossy brochure showing an artist’s
impression of a lush-green and posh
colony. Rawat was supposed to get pos-
session of her flat in May 2015.
However, little did she know that her
ordeal with the developer, Earth Infra-
structures Ltd., had just started. The
CrackingDown
Inareliefforhomebuyers,theapexcourthasmadeitmandatoryfordeveloperstodisplaythe
sanctionplanoftheprojectattheproposedsite.Thiswillweedoutfly-by-nightoperators
By Ramesh Menon
HIGH STAKES
Homebuyers must
check out the
credentials of the
builder before investing
their money
S
Anil Shakya

25. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 25
get adjourned time and again. The
builder has refused the court’s suggestion
to pay a corpus to it. Rawat told India
Legal: “I have no hope left. I am planning
to get married soon and need that house.
The hearings leave me exasperated. This
is precisely what the developers want so
that they can make a quiet escape.”
During the court hearings, Rawat
learnt that the builder had actually sold
off more flats than envisaged as the
same flat was sold off to multiple buy-
ers. This made her realise that the
developer never intended to construct
T
hough the Supreme Court had
repeatedly asked the Amrapali
Group to present details of its
properties and accounts since
September last year, it did not do so.
Sending shock waves among defaulting
real estate companies, the Court sent
the Amrapali CMD, Anil Kumar Sharma,
and two directors, Shiv Priya and Ajay
Kumar, to police custody. They were to
be detained till papers of its 46 group
companies were handed over to the
Court, which wanted the papers for
forensic audit to determine the validity
of complaints of cheating and diversion
of funds.
A bench of Justices Arun Mishra
and Uday Umesh Lalit that sent them to
custody did not mince words: “Don’t
play hide and seek with the court. You
are playing with the dignity of the
Supreme Court.” The bench had been
asking for these details since
September 12.
The homebuyers had approached
the top court last year, pleading that
their flats be given to them after 27 of
the Amrapali housing projects in the
National Capital Region were affected
after banks initiated insolvency pro-
ceedings against the group. As many
as 42,000 buyers were suffering for
many years due to non-delivery of flats.
Among them, 170 towers were in Noida
and Greater Noida alone.
After a long, dark night in the police
station lock-up, details of all the 46
companies of the Group came tumbling
out. The Court wanted accounting data
of all transactions since 2015 so that
the Court-appointed auditors could
scrutinise it. A forensic audit will evalu-
ate and examine the financial informa-
tion available and present it as evidence
in Court. It now has been revealed
that Amrapali did not audit accounts
since 2015.
Nine properties of the Group were
sealed and the three directors will con-
tinue in custody as all the required doc-
uments have not been given to the
Court. The sealed properties are out of
bounds for everyone except the audi-
tors. The bench has warned the direc-
tors of serious action in case the audi-
tors find any documents missing. The
directors would be back in police cus-
tody if every single document had not
been turned over, it warned. It also
asked the directors to give an undertak-
ing that all documents pertaining to the
46 companies had been handed over.
The Court has restrained eight Amrapali
directors and even ex-directors from
leaving the country, ordering their pass-
ports be deposited with the police.
Last year, the Court had warned the
Amrapali Group, its promoters and
directors of severe consequences if it
failed to raise `5,000 crore to complete
its half-done housing projects. It warned
that it would order the sale of all proper-
ties of the Group, including their individ-
ual homes, as buyers had been short-
changed and cheated.
Despite this stand of the Court, Am-
rapali builders did not act. In August
last year, the Court told the builders,
“You are in the hands of the Court now
and you have to act cautiously and
uprightly. Don’t play smart with us. We
will sell every inch of your property and
render you homeless.” The homebuyers
had waited for years and the Court
would go to any lengths to protect their
interests, it said. It is now clear to
Amrapali and other real-estate players
that the Court means business. For
homebuyers that is the only silver lining.
TheAmrapalicase
After the apex court sent the group’s directors to police custody,
documents and accounts of its 46 companies are suddenly available for
forensic examination
UNDER COURT’S SCRUTINY Amrapali Group CMD Anil Sharma (in kurta) accompanying
policemen at the company’s corporate office at Sector 62, Noida

26. 26 October 22, 2018
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
Supreme Court/ Real Estate Projects
those flats. Most of the buyers the buil-
der had targeted were retired. They had
a lump sum amount after retirement
and were mostly from Tier-II and Tier-
III cities and wanted to shift to the
National Capital Region.
There are millions of middle class
buyers like Rawat who have been duped
by builders and developers. There was
Raj Narain, in his late eighties, who
could not even stand and had come all
the way by metro for the court hearing.
Rawat booked a cab for him to go back,
but he pleaded with her not to as he did
not have the money to pay for it. He told
her that he had put his entire retirement
fund in the flat. In the course of the six-
year wait, he lost his wife too. He has
now rented a part of his Faridabad
house with a request to the tenant to
provide him two meals a day. “Old and
helpless people like him are completely
at the mercy of the developer, the court
and associations formed to fight the
cases. Many have died waiting for jus-
tice,” said Rawat.
However, the Supreme Court has
given them a ray of hope. A bench of
Justices Kurian Joseph and Sanjay
Kishan Kaul recently made it mandato-
ry for builders and developers to display
the sanction plan of projects at the site.
They said that homebuyers have a
right to know details of the houses they
have invested in and when they will
be delivered.
Arvind Jain, president, Developers
Township Property Owners Welfare
Society, told India Legal: “The judgment
must be widely publicised and all resi-
dent welfare associations should display
it on their websites so that people know
that there is such a direction and can
challenge errant builders.”
T
he bench said that due to ram-
pant violations and its conse-
quences, display of layout plans is
a must and should be enforced by the
Real Estate Regulatory Authority
(RERA). This direction came up in a
case filed by Ferani Hotels Pvt. Ltd.,
which challenged a High Court order
asking for the release of certain docu-
ments relating to a development plan of
a plot in Mumbai to Nusli Wadia under
the Right to Information Act.
Wadia had entered into an agree-
ment with Ferani Hotels for carrying
out development work in 1995 on three
plots of land. But disputes between the
parties in 2008 resulted in Wadia ter-
minating the agreement. He asked for
certified copies of all PR cards, plans
and amendments submitted by Ferani
Hotels to the municipal commissioner
along with his approvals. The State
Information Commission allowed the
application, reasoning that the devel-
opment of the property concerned pub-
lic interest.
Aggrieved by this order, Ferani
Hotels filed a writ petition in the
Bombay High Court which dismissed it.
The Court held that the information
sought in the application was part of
public records and had to be revealed in
public interest. The appellant then
approached the Supreme Court.
The apex court said that in order to
make builders and developers account-
able to the public, the documents need
to be put in the public domain and do
not constitute “personal information”. It
found that the information sought did
not fall under the ambit of trade secrets
or commercial confidence and were
required under RERA. It dismissed the
appeal and asked Ferani Hotels to pay
`2.50 lakh to Wadia as costs.
As Diwali is round the corner, devel-
opers and real estate companies are
coming out with tempting offers to
homebuyers. Many are offering huge
discounts running into lakhs of rupees.
The real estate market is reeling with
poor sales as public confidence has
plummeted with many housing scams.
One Mumbai-based developer is
offering discounts of up to `44 lakh to
homebuyers, while another in Uttar
Pradesh is offering free car parking and
a waiver of the Goods and Services Tax.
A Thane-based developer is offering an
early bird discount of `6 lakh to those
who book an apartment. A Gurugram-
based developer is asking for just five
percent of the payment of the flat dur-
ing booking, with the remainder to be
paid only when possession is given. But
buyers don’t want to take the risk and
would rather invest in projects which
are completed.
It is best for customers to be careful
and check out the credentials of the
builder or developer. They should invest
in a property that has been completed
rather than one where construction has
not even begun. Noida and Gurgaon are
full of half-complete high-rises that stand
like sentinels without a single worker.
These are grim reminders of the
deplorable state of real estate today.
AbenchofJusticesKurianJoseph(left)andSanjayKishanKaulsaidthat
homebuyershavearighttoknowdetailsofthehousestheyhaveinvested
inandwhentheywill bedelivered.

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28. Courts/ Doctors’ Scrawl
28 October 22, 2018
OCTORS are known for
their bad handwriting. The
illegible, hastily written
scrawls have often left
many patients perplexed
trying to decipher the pre-
scriptions. This can be dangerous as it
may even lead to fatalities. In the US
alone, 100,000 prescription errors occur
every year. India does not have any data
on prescription errors. A study conduct-
ed by the Institute of Medicine of the
National Academies of Science in 2006
showed that poor handwriting resulted
in more than 7,000 deaths in a year.
Recently, the Allahabad High Court
imposed a fine of `5,000 each on three
doctors for illegible handwriting in
medical records. When the Lucknow
bench of the High Court struggled to
read the injury remarks of victims in
respective medical reports of three crim-
inal cases due to poor handwriting, it
reprimanded and penalised the doctors
who had written the reports. The bench
considered the poor handwriting an
“obstruction to court work”.
The Court further directed Principal
Secretary (home), Principal Secretary
(medical health) and Director General
(medical health) of the state to ensure
that in future, medical reports are pre-
pared in “easy language and legible
handwriting”. It also suggested that the
reports should be “computer-typed” ra-
ther than handwritten to avoid encoun-
tering such problems in the future. If
the doctors failed to deposit the fine, the
amount will be deducted from their
salaries, the Court said.
In 2012, the Director General (Medi-
cal and Health), UP, had issued a circu-
lar directing the doctors to present med-
ical reports in a “readable form”. While
referring to the circular, the Court said
that the guidelines had been “ignored
with impunity”.
Following this judgment, MGM
Medical College in Indore, Madhya
Pradesh, announced that it will coach
students and doctors in improving their
handwriting skills.
Why is a doctor’s handwriting so dif-
ficult to read? Digitisation has left a
tremendous mark on almost all profes-
sions, including the medical profession.
The medical profession can be said to
have two eras—a pre-digital era and a
post-digital era.
In the pre-digital era, there were no
computers. Teachers used blackboards
to teach students. Textbooks were not
freely available to all. Hence, medical
students relied on hand-written notes of
lectures. They had to almost double
their writing speed, when taking notes,
to keep pace with the teacher. Therefore,
they created their own special system of
shorthand, which could be understood
only by them. Medical words or termi-
nology is sophisticated, difficult and
often unique to the profession; hence,
even these “distorted” forms of “scrib-
bled” words were understood by the
medical students, their teachers and col-
leagues. This gradually became routine
and the handwriting of doctors has now
become a major issue, globally, but
nowhere as much as in India.
Also, doctors have to see hundreds of
patients daily in their limited OPD
hours. And, the patient turnout is
Handwriting on the Wall
Withillegiblywrittenprescriptionsleadingtoseriousandevenfatalerrors,theMedicalCouncil
ofIndiahasamendedrelevantrulestoincludeandfocusonthelegibilityfactor
By Dr KK Aggarwal
UNSAFE SCRIBBLE
Hastily written prescriptions are often illegible
and could even lead to fatalities
D

29. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 29
increasing every day. This further wors-
ens their handwriting, when writing
prescriptions, because jotting down all
relevant points of medical history and
clinical examination takes priority over
a “neat” handwriting. So, in the rush of
the day, a “legibly” written prescription
takes a back seat.
J
okes about doctors’ handwriting
abound on the internet and in
books, magazines, etc. However,
bad handwriting is not just a subject of
jokes. Illegible handwritten prescrip-
tions are a common cause of medical
errors as well.
Some classic examples of prescrip-
tion errors are:
One of my patients with cough and
cold was prescribed Laveta tablet to be
taken once daily. Bad handwriting led
to him taking Caverta tablet instead,
which is a viagra group of drug.
One patient was administered 40
units of insulin when he was to be given
only four units (the nurse on duty read
U as 0). “U” is often misinterpreted and
read as the number “0”, leading to over-
doses by many times.
Decimal points are a common source
of errors. They are very likely to be mis-
interpreted.
A patient received 5 mg tablet
Alprazolam (sleeping medicine) instead
of .5mg written on a prescription (.5 was
read as 5, the decimal point was mis-
sed). So, any number less than 1 should
be preceded by a zero. Instead of writing
.5 mg, it should be written as 0.5 mg.
Another patient was given 10 mg of
tablet Larpose when the intent was to
give 1.0 mg (1.0 was misread as 10 mg).
Use of a trailing zero after a decimal
often causes overdose and should be
avoided (write as 1 mg, not 1.0 mg).
Use of abbreviations in prescrip-
tions—for drug names, dosage or admi-
nistering instructions—again is a cause
for error in drug dispensing due to mis-
communication, which can be harmful
for the patient. “U” can be mistaken for
“0”; “IU” can be mistaken for “IV” (in-
travenous), with drastic consequences.
The terms “unit” and “international
unit” should be written instead.
These are but a few examples of pre-
scription errors.
In an attempt to tackle this problem,
the Medical Council of India (MCI)
amended Regulation 1.5 of the Indian
Medical Council (Professional Conduct,
Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations,
2002 in 2016 to also include the legibil-
ity of prescriptions written by doctors in
addition to rational prescription and
use of drugs.
Regulation 1.5 now reads as follows:
“Use of generic names of the drugs –
Every physician should prescribe drugs
with generic names legibly and prefer-
ably in capital letters and he/she shall
ensure that there is rational prescrip-
tion and use of drugs.”
The government then started con-
templating electronic health records to
avoid such prescription errors. A Na-
tional eHealth Authority (NeHA) was
set up as a regulatory body to oversee
digitisation of health records.
In 2016, the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare notified the “Electronic
Health Record (EHR) Standards 2016”
to introduce a uniform system for cre-
ation and maintenance of health
records by healthcare providers.
While drug names, doses and abbre-
viations are legible in electronic format,
these are also not free from errors. A
single typing error, either when enter-
ing the numeric digits for the dosage
and administration or inadvertently
typing a wrong alphabet when entering
the drug name can have catastrophic
results.
Illegibly written medical records can
also have adverse medico-legal implica-
tions. Prescription errors are avoidable.
Electronically written prescriptions
seem easier and convenient but may not
be free from errors. Many doctors are
switching over to the electronic format,
but, writing in capital letters, as direct-
ed by the MCI, is a cheaper alternative
to electronic health records in terms of
prescribing drugs. It should be able to
keep a check on prescription errors,
though it will take some time for doc-
tors to get used to it.
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
Doctorsseehundredsofpatientsevery
dayintheirlimitedOPDhoursandinthe
rushofdiagnosingillnessandprescribing
medicinesfortreatment,alegibly
writtenprescriptiontakesabackseat.
UNI

30. Courts/ Senior Citizens
30 October 22, 2018
OR senior citizens who are
often subjected to ill-treat-
ment by children or daugh-
ters-in-law, there is finally a
ray of hope. The Delhi High
Court recently upheld a judg-
ment, aimed at the welfare of the elder-
ly, and ruled that parents can seek evic-
tion of their legal heirs from even the
ancestral property on grounds of
ill-treatment.
The Maintenance and Welfare of
Parents Senior Citizens (MWPSC)
Act, 2007, is a central law which gov-
erns the welfare of senior citizens. Sec-
tion 23 of the Act makes it amply clear
that in case of a property transferred by
a senior citizen on the condition that
the transferee shall provide basic ameni-
ties or look after him/her or provide
maintenance, the said transfer will be-
come void if the latter fails to discharge
his responsibilities.
The law was already settled on the
point that the property reverts to the
senior citizens in case of ill-treatment or
refusal to look after them. It was also
established that parents can seek evic-
tion from the said property which had
been transferred.
The Delhi High Court added another
dimension to the existing law and held
that senior citizens can seek the eviction
of their children and legal heirs from
even the ancestral property or a self-
bought property.
The case came to light when a bench
of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and
Justice VK Rao pronounced a
judgment while hearing an
appeal against a single-judge
bench order delivered on July
18. In that order, the Court
had held that the daughter-in-
law must vacate the first floor
of the house. The daughter-in-
law appealed against this
judgment on the grounds that
the Delhi Maintenance and
Welfare of Parents and Senior
Citizens (Amendment) Rules
allow a senior citizen to seek
eviction of his son, daughter
or his legal heirs for ill-treat-
ment, but the same rules don’t
extend to the daughter-in-law.
The bench dismissed this claim, say-
ing if allowed it would only “debilitate”
the veracity of the rules formed for the
protection and welfare of senior citizens.
The daughter-in-law, Darshna, had
been living with her in-laws for the
past several months but was far from
cordial in her relations with them. She
is separated from her husband who
had filed for divorce, but continued to
live with her in-laws, claiming mainte-
nance under Section 125 of the CrPC.
She has also slapped cases of cruelty
against her in-laws which are pending
in court.
Taking note of the serious allega-
tions, the bench mentioned that in the
previous order it was recorded that the
TheDelhiHighCourthasruledthatelderlyparentscanthrowouttheirchildrenfromancestral
property,dismissingthepleaofadaughter-in-lawthatshecannotbeevicted
By Naved Ahmed
Respite for the Aged
LEGAL LICENCE
The recent verdict is a boon
for senior citizens who are
often ill-treated by their
children and daughters-in-law
F
Fayeza Pathan

31. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 31
daughter-in-law used to mistreat her
in-laws and used bad language, and on
occasion, even spat on them. Her
actions were also caught on CCTV
which the judges said was evidence
enough to nail her.
The daughter-in-law’s claim that
eviction was not maintainable was also
dismissed by the bench, citing another
judgment pronounced on the same day.
The Court held that it is not necessary
for senior citizens to file for mainte-
nance in order to seek eviction. The
bench, while concurring with the single-
judge bench, ruled that the daughter-in-
law “has no right, title and interest in
the premises and, therefore, cannot
insist on residing with Dhani Ram and
his wife especially when the relation-
ships between the said parties have
deteriorated to the extent it has.”
T
he case had its origins in the
Tribunal formed to handle cases
of such nature where the judg-
ment of eviction was pronounced and
subsequently upheld by the single-judge
bench and finally came up as an appeal
before the division bench of the High
Court. The Tribunal, the single-judge
bench and the division bench all came
to the same conclusion—the daughter-
in-law should be evicted from the house
of her in-laws.
Situations such as these where senior
citizens/parents are unattended to and
left to their own fate have triggered a
debate in legal and government circles
whether the law of the land needs to be
more strict or not. Consequently, the
MWPSC was enacted in 2007 to provide
a legal framework regarding the issue of
maintenance to parents.
The purpose of this Act is to provide
maintenance to elderly parents and sen-
ior citizens. The Act establishes a
Maintenance Tribunal to ensure speedy
and effective relief to the elderly.
The Act also makes it mandatory for
the establishment of an old-age home in
every district and provision for the pro-
tection of life and property of the elderly.
The earlier stand of the law on main-
tenance was a general one, where under
Section 125, CrPC, maintenance could
be claimed by a dependant. But the cur-
rent law is focused on elderly parents
who are left stranded by their children,
without any property or any person to
take care of them.
The law mandates that any person
who is responsible for the protection
and care of a senior citizen and inten-
tionally abandons the senior citizen is
liable to pay a fine of `5,000 or be
imprisoned for three months, or both.
The purpose of this law is to make the
abandonment of senior citizens, whom a
person is legally bound to take care of, a
criminal offence.
In an earlier judgment, in February
this year, the Delhi High Court had
empowered the Maintenance Tribunal
to pass orders for the eviction of sons
and daughters on grounds of ill-treat-
ment of parents. The Court had stated
that the Act is “for the welfare of par-
ents and senior citizens and for protec-
tion of their life and property, and
therefore leave[s] no manner of doubt
that the Maintenance Tribunal consti-
tuted under the Act has the power and
jurisdiction to render the order of evic-
tion”. While dismissing the present
appeal, the Court said: “Keeping in view
the objective of the Act, it is high time
that senior citizens/parents are allowed
to live in peace and tranquility. Thus,
the orders passed by the Maintenance
Tribunal and the learned Single Judge
cannot be faulted.”
The judgment comes as a boon for
elderly citizens and parents who live as
dependants of their children and will
certainly make them feel more secure
and give them a feeling of being a part
of an inclusive society.
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
In February 2018, the Punjab and
Haryana High Court had ruled that par-
ents have a right to evict their sons and
daughters under the MWPSC Act.
In March 2018, the Delhi High Court
ordered the police to help Mohd Khairi
in evicting his sons from his property.
In August 2018, the Punjab and
Haryana High Court ruled if property is
transferred during the pendency of suit
before the DM, the children cannot
be evicted.
Righttoevict
TheHighCourtdismissedthepetitioner’s
pleaagainstthesingle-judgeverdict,
sayingthatacceptingitwouldonly
“debilitate”theveracityoftherules
formedforthewelfareofseniorcitizens.

32. Focus/ MPLADS
32 October 22, 2018
“It is sad that lawmakers of the nation
did not make law for their own
MPLADS”—Central Information
Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyalu
N December 23, 1993,
then Prime Minister PV
Narasimha Rao launched
the Member of Parliament
Local Area Development
Scheme (MPLADS) with
the stated objective of enabling MPs to
identify small works of capital nature
based on locally perceived needs in their
constituencies. Over two decades later,
MPLADS continues to attract criticism
for lack of transparency and accountabili-
ty in how funds sanctioned under the
scheme are utilised. Some have even
demanded that the scheme be scrapped.
MPLADS is a centrally sponsored
scheme fully funded by the government
through the Ministry of Statistics and
Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
Under MPLADS, every MP is provided
an annual corpus of `5 crore for spending
on development works for identified sec-
tors such as drinking water, sanitation,
electricity, roads, schools, orphanages and
community shelters in their respective
constituencies. Similar to MPLADS, sev-
eral states have enacted schemes (MLAL-
ADS) where funds are given to MLAs.
The latest salvo against MPLADS has
come from the Central Information
Commission (CIC), which in a recent
order has asked the Lok Sabha Speaker
and Rajya Sabha Chairman to put in
place a legal framework for the imple-
mentation of MPLADS. The order was
issued by the CIC while hearing a peti-
tion filed by Ram Gopal Dixit, who in
September 2016 had sought information
from the MoSPI and Ministry of
Railways on works recommended by BJP
MP Rajesh Kumar Diwakar in Hathras
Lok Sabha constituency.
While indicting MoSPI for failing to
furnish the information, the CIC exam-
ined the existing MPLADS guidelines
and identified several lacunae in imple-
mentation. These guide-
lines, inter alia, provide
that: (i) each MP will
recommend works to the
concerned district
authorities; (ii) the dis-
trict authority will identi-
fy the agency to execute
it; (iii) if the recommend-
ed work cannot be
executed, the district
authority must inform
the MP within 45 days of
receipt of the proposal;
(iv) unutilised funds can be carried for-
ward to the subsequent year; (v) the dis-
trict authority shall maintain accounts of
MPLADS for each MP and provide
utilisation certificates to the state govern-
ment and MoSPI every year; and (vi)
works must be completed within 18
months from the dissolution of the Lok
Sabha or the date of demitting office (for
Rajya Sabha MPs) and subsequently
accounts must be closed.
As per the CIC order, the proposed
legal framework should, inter alia, set
out specific duties and compulsory obli-
gations for MPs, prescribe rules and reg-
Plug the Loopholes
Morethantwodecadesafteritsinceptionin1993,thislaudableschemeisbeingcriticisedfor
lackoftransparencyandaccountabilityinhowthefundsareutilised
By Vrinda Agarwal
O
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
CIC M Sridhar Acharyalu
(right) wants a legal frame-
work to monitor use of
MPLADS; a West Bengal
school that got aid from
Sachin Tendulkar

33. | INDIA LEGAL | October 22, 2018 33
ulations, identify what acts/omissions by
MPs would constitute breach of duty and
“impose liabilities for dereliction of those
duties and breach of rules and regula-
tions which may include prohibition of
certain acts”. The order also states that
the legal framework should prohibit MPs
from certain acts, such as claiming that
assets created under MPLADS were “not
traceable”, spending MPLADS funds for
private works, recommending funds to
ineligible agencies, diverting funds to pri-
vate trusts, recommending works to ben-
efit the MP or his or her relatives and
breaching any norms laid down for rec-
ommending works.
The order further sets out an illustra-
tive list of the obligations which may be
imposed on MPs, such as: (i) duty to
inform every year, number of applications
received, works recommended, works
rejected with reasons, progress of works,
details of beneficiaries, and to submit
upon completion of their term, a compre-
hensive report on MPLADS works to the
Lok Sabha Speaker or Rajya Sabha
Chairman and to the office of Parliament;
(ii) duty to provide such information to
voters seeking it under the Right to
Information Act, 2005; and (iii) duty of
parliamentary parties to post such details
on their official websites and on web
pages of their MPs on india.gov.in.
Observing that the MoSPI does not
maintain information on creation of
assets and depends on district authorities
to provide utilisation certificates to
release more funds, the CIC expressed
concern. It said that it is difficult to pre-
vent corruption in such a non-transpar-
ent massive funding scheme, totally
dependent on individual discretion with
unquestionable privileges coupled with
immunity of MPs.
To bring in transparency, the CIC has
directed the MoSPI to publish MP-wise,
constituency-wise and work-wise details,
along with the names of beneficiaries and
reasons for delay in completion of proj-
ects and works being implemented under
the scheme. According to Central Infor-
mation Commissioner M Sridhar Ach-
aryalu, the absence of such data makes it
hard to understand what works were
taken up and what assets were created,
and “such a deliberate ambiguity is a kind
of malicious denial of information”.
Acharyalu also took cognisance of a
report issued by MoSPI in August 2018,
which revealed that `12,000 crore of
MPLADS funds were lying unspent. In
an order issued in 2017, the CIC had
strongly recommended parliamentary
parties ensure “100 percent proper utili-
sation” of these funds by each of their
MPs and voluntarily appoint officials to
answer RTI queries on the issue.
This is not the first instance of
MPLADS coming under scrutiny. In
two audit reports submitted in 1998
and 2001, the Comptroller and Auditor
General of India pointed out that
MPLADS is riddled with “poor utilisa-
tion of funds, poor monitoring by the
MoSPI, poor quality and at times inad-
missible work, and suspected fraud and
corruption”. In 2002, the National
Commission to Review the Working of
the Constitution proposed discontinu-
ance of the scheme on the ground that
it creates disparity of power distribu-
tion between the centre and the states.
The discontinuance proposal was reiter-
ated in 2007 by the Second
Administrative Reforms Commission.
P
rofessor Jagdeep Chhokar, founder
and trustee of the Association for
Democratic Reforms, told India
Legal that the CIC order is applause-wor-
thy but putting in a legal framework for a
scheme which is inherently faulty is like
“throwing good money after bad money”.
He said that MPLADS ought to be scrap-
ped as it gives “unbridled power and fin-
ancial muscle to MPs to dole out favours
and infringes the principle of separation
of powers by enabling legislators to per-
form executive functions. While one may
theoretically argue that MPs only recom-
mend works and district authorities have
the ultimate power to decide which
works are funded under the scheme, in
reality, an MP’s discretion always prevails
over that of the district authority”.
However, PDT Achary, former
Secretary General of the Lok Sabha, said
MPLADS had contributed to significant
development work and should not be
scrapped. He told India Legal: “In the
initial years, the scheme was marred by
complaints of a nexus between parlia-
mentarians and contractors which led the
government to issue guidelines for its
implementation. Subsequently, several
parts of the country have benefited from
development projects carried out under
the scheme. The CIC order is correct
insofar as it suggests plugging the loop-
holes in the scheme and introducing fur-
ther transparency.”
It remains to be seen if the govern-
ment will implement the CIC’s order in
letter and spirit.
Twitter: @indialegalmedia
Website: www.indialegallive.com
Contact: editor@indialegallive.com
U
nion Finance Minister and
Rajya Sabha member from
Uttar Pradesh Arun Jaitley
recently declared that he will be
spending his MPLADS funds in Rae
Bareli district. Under the MPLADS
guidelines, an RS MP can recom-
mend works to the tune of `5 crore a
year in one or more districts in the
state from which he or she has been
elected. The UP BJP spokesperson,
Hero Bajpai, said the backwardness
of the district had prompted Jaitley to
make this decision. “The people in
Rae Bareli have been demanding a
stadium, a university, solar lights and
solar energy-run pumps in remote vil-
lages of the district,” Bajpai said.
However, political experts are seeing
this move as one more attempt by the
BJP to breach the Gandhi bastion in
the 2019 election. Rae Bareli is the
parliamentary constituency of Sonia
Gandhi, while neighbouring Amethi is
represented by Congress president
Rahul Gandhi.
Beneficiaryfor
areason

34. Spotlight/ NHRC
34October 22, 2018
WENTY-SIX years ago the
state of Madhya Pradesh
launched human rights
activism in a structural
manner by the creation of
its own State Human
Rights Commission (SHRC). This was a
full year before the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) was
formed. Before the NHRC, the Indian
parliament had created two related
commissions in 1990 (a National
Commission for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes and a National
Commission for Women), as well as a
National Commission for Minorities in
1992. In June 2016, the current chair of
the NHRC and former chief justice of
India, HL Dattu, described this institu-
tion over which he presided as “a tooth-
less tiger.” In 2017, the Supreme Court of
India seemed to support Justice Dattu’s
remarks while dealing with the alleged
extra-judicial killings of 1,528 persons in
Manipur by police and armed forces.
“Considering that such a high powered
body has brought out its difficulties
A Toothless Tiger?
TheNationalHumanRightsCommissioncommemoratesits25thanniversary,butdoesithave
anythingtocelebrate?HumanrightsscholarsSanjoyHazarikaandSarthakRoyexamine
T
BATTLING PENDENCY
The NHRC headquarters in New Delhi