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Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

On April 2, 2019, the Supreme Court is set to hear a bunch of petitions challenging the validity of electoral bonds scheme, 2018, which was notified by the Central Government on January 2, 2018. Vide the amendments in the Finance Act, 2017, the Government made many changes in the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934, Representation of Peoples Act 1951, Income Tax Act 1961 and Companies Act, 2013, in order to bring out the scheme. According to the scheme, an electoral bond is like a bearer promissory note, which can be purchased by any buyer from any authorised branch of the State Bank of India, without mentioning the name of the buyer or the payee, and will be known only to the bank.

A recent judgment by the Kerala High Court should provide great relief for bank customers pursuing refund of moneys fraudulently withdrawn from their accounts by third parties, for which the customers are contesting their authorisation.

Two decades back, when on 11th May 1998 India conducted the nuclear test in Pokhran, there was lot of jubilation by the government and the workers of the ruling party. People were made to believe that with this India will become a powerful country to reckon with. Those who raised skepticism about the whole programme were dubbed not standing with national interest. In response, the Pakistan government conducted nuclear tests just after 17 days on 28th May. Whereas India had done 6 explosions, Pakistan did seven. The whole talk of powerful nation with nuclear weapons got subdued. With this, we got into nuclear arms race, spending huge amount on nuclear weapons programme. At present both countries spend exorbitant amount on arms race in comparison to the expenditure on the social needs.

The election season is round the corner in the country with every political party focusing to win maximum number of seats. In order to fulfil the target, the political parties resort to some easy tactics to win seats. Parties use catchy slogans and poll promises to woo the voters in the election season. Apart from that, another strategy is to poach potential leaders from the rival parties and field them as own party candidates. This is mainly done to damage the rival party as the defecting leaders also bring a chunk of supporting voters.

Every political leader has to rely on an outsider or a pointsman to manage his affairs either in Delhi or elsewhere. One such person is Danish Ali, long-time loyalist of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda. He decided to defect to the BSP with the blessings of Janata Dal (Secular) patriarch H D Kumaraswamy, the Karnataka Chief Minister. Danish Ali, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, left the JD(S) at a time when he was enjoying maximum clout in the party as general secretary. The reason was the lure of Parliament. Thrice Ali failed to get nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka.

Diamond merchant and fugitive Nirav Modi is paying the price for acting the mob boss in London. He walked the streets of the city as if he owned the underground! Now, for that impertinence and for cocking a snook at Scotland Yard, he has been denied bail and will be confined to a cell to count bars till April 26.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has scaled up expectations in Kerala. From one seat to four! Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthita, Palakkad and Trichur. One to fall in the BDJS (Bharat Dharma Jana Sena) kitty; three in the BJP locker. Four from a state from where it could not open its account to date.

Anti-Romeo squads, formed soon after the current NDA Government in Uttar Pradesh took over in March 2017, ostensibly to protect the honour of women, has come to be viewed as a big nuisance verging on state terror to police the moral standards of the country’s youth. It comes on the heels of such squads having worked for years in the BJP ruled Gujarat, where it failed miserably following massive resistance and disenchantment of people. The state government, rather than sort out myriad problems facing the state, is stretching the police force to protect dignity of women to deflect from the basic issues confronting the people.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be shifting the emphasis in his election campaign from the promise of rapid economic development to a highly militant approach to run down previous regimes and parties for their soft approach with neighbours. It may be in tune with the basic element of militancy in the Sangh approach. Yet the Sangh reach remained limited for nine decades of its teaching for the basic psyche of Indian mind is democratic in temper and tolerant by nature. Existence of several religions with their innumerable sects and sub sects for 2500 years does certify the basic Indian psyche.