High Court tells Maharashtra to consider tank immersion for idols over 5 feet
However, the bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Sandeep Marne said that 7000 was a huge number and pointed out that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) guidelines state that no immersion of PoP idols can be permitted. It also asked the government to consider increasing the maximum height of PoP idols from 5 feet to seven or eight feet, which need to be immersed in artificial tanks.The bench said, "We are only trying to lessen the environmental impact...we need to head to a day when there will be no immersion in the sea," while asking the Advocate General to consider the issue. Saraf submitted that between 5 and 10 feet, there are 3865 idols and above 10 feet are 3998.Saraf, however, submitted that CPCB guidelines are only recommendatory in nature and not mandatory, though he added that after many campaigns by the state, people have started turning towards environmentally friendly material made idols.He, however, said that making much larger tanks for idols above five feet was not feasible. Advocate Milind Sathe, appearing for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) concurred with Saraf and submitted that larger tanks would require a larger area, which is an issue in a city like Mumbai. The advocates added that there will be a requirement for large quantities of water as well.However, the bench directed the Advocate General to take instructions on whether provision can be made to submerge PoP idols about 7 to 8 feet in height.Earlier in January this year, the court had directed a put a complete ban on the manufacturing and sale of Ganpati idols made by Plaster of Paris (PoP). However, in June the court modified it's order and permitted the manufacturing of PoP idols and the state was directed to formulate a policy on immersion of PoP idols.- EndsTune InMust Watch
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News18
an hour ago
- News18
TIP-ping Point: 7/11 Blasts And Judicial Lottery
The 7/11 case has yet again raised disturbing questions about the moral compass of Indian criminal jurisprudence. The conscience of the nation stands enraged. Both possibilities speak volumes of systemic failure. Either the then coalition Government in Maharashtra in 2006 oversaw a catastrophic collapse in investigation and prosecution, letting terrorists walk free. Or we incarcerated innocent men for the last 19 years. Both scenarios paint a profoundly disturbing picture of our justice system. The 11 dark minutes of July 11, 2006, when seven coordinated bomb blasts ripped through Mumbai's suburban railway network, scarred the city forever. The carnage claimed 209 lives and injured over 700. Swift arrests followed; 13 men were accused, 12 were convicted – five sentenced to death, the rest to life imprisonment. But on July 21, 2025, the Bombay High Court acquitted all 12 convicted men. The Court found the prosecution to have faltered at the most fundamental level. The judgment exposes a central tension: a conflict between state capacity and judicial threshold. Crimes of this nature are intrinsically difficult to investigate and prosecute. Probes must navigate intricate webs of terror planning and execution, all while racing against time. Every passing moment results in evidentiary decay. Yet, when this challenge of capacity meets the rigorous standards of 'innocent until proven guilty', verdicts like the one in this case become inevitable. This case has yet again raised disturbing questions about the moral compass of Indian criminal jurisprudence. A recurring affliction in our criminal system is the doctrine of 'uncertain-fatality', an interpretive fragility that leaves outcomes to the temperaments of individual judges. The United States follows a clear standard- the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, where any illegally procured evidence is automatically inadmissible. India has adopted a different course. Indian courts are notably more liberal in admitting evidence, even if tainted by illegality, choosing instead to assign it probative value after scrutiny. Our courts separate the wheat from the chaff, i.e., they painstakingly distinguish believable evidence from the rest. Yet this process of legal surgery varies by the skill and subjectivity of the surgeon. Similar cases with similar flaws have passed the muster before other courts. But the Bombay High Court, in this case, deemed the lapses to be fatal. The real fatality, it seems, is even-handed justice. Your ability to secure relief as a kin of the deceased now hinges disproportionately on the courtroom lottery. In this case, the Bombay High Court took a sword to the scalpel, with one blow, it declared the prosecution's case to have 'utterly failed.' The concern lies not in the judges having taken a particular view, but in the inconsistency and subjectivity with which criminal justice is dispensed. The Bombay High Court, while acquitting all convicts, based its reasoning primarily on the flawed Test Identification Parade (TIP). Put simply, in a TIP, the accused is made to stand in a lineup with others of similar physique and features, and the eyewitness is invited to pick out the suspect. The very act of correctly identifying the accused lends strength and credibility to the witness's courtroom testimony. Under Section 7 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, TIP serves a dual purpose: first, it helps the investigating agency confirm if they are on the right track; second, it offers corroboration for in-court identification. It becomes a critical evidentiary tool, helping place the accused at the relevant location and time. The procedure, however, is stringent. TIPs must be conducted by a Magistrate, not the police, and preferably within jail premises to minimise external influence. Witnesses must be called individually, barred from communication with each other, and asked to describe what they saw. Every reaction must be recorded in detail. In this case, the Bombay High Court excluded the identification evidence entirely. It held that TIPs were conducted by Shri Barve, a Special Executive Officer, who had no legal authority to carry them out. This procedural violation- TIPs must be supervised by a Magistrate, was not a mere technical lapse. According to the Court, it rendered the identification process void and left it open to manipulation. Consequently, the identifications made by witnesses were deemed inadmissible. The prosecution, which had heavily relied on these TIPs, now found itself without the very foundation of its case. What remained was dock identification, witnesses identifying the accused in court nearly four years later. But that raised a pivotal legal question: can someone credibly identify an individual they only saw momentarily, years ago, without memory aids or prior interaction? The High Court concluded they could not. No distinguishing features. No extended observation. No credibility. Thus, even the courtroom identifications were stripped of their evidentiary weight. The very eyewitness testimony on which the prosecution had built its case crumbled, ironically, not due to falsehood, but due to the prosecution's own procedural lapses. This would be an acceptable outcome, had other courts taken such a strict approach. But that is not the case. Courts across India continue to admit TIP evidence despite glaring procedural irregularities. That inconsistency needs urgent review by the Supreme Court of India. Another major blow to the prosecution was its reliance on stock witnesses- individuals who appear as panch or eyewitnesses in multiple unrelated cases. For instance, Vishal Parmar claimed to have seen Accused No. 4 board the train with a black rexine bag and disembark without it. The Court flagged him as unreliable, as he had served as a panch witness in multiple prior cases, including those involving officers from this very trial. His employer, Mukesh Rabadiya, was similarly discredited as a stock witness. Yet in Nana Keshav Lagad v. State of Maharashtra (2013), the Supreme Court clarified that merely appearing as a witness in multiple cases does not invalidate testimony by itself. This raises legitimate questions about the Bombay High Court's choice to outright dismiss such testimony here. The trouble is, this was bound to happen. When judicial discretion is left unbounded by consistent thresholds, some courts interpret lapses as fatal, others see them as fixable. This divergence undermines the rule of law. And the stakes are extraordinarily high in cases involving such enormous human tragedy. Just as troubling is the message this sends to the investigative machinery: that mistakes may or may not matter, depending on the bench. Impunity thrives in uncertainty. We urgently need clear, consistent, and constitutionally sound standards, replacing what has become a wild west of discretion in criminal procedure. Criminal justice must be precise. We must know what is acceptable and what is not. top videos View all The Supreme Court has issued notice in the criminal appeal. The legal questions answered by the Bombay High Court now await constitutional scrutiny. The author is a Senior Supreme Court Advocate and former Additional Solicitor General of India. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : 2006 Mumbai Train Blasts Mumbai train blasts view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 28, 2025, 15:57 IST News opinion Opinion | TIP-ping Point: 7/11 Blasts And Judicial Lottery Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
Ajit Ranade: India must resolve its paradox of jobless graduates amid a scarcity of skills
India's gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education is at 28.3%, up by five percentage points in the past 10 years. This represents the proportion of those between the ages of 18 and 23 enrolled for college or higher-level courses. The National Education Policy aims to increase this ratio to 50% in the next decade. That would imply a faster rate of increasing college and university attendance than has been achieved in the past decade. At present, roughly 11 million young people are graduating annually with a degree or diploma of some kind. The problem of getting more youth enrolled is not merely constrained by the lack of seats in colleges. For instance, in the recent July frenzy for admissions to junior colleges across the state of Maharashtra, it was revealed that there were 300 colleges, fully funded by the state, that received zero applicants. These colleges receive grants for staff and faculty salaries but have no students. There is suspicion that this state of affairs has been going on for quite some time. It was shocking enough for the Bombay High Court to take suo moto cognizance and initiate legal proceedings. Also Read: Mint Quick Edit | Can India's ELI scheme generate 35 million jobs? The lack of applicants to certain colleges is an example of the youth 'voting with their feet.' There is no perceived benefit either from the courses on offer or the quality of teaching. Contrast this with the huge demand for coaching classes. It is an industry worth an estimated $10 billion, with millions enrolled in coaching centres from Kota to Kanpur and Patna to Pune. College graduates enrol in these to prepare for fiercely competitive examinations, such as those for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), banking and railways. We thus have colleges where seats go unfilled while there is a stampede for admission to other colleges or unregulated coaching centres. Ironically, the government itself encourages preparation for competitive exams by funding the creation of free digital resources for such preparation. Or through subsidized programmes offered as cheaper substitutes to unaffordable private coaching centres. The government's efforts are adding to the mindless mania of the youth pursuing already-scarce government jobs and point to a lack of imagination on what can be done to address the situation. Also Read: India's unemployment challenge can't be tackled by doles as usual The goal of increasing the GER to 50% is meant to enhance the quality of India's human capital and prepare the youth for the jobs of tomorrow. India is in the midst of a demographic revolution that is also throwing up a paradox. The youth, or those between the ages of 15 and 29 years, make up 27% of the total population, thus representing a vast potential workforce. Yet, this is the very segment facing an acute crisis of high unemployment, low employability and widespread under-utilization. Large numbers of young Indians remain jobless or underemployed, or are engaged for years in unproductive exam preparation. The last of these is reflected in a low youth labour force participation rate. According to Periodic Labour Force Survey data for May, only 42.1% of the youth were employed or looking for work. There is also a stark gender divide, with the participation ratio being 61.6% for males and only 22.4% for females. Note, however, that female enrolment in colleges is now nearly at par with men, and women often outperform men academically. According to the India Employment Report 2024, the youth make up 83% of the total unemployed. Two-thirds of them have a secondary or higher education. The unemployment rate among those with a college degree is close to 30%, nearly nine times the rate among illiterate youth. The high joblessness rate of educated youth is in addition to those who are exam aspirants, spending precious years of their youth preparing for competitive exams, where getting selected for their dream job is simply like winning a lottery. Very few bag it. This group is identified by the acronym 'Neet': for 'not in employment, education or any training.' The coexistence of high unemployment among educated job seekers and an acute shortage of skilled candidates expressed by industry is a severe indictment of the country's higher education system. Less than 5% of our youth receive formal vocational training. Most college graduates lack digital literacy, communication skills and job readiness. Also Read: India's education system must adapt better to the real world out there At the same time, our largest private sector recruiters, IT services firms, have announced hiring freezes, weighed as they are by reduced global demand and a shift towards automation (especially Generative AI). A computer science graduate is likely to be paid better as a healthcare worker for geriatric care, for which there is huge demand. Demand-supply mismatches between the skills sought and offered are growing. Gig work and platform-based jobs may be expanding, but they too require digital skills that many graduates lack. We need a radical shift in education-to-employment pathways. This calls for an overhaul of higher education and its curriculum, more industry-academia partnerships that blend earning and learning potential and more apprenticeships. We must also promote entrepreneurship rather than job seeking. Importantly, our labour markets need efficiency. Digital exchanges and career platforms could help. The author is senior fellow with Pune International Centre.
Indian Express
4 hours ago
- Indian Express
Beed sarpanch murder: proof points to Walmik Karad's crime syndicate links, court said while rejecting MCOCA discharge plea
In its detailed order rejecting a discharge plea by Walmik Karad, the main accused in the murder of a sarpanch in Maharashtra's Beed district, a special court has said that there is prima facie evidence to show that he is a member of an organised crime syndicate. The plea was rejected on July 22, and the full order was made available this week. Karad – a close aide of former NCP minister Dhananjay Munde – and others have been booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for the murder of Santosh Deshmukh on December 9, 2024. 'Validity of prior permission or sanction shall not be doubted at this juncture. Thus the statements of witnesses, material, technical, digital, scientific and forensic evidence prima facie reveal that the offence is committed by the applicant and co-accused persons,' the detailed order by special judge V H Patwadkar said. The prosecution said that between October and December 2024, the accused, including Karad, conspired and demanded ransom from a company to run their business in the district. When Massajog sarpanch Deshmukh intervened, a plan was made to abduct and murder him. Deshmukh was subsequently killed. The prosecution has claimed that the co-accused videographed the act and also made a video call to Karad. The prosecution cited 20 previous crimes filed against Karad, including that of unlawful assembly and attempt to murder, and said he was also convicted in one case. It added that the other accused were following the instructions of Karad, who is a member of the crime syndicate. Karad had filed the discharge plea stating he was falsely implicated for political reasons, and there was no crime syndicate as claimed by the police. He also questioned the validity of the sanction under the MCOCA given in February, claiming that due procedure was not followed while invoking the Act. He said no role was specified when it came to his involvement in the crime. Karad said the police deliberately hid the fact that among the cases cited, he was cleared in almost 15 of them, including the case in which he was convicted, and that the Bombay High Court had acquitted him in the appeal stage. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam submitted that the sanction for MCOCA was taken as per procedure and if it is dropped, the crime syndicate will continue its work, resulting in a grave law and order problem.
