PIL in Supreme Court challenges de facto ban on screening of Kamal Haasan's 'Thug Life' in Karnataka
The PIL by M Mahesh Reddy from Bengaluru filed through advocate A Valan sought a declaration that such a ban was illegal, unconstitutional, and void ab initio, being violative of Articles 14, 19(1)(a), 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution.
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India Today
21 minutes ago
- India Today
Preventive detention extraordinary power of state, use it sparingly: Top court
Preventive detention is an extraordinary power in the hands of the state that must be used sparingly, said the Supreme Court as it set aside an order by a district magistrate to detain a moneylender who was allegedly indulging in illegal activities again after getting bail in four cases.A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Manmohan questioned the contention of the detaining authority that the order was passed as the detainee was violating bail conditions in the cases, and noted that they should have instead moved the competent court seeking cancellation of the order of detention dated June 20, 2024, and the impugned judgment dated September 4, 2024, passed by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam are hereby set aside. In the attending facts and circumstances of this case, the appeal is allowed," the bench said in its order passed on Friday. Noting that the power of preventive detention finds recognition in the Constitution under Article 22(3)(b), the bench said, "The provision for preventive detention is an extraordinary power in the hands of the state that must be used sparingly. It curtails the liberty of an individual in anticipation of the commission of further offence(s), and therefore, must not be used in the ordinary course of nature."The bench said the contention of the detaining authority that the detainee, Rajesh, who used to run a private financing company called 'Rithika Finance', was violating the conditions of bail imposed upon him in the cases that have been considered for passing the order of said that pertinently, no application has been filed by the respondent in any of the four cases, alleging violation of such conditions, if any, and moreover, have not even been spelt out during the hearing of the case filed by his wife against the Kerala High Court order, which affirmed the preventive detention order of the Palakkad district magistrate."Keeping in view the above expositions of law, we have no doubt that the order of detention cannot be sustained. The circumstances pointed out in the order by the detaining authority may be ground enough for the state to approach the competent courts for cancellation of bail, but it cannot be said that the same warranted his preventive detention."We clarify that if such an application for cancellation of the detainee's bail is made by the respondent - state, the same must be decided uninfluenced by the observations made hereinabove," the bench referred to the provisions of the Kerala Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 2007, and said that the object of the statute was to provide for effective prevention of certain anti-social activities in the bench said Section 2(j) of the state law defines 'goonda' as a person who indulges in activities that are harmful to the maintenance of public order, either directly or indirectly, and includes persons who are bootleggers, counterfeiters, drug offenders, and loan sharks, among bench also said that under Section 3 of the Act, the district magistrate so authorised or the government may pass an order directing detention of a "known goonda" to prevent commission of antisocial activities within the state of Kerala."Coming to the attending facts and circumstances, we are of the considered view that the exercise of power under Section 3 of the Act was not justified in law," the top court said, as it noted four cases lodged under the Kerala Money Lenders Act, 1958, cited by the police for recommending preventive detention to the district police stated that the detainee was a "notorious goonda" in the district and a threat to the society at by the order of his detention dated June 20, 2024, Rajesh's wife filed a writ petition before the Kerala High Court assailing the order and praying for a writ of habeas corpus to the state against the "illegal" detention of her high court on September 4 last year affirmed the order of preventive detention. Aggrieved by the order, the detainee's wife moved the top court challenging the December 10, 2024, the top court ordered the detainee to be released as his maximum period of detention under the Act was InMust Watch
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Who's really over-represented? Busting delimitation myths
The announcement of Census 2027 has sparked off a fresh debate on delimitation. The argument that it will penalise states that have controlled their population better is based on popularly held myths. Research this writer undertook on Census data since 1872 shows that all regions of India grew briskly in terms of population at different points of time, with the South growing faster till 1951, and North India picking up pace after that. Kerala was the first state to double its population between 1881 and 1931, and Tamil Nadu was the next. Kerala doubled its population yet again between 1931 and 1971, and then began to stabilise its population. While this may sound surprising to many, it's true, and follows the pattern demographic transition has taken the world over. Out of the four regions of India, the North grew at the lowest rate between 1881 and 1951. Its demographic take-off decade was the 1950s, precisely the period when 'population explosion' emerged as a serious global policy concern. The later demographic growth phase of the North was thus mistakenly seen as caused by social and cultural backwardness, and failure of family planning, without considering longer-term empirical evidence. In 1976, delimitation was frozen for 25 years on the basis of the 1971 Census, and the same was done in 2001 for another 25 years. So, the constitutional principle of 'one person, one vote, one value' no longer holds, and the value of a vote in Bihar is much lower than the value of a vote in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Policymakers will have to figure out how to reconcile the constitutional promise with this skew which will have only increased since 2001. Importantly, while the right to equality is one of the bedrocks of the Constitution, formal equality is abandoned by it only for the benefit of the more deprived and backward — subsidies to the poor and reservation for backward classes being an example — and never for the well-off. One argument that the debate on delimitation will thus have to confront is whether formal equality can be abandoned in favour of better-off groups, socially or geographically, and what it will mean for the Constitution. While this is for political players to decide, it is important that the debate takes place on an empirically sound basis. The North, meaning the Hindi belt, has not grown at a disproportionate rate vis-a-vis other regions of India, and its national population share has gone down from about 50% in 2001 to 46% in 2011. South India has grown rapidly for 100 of those 150 years, increasing its share from about 22% in 1881 to about 26% in 1951, maintaining it at around 25% in 1971, before going down in the last few decades. Over 1881-1971, the North had the lowest cumulative growth of about 115%, as compared to the South at 193%, West 168% and East 213%. Over 1881-2011, the North at 427% was again at the bottom, with the South at 445%, West at 500%, and East at 535%. The prevalent distorted perception arises from taking only the post-1971 period into account — when population growth in the South started slowing down with better social and economic indicators, even as growth in the less developed North and better-off states of the West picked up. Without considering principles of demographic transition that operate in most societies over the long term, a proper perspective on why populations of different regions of India — or, of the world for that matter — grow at differential paces during any given period won't develop. Culture may at best be a marginal influence on population growth patterns, which social and economic factors adequately explain. Any causal connection between family planning and population control in India is at best tenuous, mainly because when family planning assumed importance in the 1960s, some southern states had already grown at a rapid pace and were at or near their peak population growth rates. Therefore, they witnessed stabilisation from the 1970s and 1980s. Family planning was at best an associate factor. Moreover, relatively developed western India has shown good demographic growth over the last 150 years, increasing its population share and potential parliamentary representation. Today, North and West India are grossly under-represented, the East is almost even, while the South is heavily over-represented. While the average Lok Sabha constituency in the South has just about 21 lakh people, in the North it has around 31 lakh, and in the West 28 lakh. The real divide in representation isn't North vs South; it's more like the South versus the rest. Mishra, a historian, is the author of 'Demography, Representation, Delimitation: The North-South Divide in India' and joint director, Prime Ministers Museum and Library
Indian Express
5 hours ago
- Indian Express
Mevani attacks BJP over atrocities on Dalits, weaker sections in Gujarat
Congress's Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani on Saturday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah's silence on alleged incidents of atrocities against Dalits, adivasis and other weaker sections in Gujarat, and announced that the party will hit the streets to raise the issue. Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in the Capital, Mevani accused the PM, the Home Minister and the RSS of 'putting the values of Manusmriti above the Constitution'. Citing the low conviction rate in cases of atrocities on Dalits, Mevani said at the national level, this figure is 30-35%, but in Gujarat it is only 3-5%, which means 95% of the culprits in the state go scot-free. The Congress leader told reporters that several incidents of Dalit atrocities have been reported from Gujarat such as the murder of a 19-year-old Dalit youth in Amreli, the alleged setting ablaze of a Dalit senior citizen in Patan and the alleged gangrape of a Dalit girl in which BJP members are alleged to have been involved. 'The Congress is preparing to launch a massive demonstration in August-September against atrocities being afflicted on Dalits, adivasis and those from the weakened sections in Gujarat,' he announced.
