Nainital HC lifts stay on Uttarakhand Panchayat elections, seeks govt reply on quota irregularities
DEHRADUN: The Nainital High Court on Friday lifted the stay on panchayat elections in Uttarakhand, allowing the electoral process to proceed. However, it has directed the state government to respond to public interest litigations (PILs) alleging irregularities in the reservation roster.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice G. Narendra and Justice Alok Mahra removed the stay after hearing multiple petitions challenging the reservation roster for the state's panchayat elections.
The bench instructed the State Election Commission to issue a revised election schedule, extending the previous one by three days. The state government has also been granted three weeks to submit its response to the issues raised in the petitions.
The petitioners have raised concerns about the allocation of reservations for Block Pramukh and Zila Panchayat President posts. They allege that several seats have been continuously reserved for the same category over an extended period, which they argue contravenes Article 243 of the Constitution and various Supreme Court rulings.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
19 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Trump wins as Supreme Court curbs judges, but may yet lose on birthright citizenship
The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling blunting a potent weapon that federal judges have used to block government policies nationwide during legal challenges was in many ways a victory for President Donald Trump, except perhaps on the very policy he is seeking to enforce. An executive order that the Republican president signed on his first day back in office in January would restrict birthright citizenship - a far-reaching plan that three federal judges, questioning its constitutionality, quickly halted nationwide through so-called "universal" injunctions. But the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday, while announcing a dramatic shift in how judges have operated for years deploying such relief, left enough room for the challengers to Trump's directive to try to prevent it from taking effect while litigation over its legality plays out. "I do not expect the president's executive order on birthright citizenship will ever go into effect," said Samuel Bray, a Notre Dame Law School professor and a prominent critic of universal injunctions whose work the court's majority cited extensively in Friday's ruling. Trump's executive order directs federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a "green card" holder. The three judges found that the order likely violates citizenship language in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. The directive remains blocked while lower courts reconsider the scope of their injunctions, and the Supreme Court said it cannot take effect for 30 days, a window that gives the challengers time to seek further protection from those courts. The court's six conservative justices delivered the majority ruling, granting Trump's request to narrow the injunctions issued by the judges in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts. Its three liberal members dissented. The ruling by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump appointed to the court in 2020, emphasized the need to hem in the power of judges, warning against an "imperial" judiciary. Judges can provide "complete relief" only to the plaintiffs before them, Barrett wrote. That outcome was a major victory for Trump and his allies, who have repeatedly denounced judges who have impeded his agenda. It could make it easier for the administration to implement his policies, including to accelerate deportations of migrants, restrict transgender rights, curtail diversity and inclusion efforts, and downsize the federal government - many of which have tested the limits of executive power. In the birthright citizenship dispute, the ruling left open the potential for individual plaintiffs to seek relief beyond themselves through class action lawsuits targeting a policy that would upend the long-held understanding that the Constitution confers citizenship on virtually anyone born on U.S. soil. Bray said he expects a surge of new class action cases, resulting in "class-protective" injunctions. "Given that the birthright-citizenship executive order is unconstitutional, I expect courts will grant those preliminary injunctions, and they will be affirmed on appeal," Bray said. Some of the challengers have already taken that path. Plaintiffs in the Maryland case, including expectant mothers and immigrant advocacy groups, asked the presiding judge who had issued a universal injunction to treat the case as a class action to protect all children who would be ineligible for birthright citizenship if the executive order takes effect. "I think in terms of the scope of the relief that we'll ultimately get, there is no difference," said William Powell, one of the lawyers for the Maryland plaintiffs. "We're going to be able to get protection through the class action for everyone in the country whose baby could potentially be covered by the executive order, assuming we succeed." The ruling also sidestepped a key question over whether states that bring lawsuits might need an injunction that applies beyond their borders to address their alleged harms, directing lower courts to answer it first. The challenge to Trump's directive also included 22 states, most of them Democratic-governed, who argued that the financial and administrative burdens they would face required a nationwide block on Trump's order. George Mason University constitutional law expert Ilya Somin said the practical consequences of the ruling will depend on various issues not decided so far by the Supreme Court. "As the majority recognizes, states may be entitled to much broader relief than individuals or private groups," Somin said. New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat who helped lead the case brought in Massachusetts, disagreed with the ruling but sketched out a path forward on Friday. The ruling, Platkin said in a statement, "recognized that nationwide orders can be appropriate to protect the plaintiffs themselves from harm - which is true, and has always been true, in our case." Platkin committed to "keep challenging President Trump's flagrantly unlawful order, which strips American babies of citizenship for the first time since the Civil War" of 1861-1865. Legal experts said they expect a lot of legal maneuvering in lower courts in the weeks ahead, and the challengers still face an uphill battle. Compared to injunctions in individual cases, class actions are often harder to successfully mount. States, too, still do not know whether they have the requisite legal entitlement to sue. Trump's administration said they do not, but the court left that debate unresolved. Meanwhile, the 30-day clock is ticking. If the challengers are unsuccessful going forward, Trump's order could apply in some parts of the country, but not others. "The ruling is set to go into effect 30 days from now and leaves families in states across the country in deep uncertainty about whether their children will be born as U.S. citizens," said Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School's immigrants' rights clinic.
Indian Express
22 minutes ago
- Indian Express
File FIR against channels that showed teacher as Lashkar terrorist killed during Op Sindoor: J&K court
A local court in J&K on Saturday directed the police to register an FIR against some news channels that had aired the photograph of a local religious seminary portraying him as an LeT terrorist killed in Kotli in Pakistan occupied Kashmir during Operation Sindoor. The teacher Qari Mohammad Iqbal of Qari Mohalla was in fact killed during cross-bordering shelling by Pakistan in Poonch on May 7. India launched Operation Sindoor and hit nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 in which 26 people were killed. Referring to a report by SHO Poonch that two news channels had initially aired that Iqbal was a Pakistan terrorist, later withdrew it and issued an apology following clarification, Sub Judge/Special Mobile Magistrate, Poonch, Sjafeeq Ahmed, said, 'the subsequent apology by the news channels does not cure the mischief already caused''. 'An apology may have mitigating value at the state of sentencing, but does not preclude the statutory duty of police to register an FIR once a cognizable offence is disclosed,' the judge observed, directing the SHO of Poonch Police Station to register an FIR under Sections 353(2) (public mischief) ,356 (defamation) and 196(1) (outraging religious sentiments) of BNS, 2023, read with Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. 'While freedom of the press is a vital part of democracy protected under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, it is subject to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) on grounds such as defamation, public order, decency and morality,' the judge said. 'In the present case, the act of branding a deceased civilian teacher of a local religious seminary as a Pakistani terrorist without any verification, particularly during a period of India-Pakistan hostilities, cannot be dismissed as a mere journalistic lapse,' he said. 'Such conduct amounts to public mischief and defamation, capable of causing public outrage, disturbing social harmony, and tarnishing the reputation of the deceased and the institution he served,'' the judge said. '… In today's digital era, misinformation can spread rapidly, creating confusion and unrest,' the judge said. An application seeking registration of an FIR against the news channels was filed by advocate Sheikh Mohammad Saleem, who claimed that the news channels not only displayed his name and photograph portraying him as an LeT terrorist, but also linked him to the 2019 Pulwama terror attack. Referring to the SHO's report that the family members of the deceased did not lodge any complaint and the broadcast of the news had originated from Delhi, the judge said there is no legal bar to any person with knowledge of the offence, including a public spirited citizen, to initiate such action. The SHO's second contention about the territorial jurisdiction in view of broadcast originating from Delhi also fails in the light of Section 199 BNS which provides that when an act and its consequences occur in different places, jurisdiction arises in either location, the judge said. In the present case, the consequence of the broadcast — defamation, emotional injury and public unrest — occurred in Poonch, where the deceased resided, served and was martyred, he pointed out. Earlier, Iqbal's family members had served legal notice through advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed to both the news channels seeking damages of Rs 5 crore each.
Scroll.in
30 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
Ramachandra Guha: Indira Gandhi vs Narendra Modi – whose regime has been worse?
In early June, the senior Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh, began using the hashtag, Emergency@11, in his daily posts charging the Narendra Modi government with various errors, mistakes and crimes. This was in anticipation of what Ramesh knew would come later in the month: namely, the prime minister's invocation of the 50th anniversary of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party. Through that hashtag, Ramesh was suggesting that while Indira's Emergency lasted less than two years, Modi's period of authoritarian rule had extended for more than a decade. I myself came of age during Indira Gandhi's prime ministership, and am growing old during Narendra Modi's prime ministership. In this column, I shall venture to compare their political legacies, drawing both on personal experience and on academic research. (I shall leave the assessment of their economic and foreign policy legacies to scholars who understand those subjects better than I do.) To the historian, there are five striking similarities between these two prime ministers separated in time and by ideological affiliation. To begin with, Modi, like Indira, has used his political authority to construct a mammoth personality cult, representing himself as the sole embodiment of the party, the government, the state, the nation itself. This cult is sustained by the public exchequer and burnished by the sycophants around him. Second, like Indira, Modi has worked assiduously to undermine institutions whose independence is vital to democratic functioning. It was Indira who first spoke of a 'committed bureaucracy' and a 'committed judiciary', an idea that Modi has adopted as his own. Although unlike Indira, Modi has not declared a formal Emergency, he has shown a similar disregard for the processes of constitutional democracy. Indira intimidated the press into suppressing the truth; Modi coerces it into telling lies. The bureaucracy is even less independent than it was in the 1970s; the investigative agencies used even more often to silence political opponents. Indira's Declared Emergency unpardonable —but over in 18 months No riots or hate/killing minorities. Historic victory in 1971. Modi's Undeclared Emergency's now 12 years, reign of terror over minorities & dissenters, crushes human rights, mesmerises duffers into hate/kill/troll — Jawhar Sircar (@jawharsircar) June 25, 2025 Third, Modi, like Indira, has adopted a unilateral rather than consultative mode of decision-making, violating the spirit of the Constitution, where the prime minister is presumed to be the first among equals and is not supposed to act in the way an all-powerful American president can. All through Indira's reign, there was only one person whose advice she took seriously; first this was PN Haksar, then Sanjay Gandhi. Likewise with Modi; it is Amit Shah, and Amit Shah alone, whom he trusts. And Shah is as much a votary of non-transparent, authoritarian methods of rule as his boss. Fourth, like Indira, Modi has sought to eviscerate Indian federalism. While Indira used the blunt instrument of Article 356 to dismiss state governments run by non-Congress parties, Modi has weaponised the technically non-partisan office of the governor to weaken elected governments. The Bharatiya Janata Party under Modi and Shah has also used its infamous 'washing machine' to break Opposition parties and install BJP state governments in violation of the popular mandate. Fifth, like Indira, Modi has stoked hyper-nationalism to consolidate his rule. Like her, he has used the party, the state, and the media to claim that only he can represent what India wants and what Indians desire. The jingoism thus nurtured dismisses all criticism as motivated, as being allegedly fuelled by foreign powers. Indira went so far as to insinuate that the great patriot, Jayaprakash Narayan, was a Western agent. Now, the BJP's ecosystem accuses the leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, of being in the pay of George Soros. #sengol #emergency #modi #indira — Nala Ponnappa (@PonnappaCartoon) June 28, 2024 Such are the similarities. I now turn to the differences, of which two are of particular significance. First, despite her dictatorial ways, Indira upheld the plural idea of India encoded in the Constitution, wherein citizenship is not defined in terms of language, religion, or ethnicity. While Jawaharlal Nehru, arguably an even more principled secularist, could not secure the appointment of a single Muslim chief minister in a Congress-ruled state, Indira was able to appoint as many as four. Indira also famously refused to dismiss her Sikh bodyguards, paying for this act of principle with her life. On the other hand, Narendra Modi is a thoroughgoing majoritarian, as dogmatically devoted as any of his fellow swayamsevaks to the construction of a Hindu rashtra in which the nation's politics, cultural ethos and style of administration shall be determined by right-wing Hindus alone, and where Muslims and even Christians will be accorded second-class status. Eleven years of Modi's prime ministership have exposed his 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' for the hypocritical humbug one knew it all along to be. Of the 800-plus MPs sent by the BJP to the Lok Sabha in the elections of 2014, 2019, and 2024, not one was a Muslim. And outside Parliament, physical attacks on Indian Muslims, the bulldozing of Indian Muslim homes, the taunting and stigmatisation of Indian Muslims, even the forcible expulsion of Indian Muslims to other countries, all proceed apace, cheered on by Modi's supporters and by the section of the media memorably characterised as 'Lashkar-e-Noida'. #Emergency #Door #Indira — Nala Ponnappa (@PonnappaCartoon) June 25, 2025 Indira's belief that our country belonged equally to all Indians regardless of their religion admirably marked her out from the majoritarian Modi. On the other hand, the second major difference between them brings her discredit. For, by anointing her son, Sanjay, as her successor during the Emergency and, then, after Sanjay's death in 1980, making her other son, Rajiv, her heir, she introduced a pernicious political practice that ran contrary to the history and heritage of the Congress Party in which none of Mahatma Gandhi's children became an MP or minister after Independence, although all four had gone to prison during the freedom struggle. Indira's conversion of the country's oldest political party into a family firm encouraged leaders of other parties to do likewise. The Shiv Sena, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Akalis, and the Trinamool Congress once stood for regional pride; now, that often takes second place to the perpetuation of the rule of the Thackerays, the Karunanidhis, the Badals, and the Banerjees, respectively. Likewise, the SP and the RJD stand for the continuation of family rule rather than for socialist ideology. Modi's parents were not in politics, and he has no children. This, in electoral terms, constitutes a colossal (and continuing) advantage he holds over his putative prime ministerial rival, whose elevated status in the Congress Party is owed entirely to the fact that he is the son of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi and the grandson of Indira Gandhi. The contrast between Modi the self-made politician and Rahul the entitled dynast contributed in good measure to the BJP's victory in the last three general elections, and it may yet help them in the next. More generally, the national dominance of the BJP is enabled by the dynastic politics of the major parties opposed to them. This is a brutal fact that too many brave and well-meaning opponents of Hindu majoritarianism are unable or unwilling to acknowledge. Dynastic politics is one legacy of the Emergency that continues to exercise a baleful influence on Indian democracy in the present. Of all the prime ministers we have had since Independence, Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi have been the two with instinctively authoritarian instincts. Whose regime has been worse? When reckoned in terms of freedom of expression, we are slightly better placed now, given the existence of a few independent websites and regional newspapers which tell the truth as it should be told. Likewise, there is a greater space for political opposition, principally because while in the Emergency all but one state government was controlled by the Congress, now more than half-a-dozen states are in the hands of parties strongly opposed to the BJP. On the other hand, since May 2014, our public institutions have been deeply and perhaps irreversibly damaged by excessive political interference. The bureaucracy and the diplomatic corps are largely compromised; the higher judiciary, only slightly less so. The tax authorities and the regulatory agencies are more 'committed' to their political bosses than ever before; so, arguably, is the Election Commission. Finally, and most worryingly, under Modi's watch the poison of religious bigotry has spread far, deep, and wide. This bigotry is increasingly manifest in everyday life on the ground, and in the speech and conduct of senior cabinet ministers (including the home minister and, on occasion, the prime minister), and of chief ministers of the BJP (notably those of Uttar Pradesh and Assam). The armed forces, once so proudly secular and non-sectarian, are increasingly asked to demonstrate a public allegiance to Hinduism and Hindu domination. This fusion of majoritarianism with authoritarianism constitutes the most damaging aspect of Narendra Modi's style of governance, which, even after he has finally demitted office, may take decades to undo and reverse.
