The Evening Wrap: Supreme Court panel to probe PM Modi security breach

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will form a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to conduct a time-bound and independent inquiry into the circumstances that led to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy being stuck for several minutes on a flyover in Punjab on January 5. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana indicated that ongoing inquiries by both the Punjab and Centre would have to stop for the time being. The top court said its committee will submit a report within a specified time after examining the records on the security arrangements, which have already been seized by the Registrar General of Punjab and Haryana High Court as per its orders on January 7. The court indicated that the High Court’s Registrar-General, along with the officers who helped him seize and protect the documents, who include the DGP, Chandigarh, and IG, National Investigation Agency, would be part of the committee. There would be another member in the committee. Punjab has suggested its Additional DGP (Security) as an alternative. Punajb’s Advocate-General D.S. Patwalia, at the start of the hearing, said the State feared it would not get a fair hearing. It said show cause notices had already been issued by the Centre to its officers, mentioning disciplinary action against them for the security lapse concerning the PM’s convoy on January 5. Patwalia said all the State wanted from the Supreme Court was an opportunity for a fair hearing before a neutral committee. “If I am guilty, please hang me and my officers, but give me a fair hearing,” Patwalia requested the court. He said the Punjab government gave the issue of the Prime Minister’s security the utmost importance and wanted a full and comprehensive inquiry into any security breach that may have happened on January 5. The Advocate-General, however, said the show cause notices indicated that the Centre already considered Punjab’s police officers prima facie guilty of violating their obligations towards the Prime Minister’s security. This had been arrived at without any evidence or records, all of which had been already seized on the orders of the Supreme Court, Mr. Patwalia indicated. Mehta countered that the show cause notices were issued before the top court hearing on January 7. He said there had been a “complete intelligence failure” on the part of the State. Besides, he submitted, it was an admitted fact that there had been a security lapse in violation of the Special Protection Group Act and the ‘Blue Book’. “When there is a complete breach, there is no question of hearing. Officers responsible are served with notice. There is an admitted fact of breakage. This is a rarest of rare case. It cannot brook any delay,” Mehta emphasised. The court asked the Centre why the judiciary had been asked to intervene if the government had “presumed everything” already. “The impression you give is that you have presumed everything... Then why should the court go into all this?” the Bench asked. At one point, Justice Surya Kant said the show cause notices seemed “self-contradictory.” Justice Kant said there may have been some lapse, but who was responsible for that had to be found on the basis of the facts. “If you want to take disciplinary action, what is left for this court to do?” the CJI asked the Centre, before conveying the decision to form the inquiry panel led by a former Supreme Court judge. The final order is likely to be published later in the day. Supreme Court agrees to urgently hear plea on hate speeches at Haridwar ‘Dharam Sansad’ The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to urgently hear a petition seeking the arrest and trial of people who made hate speeches, inciting violence towards Muslims, at the Haridwar Dharm Sansad conclave. Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana assured senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the petition filed by former High Court judge and senior advocate Anjana Prakash would be heard without delay. Sibal made an oral mentioning of the petition before the Bench on Monday. “We are living in different times where slogans in the country have changed from Satyamev Jayate to Shashtramev Jayate,” Sibal submitted in court. The CJI asked whether any enquiry into the case was already on. “The FIRs have been filed, no arrests have been done. This is in the State of Uttarakhand. No action will be taken without the intervention of Your Lordships,” Sibal submitted. “We will look into this,” Chief Justice Ramana said. The hate speeches were allegedly delivered between December 17 and 19, 2021, in Haridwar by Yati Narsinghanand and in Delhi by ‘Hindu Yuva Vahini’. The petition represented by Sibal has sought an independent, credible and impartial probe by a special investigation team into the hate speeches against the Muslim community. MHA applies for another extension to frame CAA rules The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought another extension from parliamentary committees in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha to frame the rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, a senior government official said on Monday. The Hindu reported on January 10 that the third and the latest extension expired on January 9 but the Ministry did not notify the rules. An official in the Rajya Sabha confirmed that the Ministry had made a request but no decision had been taken yet to grant the extension as the Chairman of the Committee on Subordinate Legislation, Partap Singh Bajwa was travelling due to Punjab elections. Without the rules being framed, the Act cannot be implemented. The committee in the Lok Sabha was understood to have granted the extension in November last, an official said. The committee’s chairman in the Lok Sabha is YSR Congres’s Balashowry Vallabbhaneni. The MHA has to make separate requests to the two committees. Earlier, it had sought time till April 9, 2021, and then July 9, 2021 from the committees to notify the rules, which are to be published in the Gazette of India. As per the Manual on Parliamentary Work, in case the Ministries/Departments are not able to frame the rules within the prescribed period of six months after a legislation is passed, “they should seek extension of time from the Committee on Subordinate Legislation stating reasons for such extension” which cannot be more than three months at a time. However, last time the extension was granted for six months. The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, and it received assent from the President on December 12. In January, 2020, the Ministry notified that the Act will come into force from January 10, 2020. The CAA provides citizenship on the basis of religion to six undocumented non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014. It exempts the members of the six communities from any criminal case under Foreigners Act, 1946 and Passport Act, 1920 if they entered India before December 31, 2014. Goa Assembly elections 2022: Jolt to Goa BJP as Minister Michael Lobo resigns In a setback to the Goa BJP ahead of Assembly elections, Calangute MLA and Minister Michael Lobo — the party’s most prominent Catholic face — on Monday quit the party and resigned from his legislative and ministerial posts. According to sources, the Minister for Ports and Waste Management is likely to join the Congress. A two-time legislator from Calangute, Lobo has been vocal in his criticism of the BJP led by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for some time now. Speaking after resigning from his primary membership of the party, he said he would never have quit had the late Manohar Parrikar (former Chief Minister) been alive. He alleged that the current BJP leadership was sidelining grassroots loyalists like himself while giving priority to ‘outsiders’ who had been recently inducted into the party fold. Parrikar, he stated, was a very tall leader. Despite differences, the late Chief Minister had always been open to ideas and respected the thoughts of those who expressed different opinions. “On the one hand, I feel very sad for leaving a party with which I have been associated for the last 15 years… If the BJP does not want a worker like me, there is no point in me staying there to be humiliated. No one [in the current BJP leadership] seems bothered with the issues I wish to highlight. So, rather than the BJP throwing me out, it is best that I exit gracefully,” he observed. He was upset with the way in which he and his followers were being treated by the current leadership, he noted. In a thinly-veiled response to Lobo’s resignation, Sawant said, “A few defections, to fulfill the agenda of greed and personal interests, cannot deter the BJP’s agenda of good governance.” Lobo becomes the third minority MLA and the first BJP Minister to quit ahead of polls. According to observers, Lobo’s exit is in line with the BJP’s stratagem in this election of consolidating the Hindu majority bloc while sidelining the Catholic Christians. Last month, two minority BJP MLAs – Alina Saldanha and Carlos Almeida – quit the party to respectively join the AAP and the Congress. Saldanha, MLA from Cortalim who had served as a Minister in the Parrikar-led Cabinet, resigned citing “loss of principles” within the present party and criticising it for pursuing “destructive, anti-people policies” and creating “bedlam” in the State. Almeida, a two-time MLA from Vasco da Gama, had been unhappy after his suggestion to the party’s top brass to continue Parrikar’s policy of giving adequate representation to minorities was not taken seriously. According to an analyst, Lobo’s exit could pose a problem for the BJP’s chances in the Bardez sub-district, where the party has four MLAs. “Besides his own constituency of Calangute, Lobo also has considerable influence in the neighbouring areas of Saligao, Siolim and Mapusa,” he said. On Sunday, Lobo was seen campaigning for Kedar Naik, probable Congress candidate from Saligaon. Last month, his wife, Delilah Lobo, had kick-started her own campaign in the Siolim constituency (in north Goa) even as the BJP was considering former Minister Dayanand Mandrekar as its candidate for that seat. Novak Djokovic wins court case, Australian judge orders release from detention An Australian judge has reinstated tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa, which was cancelled after his arrival last week because he is unvaccinated. Circuit Court Judge Anthony Kelly also ordered the government on January 10 to release Djokovic from Melbourne hotel quarantine within 30 minutes of his decision. Government lawyer Christopher Tran told the judge after the ruling that the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alex Hawke, “will consider whether to exercise a personal power of cancellation”. That would mean mean Djokovic could again face deportation and could miss the Australian Open, which starts on Jan. 17. The Australian government cancelled 34-year-old Djokovic’s visa shortly after he arrived in Melbourne late on Wednesday to play in the Australian Open because officials decided he didn’t meet the criteria for an exemption to an entry requirement that all non-citizens be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Djokovic, who court documents say is unvaccinated, argued he did not need proof of vaccination because he had evidence that he had been infected with the coronavirus last month. Australian medical authorities have ruled that a temporary exemption for the vaccination rule can be provided to people who have been infected with COVID-19 within six months. Circuit Court Judge Anthony Kelly noted that Djokovic had provided officials at Melbourne’s airport with a medical exemption given him by Tennis Australia, which is organising the tournament that starts on January 17, and two medical panels. “The point I’m somewhat agitated about is what more could this man have done?” Judge Kelly asked Djokovic’s lawyer, Nick Wood. Nick Wood agreed with the Judge that Djokovic could not have done more. Transcripts of Djokovic’s interview with Border Force officials and his own affidavit revealed a “repeated appeal to the officers with which he was dealing that to his understanding, uncontradicted, he had done absolutely everything that he understood was required in order for him to enter Australia,” Nick Wood said. Djokovic has been under guard in hotel quarantine in Melbourne since Thursday, when his visa was cancelled. But the judge ordered that the world No. 1-ranked tennis player be released from hotel quarantine during his court hearing. It was not clear where Djokovic relocated to during his hearing. He did not appear on screen in the first hours of the virtual hearing. Djokovic’s lawyers submitted 11 grounds for appeal against his visa cancellation. The lawyers described the cancellation as “seriously illogical”, irrational and legally unreasonable. Lawyers for Home Affairs Minister Karen Andres said in their submission that if the judge ruled in Djokovic’s favour, officials might cancel his visa a second time. They said the vaccination requirement could only be deferred for arriving travelers who have had a COVID-19 infection if their illness was acute. “There is no suggestion that the applicant [Djokovic] had ‘acute major medical illness’ in December” when he tested positive, the written submission said. The virtual hearing crashed several times because of an overwhelming number of people from around the world trying to watch the proceedings. Djokovic is a nine-time Australian Open champion. He has 20 Grand Slam singles titles, a men’s record he shares with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,57,59,561 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,84,027. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 10 JANUARY 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Supreme Court panel to probe PM Modi security breach The [Supreme Court on Monday said it will form a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge]( to conduct a time-bound and independent inquiry into the circumstances that led to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy being stuck for several minutes on a flyover in Punjab on January 5. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana indicated that ongoing inquiries by both the Punjab and Centre would have to stop for the time being. The top court said its committee will submit a report within a specified time after examining the records on the security arrangements, which have already been seized by the Registrar General of Punjab and Haryana High Court as per its orders on January 7. [A view of the Supreme Court of India. File]  The court indicated that the High Court’s Registrar-General, along with the officers who helped him seize and protect the documents, who include the DGP, Chandigarh, and IG, National Investigation Agency, would be part of the committee. There would be another member in the committee. Punjab has suggested its Additional DGP (Security) as an alternative. Punajb’s Advocate-General D.S. Patwalia, at the start of the hearing, said the State feared it would not get a fair hearing. It said show cause notices had already been issued by the Centre to its officers, mentioning disciplinary action against them for the security lapse concerning the PM’s convoy on January 5. Patwalia said all the State wanted from the Supreme Court was an opportunity for a fair hearing before a neutral committee. “If I am guilty, please hang me and my officers, but give me a fair hearing,” Patwalia requested the court. He said the Punjab government gave the issue of the Prime Minister’s security the utmost importance and wanted a full and comprehensive inquiry into any security breach that may have happened on January 5. The Advocate-General, however, said the show cause notices indicated that the Centre already considered Punjab’s police officers prima facie guilty of violating their obligations towards the Prime Minister’s security. This had been arrived at without any evidence or records, all of which had been already seized on the orders of the Supreme Court, Mr. Patwalia indicated. Mehta countered that the show cause notices were issued before the top court hearing on January 7. He said there had been a “complete intelligence failure” on the part of the State. Besides, he submitted, it was an admitted fact that there had been a security lapse in violation of the Special Protection Group Act and the ‘Blue Book’. “When there is a complete breach, there is no question of hearing. Officers responsible are served with notice. There is an admitted fact of breakage. This is a rarest of rare case. It cannot brook any delay,” Mehta emphasised. The court asked the Centre why the judiciary had been asked to intervene if the government had “presumed everything” already. “The impression you give is that you have presumed everything... Then why should the court go into all this?” the Bench asked. At one point, Justice Surya Kant said the show cause notices seemed “self-contradictory.” Justice Kant said there may have been some lapse, but who was responsible for that had to be found on the basis of the facts. “If you want to take disciplinary action, what is left for this court to do?” the CJI asked the Centre, before conveying the decision to form the inquiry panel led by a former Supreme Court judge. The final order is likely to be published later in the day. [underlineimg] Supreme Court agrees to urgently hear plea on hate speeches at Haridwar ‘Dharam Sansad’ The [Supreme Court on Monday agreed to urgently hear a petition seeking the arrest and trial of people]( who made hate speeches, inciting violence towards Muslims, at the Haridwar Dharm Sansad conclave. Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana assured senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the petition filed by former High Court judge and senior advocate Anjana Prakash would be heard without delay. Sibal made an oral mentioning of the petition before the Bench on Monday. “We are living in different times where slogans in the country have changed from Satyamev Jayate to Shashtramev Jayate,” Sibal submitted in court. The CJI asked whether any enquiry into the case was already on. “The FIRs have been filed, no arrests have been done. This is in the State of Uttarakhand. No action will be taken without the intervention of Your Lordships,” Sibal submitted. “We will look into this,” Chief Justice Ramana said. The hate speeches were allegedly delivered between December 17 and 19, 2021, in Haridwar by Yati Narsinghanand and in Delhi by ‘Hindu Yuva Vahini’. The petition represented by Sibal has sought an independent, credible and impartial probe by a special investigation team into the hate speeches against the Muslim community. [underlineimg] MHA applies for another extension to frame CAA rules The [Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought another extension from parliamentary committees]( in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha to frame the rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, a senior government official said on Monday. The Hindu reported on January 10 that the third and the latest extension expired on January 9 but the Ministry did not notify the rules. An official in the Rajya Sabha confirmed that the Ministry had made a request but no decision had been taken yet to grant the extension as the Chairman of the Committee on Subordinate Legislation, Partap Singh Bajwa was travelling due to Punjab elections. Without the rules being framed, the Act cannot be implemented. The committee in the Lok Sabha was understood to have granted the extension in November last, an official said. The committee’s chairman in the Lok Sabha is YSR Congres’s Balashowry Vallabbhaneni. The MHA has to make separate requests to the two committees. Earlier, it had sought time till April 9, 2021, and then July 9, 2021 from the committees to notify the rules, which are to be published in the Gazette of India. As per the Manual on Parliamentary Work, in case the Ministries/Departments are not able to frame the rules within the prescribed period of six months after a legislation is passed, “they should seek extension of time from the Committee on Subordinate Legislation stating reasons for such extension” which cannot be more than three months at a time. However, last time the extension was granted for six months. The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, and it received assent from the President on December 12. In January, 2020, the Ministry notified that the Act will come into force from January 10, 2020. The CAA provides citizenship on the basis of religion to six undocumented non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014. It exempts the members of the six communities from any criminal case under Foreigners Act, 1946 and Passport Act, 1920 if they entered India before December 31, 2014. [underlineimg] Goa Assembly elections 2022: Jolt to Goa BJP as Minister Michael Lobo resigns In a setback to the [Goa BJP ahead of Assembly elections, Calangute MLA and Minister Michael Lobo]( — the party’s most prominent Catholic face — on Monday quit the party and resigned from his legislative and ministerial posts. According to sources, the Minister for Ports and Waste Management is likely to join the Congress. A two-time legislator from Calangute, Lobo has been vocal in his criticism of the BJP led by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for some time now. Speaking after resigning from his primary membership of the party, he said he would never have quit had the late Manohar Parrikar (former Chief Minister) been alive. He alleged that the current BJP leadership was sidelining grassroots loyalists like himself while giving priority to ‘outsiders’ who had been recently inducted into the party fold. [Michael Lobo claimed that people were unhappy with the ruling BJP in the coastal State. File image.]  Parrikar, he stated, was a very tall leader. Despite differences, the late Chief Minister had always been open to ideas and respected the thoughts of those who expressed different opinions. “On the one hand, I feel very sad for leaving a party with which I have been associated for the last 15 years… If the BJP does not want a worker like me, there is no point in me staying there to be humiliated. No one [in the current BJP leadership] seems bothered with the issues I wish to highlight. So, rather than the BJP throwing me out, it is best that I exit gracefully,” he observed. He was upset with the way in which he and his followers were being treated by the current leadership, he noted. In a thinly-veiled response to Lobo’s resignation, Sawant said, “A few defections, to fulfill the agenda of greed and personal interests, cannot deter the BJP’s agenda of good governance.” Lobo becomes the third minority MLA and the first BJP Minister to quit ahead of polls. According to observers, Lobo’s exit is in line with the BJP’s stratagem in this election of consolidating the Hindu majority bloc while sidelining the Catholic Christians. Last month, two minority BJP MLAs – Alina Saldanha and Carlos Almeida – quit the party to respectively join the AAP and the Congress. Saldanha, MLA from Cortalim who had served as a Minister in the Parrikar-led Cabinet, resigned citing “loss of principles” within the present party and criticising it for pursuing “destructive, anti-people policies” and creating “bedlam” in the State. Almeida, a two-time MLA from Vasco da Gama, had been unhappy after his suggestion to the party’s top brass to continue Parrikar’s policy of giving adequate representation to minorities was not taken seriously. According to an analyst, Lobo’s exit could pose a problem for the BJP’s chances in the Bardez sub-district, where the party has four MLAs. “Besides his own constituency of Calangute, Lobo also has considerable influence in the neighbouring areas of Saligao, Siolim and Mapusa,” he said. On Sunday, Lobo was seen campaigning for Kedar Naik, probable Congress candidate from Saligaon. Last month, his wife, Delilah Lobo, had kick-started her own campaign in the Siolim constituency (in north Goa) even as the BJP was considering former Minister Dayanand Mandrekar as its candidate for that seat. [underlineimg] Novak Djokovic wins court case, Australian judge orders release from detention An [Australian judge has reinstated tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa]( which was cancelled after his arrival last week because he is unvaccinated. Circuit Court Judge Anthony Kelly also ordered the government on January 10 to release Djokovic from Melbourne hotel quarantine within 30 minutes of his decision. Government lawyer Christopher Tran told the judge after the ruling that the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alex Hawke, “will consider whether to exercise a personal power of cancellation”. That would mean mean Djokovic could again face deportation and could miss the Australian Open, which starts on Jan. 17. The Australian government cancelled 34-year-old Djokovic’s visa shortly after he arrived in Melbourne late on Wednesday to play in the Australian Open because officials decided he didn’t meet the criteria for an exemption to an entry requirement that all non-citizens be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Djokovic, who court documents say is unvaccinated, argued he did not need proof of vaccination because he had evidence that he had been infected with the coronavirus last month. Australian medical authorities have ruled that a temporary exemption for the vaccination rule can be provided to people who have been infected with COVID-19 within six months. Circuit Court Judge Anthony Kelly noted that Djokovic had provided officials at Melbourne’s airport with a medical exemption given him by Tennis Australia, which is organising the tournament that starts on January 17, and two medical panels. “The point I’m somewhat agitated about is what more could this man have done?” Judge Kelly asked Djokovic’s lawyer, Nick Wood. Nick Wood agreed with the Judge that Djokovic could not have done more. Transcripts of Djokovic’s interview with Border Force officials and his own affidavit revealed a “repeated appeal to the officers with which he was dealing that to his understanding, uncontradicted, he had done absolutely everything that he understood was required in order for him to enter Australia,” Nick Wood said. Djokovic has been under guard in hotel quarantine in Melbourne since Thursday, when his visa was cancelled. But the judge ordered that the world No. 1-ranked tennis player be released from hotel quarantine during his court hearing. It was not clear where Djokovic relocated to during his hearing. He did not appear on screen in the first hours of the virtual hearing. Djokovic’s lawyers submitted 11 grounds for appeal against his visa cancellation. The lawyers described the cancellation as “seriously illogical”, irrational and legally unreasonable. Lawyers for Home Affairs Minister Karen Andres said in their submission that if the judge ruled in Djokovic’s favour, officials might cancel his visa a second time. They said the vaccination requirement could only be deferred for arriving travelers who have had a COVID-19 infection if their illness was acute. “There is no suggestion that the applicant [Djokovic] had ‘acute major medical illness’ in December” when he tested positive, the written submission said. The virtual hearing crashed several times because of an overwhelming number of people from around the world trying to watch the proceedings. Djokovic is a nine-time Australian Open champion. He has 20 Grand Slam singles titles, a men’s record he shares with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. [underlineimg] Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,57,59,561 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,84,027. 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