The Evening Wrap: Electoral bonds promote ‘clean money’ donations to political parties, AG tells SC

Attorney General of India R. Venkataramani has backed the government’s electoral bonds scheme in the Supreme Court, extolling it as a measure which promotes contribution of “clean money” to political parties. Venkataramani said the scheme ensured that “tax obligations” were met. Besides, the Attorney General argued that citizens could not have a “general right to know anything and everything without being subjected to reasonable restrictions [Article 19(2)]”. The top law officer’s submissions comes shortly before a Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud is scheduled on October 31 to hear petitions which claim the electoral bonds scheme legalises the anonymous flow of funds to party coffers. Petitioners have argued that there is a complete blackout of the identities of donors, Indian or foreign, and the individual amounts they have donated to political parties. They said the scheme promoted corruption, favouritism and even criminalisation of politics in a democracy. But Venkataramani said the right to know should be to serve “specific ends” and not for the benefit of “too over-broad” an idea like the “general health of democracy”. He said, unlike the right to know the criminal antecedents of political candidates, petitioners could not claim a “general right to know anything and everything for undefined ends” in the electoral bonds scheme. “The right to know the criminal antecedents of a candidate which can be of utility and relevance to the choice of a candidate is neither comparable to the case on hand nor can there be,” the Attorney General said. Venkataramani said the scheme was a step towards the regulation of political donations. “The scheme under challenge is regulatory within the scope of Article 19(2) of the Constitution. It facilitates transfer of funds to political parties of one’s choice through banking channels instead of direct inter-party transfer and ensures transfer by requiring tax abidance. In this way, it is a departure from prevalent modes of contributions which were not regulated,” Venkataramani distinguished. The Attorney General said the scheme “extends the benefit of confidentiality to the contributor” and did not violate any “existing rights”. “This is also not the case for court-driven guidelines… These are highly debatable matters and cannot be subjected to simplistic statements without parliamentary debates… Judicial review is not about scanning state policies for the purposes of suggesting better or different prescriptions,” the four-page written submissions contended. Supreme Court puts Maharashtra Speaker on a deadline to decide defection pleas against breakaway Shiv Sena, NCP lawmakers The Supreme Court on October 30 directed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide disqualification petitions filed under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution against the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde camp in the Shiv Sena dispute by December 31, 2023. A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud ordered the Speaker, in his capacity as a tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, to decide the disqualification petitions against the breakaway faction headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) dispute by January 31, 2024. The Supreme Court on October 30 directed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide disqualification petitions filed under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution against the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde camp in the Shiv Sena dispute by December 31, 2023. A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud ordered the Speaker, in his capacity as a tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, to decide the disqualification petitions against the breakaway faction headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) dispute by January 31, 2024. “So we are giving the Speaker two months to decide the disqualification petitions in the Shiv Sena case and a month more in the Nationalist Congress Party case. That is fair. It is reasonable time,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed the lawyers on both sides. The Chief Justice said the need to bind the Speaker to deadlines had come after giving him repeated opportunities to conclude the disqualification proceedings. The court took matters into its hands after the Secretary, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Secretariat, filed an affidavit that the Speaker could only decide by February 29, 2024. “We do not want this to creep into the next election schedule… The proceedings cannot wrangle on until the next elections are announced. This has to come to an end within a fixed date,” Chief Justice Chandrachud responded firmly to the affidavit during the hearing. He noted that a Constitution Bench had directed the Speaker in May to conclude and pronounce the final orders in the Shiv Sena case. “Our Constitution Bench judgment was in May 2023. The incident [Shiv Sena split] happened in 2022,” Chief Justice Chandrachud pointed out the delay. There are 34 disqualification petitions pending before the Speaker in the Shiv Sena case and nine in the NCP matter. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the court to give the Speaker time till January 31, 2023, taking into account the intervening Deepavali holidays and the Assembly’s shift to Nagpur for the 15-day Winter Session in December. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A.M. Singhvi, appearing for the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar loyalist camps which were part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government overthrown by the Eknath Shinde-BJP alliance in the State, said any ambiguity in the deadline or any further delay would “subvert the anti-defection proceedings”. Singhvi said the court ought to take into consideration the past months the Speaker had to decide the case. Chief Justice Chandrachud made it clear in the order that “procedural wranglings” should not delay the Tenth Schedule hearings in both cases. In an earlier hearing in October, the court had slammed Narwekar for reducing the anti-defection proceedings to a “charade”, saying that he cannot “merrily” defer hearings and has to decide before the next elections. The Speaker had disregarded the court’s order on September 18 to prepare a time-schedule to complete the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the Shinde camp. The Bench had at the time given Mr. Narwekar a week to prepare the timeline and file it before the Supreme Court. Delhi excise policy scam | Supreme Court dismisses bail pleas of ex-Deputy CM Sisodia in corruption, money-laundering cases The Supreme Court on October 30 dismissed a bail plea filed by former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who is facing money laundering charges in the liquor policy ‘scam’ case. A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said a “transfer of ₹338 crore has been tentatively established” as a reason for denying bail. Justice Khanna said the prosecution had assured the court that the trial would be concluded in six to eight months. The Supreme Court directed that if however, the trial proceeded “sloppily”, Sisodia, represented by senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, was at liberty to file a bail application. The court had reserved the case for verdict on October 17. During the hearings, the court was seen asking the Enforcement Directorate (ED) how an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) would be made out in the absence of a bribery charge against Sisodia. In an earlier hearing, the court had orally observed that the ED had to establish an unbroken chain of evidence linking Sisodia with the liquor lobby. “You have to establish a chain. The money has to flow from the liquor lobby to the person. We know it is difficult to establish the chain as everything is done undercover… but that is where your competence lies,” Justice Khanna had told Raju. Justice Khanna had noted that a policy may be changed to generate money following pressure from a particular lobby, but provisions of the PMLA would be attracted only after the proceeds of a crime, in this case bribery, were given or paid. Sisodia was arrested on February 26 for alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 following several rounds of questioning. In March, a trial court had dismissed Sisodia’s bail plea saying he was prima facie the “architect” of the alleged scam and had played the “most important and vital role” in the criminal conspiracy related to alleged payment of advance kickbacks of nearly ₹100 crore meant for him and his colleagues in the Delhi government. Israel tanks enter Gaza City fringes as army ramps up assault Israeli tanks advanced into the fringes of Gaza City on October 30, witnesses said, as it ramped up its war on Hamas, saying it killed dozens of militants in hundreds of strikes. “We have hit more than 600 targets in the past 24 hours,” a military spokesperson told AFP, up from 450 the previous day, with Hamas militants also reporting “heavy fighting” in northern Gaza. “Dozens” of tanks entered Zaytun district on the southern fringes of Gaza City, cutting a key road from the north to the south of the war-torn Palestinian territory, witnesses told AFP. “They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it,” said one resident who didn’t give his name, but said they were present on two sections of the road. AFP’s Gaza journalists are not inside Gaza City, following Israeli warnings that the territory’s northern areas must be considered a war zone. Located on Gaza City’s southern edge, Zaytun — which normally has a population of over 130,000 — is the city’s largest district, but the area where the tanks were spotted is relatively sparsely populated. Dozens of buildings west of the Salahedin road have already been demolished by Israeli strikes in recent days. Israeli strikes have also razed at least 10 high-rise buildings in Tal al-Hawwa, a district in the city’s southwest, and damaged a Turkish-funded cancer treatment hospital in the same area, its director Sobhi Skeik told AFP. Israel has on several occasions warned the 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to head south to avoid its military strikes as it pushes ahead with a mission to “destroy” the territory’s Hamas rulers. Although huge numbers have left in recent weeks, tens of thousands more are believed to be still in the zone. Since Friday, Israeli forces have stepped up their ground offensive as part of the military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks that officials say killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, with another 239 people taken hostage. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 8,000 people, mainly civilians, mostly civilians and more than half of them children, have since been killed in Israeli air and ground strikes. The Israeli army said troops killed “dozens” of militants in overnight clashes, saying they had “barricaded themselves inside buildings and tunnels and attempted to attack the troops”. In one incident, a fighter jet targeted a building “with over 20 Hamas terrorist operatives inside,” while another fighter jet was guided to an anti-tank missile launching post in the area of Al-Azhar University, it said. The university is in the heart of Gaza City. It also said it hit “weapons depots, dozens of anti-tank missile launching positions, as well as hideouts and staging grounds used by the Hamas terrorist organisation”. We have lost our sense of humour in public life, CJI observes in Raghav Chadha ‘indefinite suspension’ case hearing Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Monday observed on the death of sense of humour in public life while questioning the “indefinite suspension” slapped on Raghav Chadha, Rajya Sabha member from the Aam Aadmi Party, for his casual quip to the media. A reason for suspending Chadha for breach of privilege was his remark at a press conference that he had sent “birthday invitation cards” to other members to join a select committee for the GNCTD (Amendment) Bill 2023. Chadha was accused of inviting these members without taking their consent. “That we have lost our sense of humour in public life is a separate thing altogether... What he obviously meant by ‘sending birthday invitation cards’ is that the members could either come or not come... Does that really, really reduce the dignity of the House and cause a breach of privilege?” the Chief Justice asked Attorney-General R. Venkataramani. Venkataramani indicated that such remarks did lower the process of the House. “Mr. Venkataramani would not have done it, but…,” Chief Justice Chandrachud intervened. “If Mr. Venkataramani could not have done it, Mr. Raghav Chadha also cannot do it,” the top government law officer interjected. But the Chief Justice, heading a three-judge Bench, said that was certainly not the test for invoking breach of privilege. “Exclusion of members of the Opposition from the House is a very serious matter. He (Chadha) is a representative of a constituency. He is a representative of a viewpoint which may not be consistent with the views of the government. Care must be taken not to exclude such voices from the Parliament,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed. The court said slapping an indefinite suspension on a member was a “very serious matter for us as a constitutional court”. “The Parliament must have voices from across the spectrum, and that is why this indefinite suspension is a matter of concern,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said. The court asked whether the Rajya Sabha Chairman would accept if Chadha was “ready and willing” to apologise. Venkataramani said the Rajya Sabha Chairperson had suspended Chadha pending the inquiry by the Privileges Committee following a resolution passed by the House itself. At one point, the CJI questioned the source of power to suspend an MP indefinitely. The Chief Justice pointed out that Chadha even ran the risk of not attending the Winter Session due shortly. The Chief Justice prima facie agreed with Chadha, represented by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and advocate Shadan Farasat, that Rules 256 and 266 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (‘Rajya Sabha Rules’) mandated suspension only till the end of the session. “The power to suspend is meant only to be used as a shield and not as a sword, i.e. it cannot be penal. The power to suspend indefinitely is dangerously open to excess and abuse,” Chadha’s petition submitted. Chadha was suspended on August 11, the last day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, for “gross violation of rule, misconduct, defiant attitude and contemptuous conduct”. In Brief: Russian President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of top security and law enforcement officials on October 30, the day after a mob stormed the airport in the region of Dagestan after a plane from the Israeli city of Tel Aviv landed there. Hundreds of angry men rushed onto the tarmac of the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region, late on October 29, looking for Israeli passengers, according to Russian news reports. Dagestan’s Ministry of Health said more than 20 people were injured, with two in critical condition. It said the injured included police officers and civilians. The local Interior Ministry said 60 people were detained in the unrest. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 30 October 2023 [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]( Attorney General tells Supreme Court that electoral bonds promote ‘clean money’ donations to political parties [Attorney General of India R. Venkataramani has backed the government’s electoral bonds scheme in the Supreme Court, extolling it as a measure which promotes contribution of “clean money” to political parties.]( Venkataramani said the scheme ensured that “tax obligations” were met. Besides, the Attorney General argued that citizens could not have a “general right to know anything and everything without being subjected to reasonable restrictions [Article 19(2)]”. The top law officer’s submissions comes shortly before a Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud is scheduled on October 31 to hear petitions which claim the electoral bonds scheme legalises the anonymous flow of funds to party coffers. Petitioners have argued that there is a complete blackout of the identities of donors, Indian or foreign, and the individual amounts they have donated to political parties. They said the scheme promoted corruption, favouritism and even criminalisation of politics in a democracy. But Venkataramani said the right to know should be to serve “specific ends” and not for the benefit of “too over-broad” an idea like the “general health of democracy”. He said, unlike the right to know the criminal antecedents of political candidates, petitioners could not claim a “general right to know anything and everything for undefined ends” in the electoral bonds scheme. “The right to know the criminal antecedents of a candidate which can be of utility and relevance to the choice of a candidate is neither comparable to the case on hand nor can there be,” the Attorney General said. Venkataramani said the scheme was a step towards the regulation of political donations. “The scheme under challenge is regulatory within the scope of Article 19(2) of the Constitution. It facilitates transfer of funds to political parties of one’s choice through banking channels instead of direct inter-party transfer and ensures transfer by requiring tax abidance. In this way, it is a departure from prevalent modes of contributions which were not regulated,” Venkataramani distinguished. The Attorney General said the scheme “extends the benefit of confidentiality to the contributor” and did not violate any “existing rights”. “This is also not the case for court-driven guidelines… These are highly debatable matters and cannot be subjected to simplistic statements without parliamentary debates… Judicial review is not about scanning state policies for the purposes of suggesting better or different prescriptions,” the four-page written submissions contended. Supreme Court puts Maharashtra Speaker on a deadline to decide defection pleas against breakaway Shiv Sena, NCP lawmakers [The Supreme Court on October 30 directed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide disqualification petitions filed under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution against the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde camp in the Shiv Sena dispute by December 31, 2023.]( A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud ordered the Speaker, in his capacity as a tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, to decide the disqualification petitions against the breakaway faction headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) dispute by January 31, 2024. The Supreme Court on October 30 directed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide disqualification petitions filed under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution against the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde camp in the Shiv Sena dispute by December 31, 2023. A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud ordered the Speaker, in his capacity as a tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, to decide the disqualification petitions against the breakaway faction headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) dispute by January 31, 2024. “So we are giving the Speaker two months to decide the disqualification petitions in the Shiv Sena case and a month more in the Nationalist Congress Party case. That is fair. It is reasonable time,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed the lawyers on both sides. The Chief Justice said the need to bind the Speaker to deadlines had come after giving him repeated opportunities to conclude the disqualification proceedings. The court took matters into its hands after the Secretary, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Secretariat, filed an affidavit that the Speaker could only decide by February 29, 2024. “We do not want this to creep into the next election schedule… The proceedings cannot wrangle on until the next elections are announced. This has to come to an end within a fixed date,” Chief Justice Chandrachud responded firmly to the affidavit during the hearing. He noted that a Constitution Bench had directed the Speaker in May to conclude and pronounce the final orders in the Shiv Sena case. “Our Constitution Bench judgment was in May 2023. The incident [Shiv Sena split] happened in 2022,” Chief Justice Chandrachud pointed out the delay. There are 34 disqualification petitions pending before the Speaker in the Shiv Sena case and nine in the NCP matter. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the court to give the Speaker time till January 31, 2023, taking into account the intervening Deepavali holidays and the Assembly’s shift to Nagpur for the 15-day Winter Session in December. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A.M. Singhvi, appearing for the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar loyalist camps which were part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government overthrown by the Eknath Shinde-BJP alliance in the State, said any ambiguity in the deadline or any further delay would “subvert the anti-defection proceedings”. Singhvi said the court ought to take into consideration the past months the Speaker had to decide the case. Chief Justice Chandrachud made it clear in the order that “procedural wranglings” should not delay the Tenth Schedule hearings in both cases. In an earlier hearing in October, the court had slammed Narwekar for reducing the anti-defection proceedings to a “charade”, saying that he cannot “merrily” defer hearings and has to decide before the next elections. The Speaker had disregarded the court’s order on September 18 to prepare a time-schedule to complete the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the Shinde camp. The Bench had at the time given Mr. Narwekar a week to prepare the timeline and file it before the Supreme Court. Delhi excise policy scam | Supreme Court dismisses bail pleas of ex-Deputy CM Sisodia in corruption, money-laundering cases [The Supreme Court on October 30 dismissed a bail plea filed by former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who is facing money laundering charges in the liquor policy ‘scam’ case.]( A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said a “transfer of ₹338 crore has been tentatively established” as a reason for denying bail. Justice Khanna said the prosecution had assured the court that the trial would be concluded in six to eight months. The Supreme Court directed that if however, the trial proceeded “sloppily”, Sisodia, represented by senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, was at liberty to file a bail application. The court had reserved the case for verdict on October 17. During the hearings, the court was seen asking the Enforcement Directorate (ED) how an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) would be made out in the absence of a bribery charge against Sisodia. In an earlier hearing, the court had orally observed that the ED had to establish an unbroken chain of evidence linking Sisodia with the liquor lobby. “You have to establish a chain. The money has to flow from the liquor lobby to the person. We know it is difficult to establish the chain as everything is done undercover… but that is where your competence lies,” Justice Khanna had told Raju. Justice Khanna had noted that a policy may be changed to generate money following pressure from a particular lobby, but provisions of the PMLA would be attracted only after the proceeds of a crime, in this case bribery, were given or paid. Sisodia was arrested on February 26 for alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 following several rounds of questioning. In March, a trial court had dismissed Sisodia’s bail plea saying he was prima facie the “architect” of the alleged scam and had played the “most important and vital role” in the criminal conspiracy related to alleged payment of advance kickbacks of nearly ₹100 crore meant for him and his colleagues in the Delhi government. Israel tanks enter Gaza City fringes as army ramps up assault [Israeli tanks advanced into the fringes of Gaza City on October 30]( witnesses said, as it ramped up its [war on Hamas]( saying it killed dozens of militants in hundreds of strikes. “We have hit more than 600 targets in the past 24 hours,” a military spokesperson told AFP, up from 450 the previous day, with Hamas militants also reporting “heavy fighting” in northern Gaza. “Dozens” of tanks entered Zaytun district on the southern fringes of Gaza City, cutting a key road from the north to the south of the war-torn Palestinian territory, witnesses told AFP. “They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it,” said one resident who didn’t give his name, but said they were present on two sections of the road. AFP’s Gaza journalists are not inside Gaza City, following Israeli warnings that the territory’s northern areas must be considered a war zone. Located on Gaza City’s southern edge, Zaytun — which normally has a population of over 130,000 — is the city’s largest district, but the area where the tanks were spotted is relatively sparsely populated. Dozens of buildings west of the Salahedin road have already been demolished by Israeli strikes in recent days. Israeli strikes have also razed at least 10 high-rise buildings in Tal al-Hawwa, a district in the city’s southwest, and damaged a Turkish-funded cancer treatment hospital in the same area, its director Sobhi Skeik told AFP. Israel has on several occasions warned the 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to head south to avoid its military strikes as it pushes ahead with a mission to “destroy” the territory’s Hamas rulers. Although huge numbers have left in recent weeks, tens of thousands more are believed to be still in the zone. Since Friday, Israeli forces have stepped up their ground offensive as part of the military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks that officials say killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, with another 239 people taken hostage. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 8,000 people, mainly civilians, mostly civilians and more than half of them children, have since been killed in Israeli air and ground strikes. The Israeli army said troops killed “dozens” of militants in overnight clashes, saying they had “barricaded themselves inside buildings and tunnels and attempted to attack the troops”. In one incident, a fighter jet targeted a building “with over 20 Hamas terrorist operatives inside,” while another fighter jet was guided to an anti-tank missile launching post in the area of Al-Azhar University, it said. The university is in the heart of Gaza City. It also said it hit “weapons depots, dozens of anti-tank missile launching positions, as well as hideouts and staging grounds used by the Hamas terrorist organisation”. We have lost our sense of humour in public life, CJI observes in Raghav Chadha ‘indefinite suspension’ case hearing [Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Monday observed on the death of sense of humour in public life]( while questioning the “indefinite suspension” slapped on Raghav Chadha, Rajya Sabha member from the Aam Aadmi Party, for his casual quip to the media. A reason for suspending Chadha for breach of privilege was his remark at a press conference that he had sent “birthday invitation cards” to other members to join a select committee for the GNCTD (Amendment) Bill 2023. Chadha was accused of inviting these members without taking their consent. “That we have lost our sense of humour in public life is a separate thing altogether... What he obviously meant by ‘sending birthday invitation cards’ is that the members could either come or not come... Does that really, really reduce the dignity of the House and cause a breach of privilege?” the Chief Justice asked Attorney-General R. Venkataramani. Venkataramani indicated that such remarks did lower the process of the House. “Mr. Venkataramani would not have done it, but…,” Chief Justice Chandrachud intervened. “If Mr. Venkataramani could not have done it, Mr. Raghav Chadha also cannot do it,” the top government law officer interjected. But the Chief Justice, heading a three-judge Bench, said that was certainly not the test for invoking breach of privilege. “Exclusion of members of the Opposition from the House is a very serious matter. He (Chadha) is a representative of a constituency. He is a representative of a viewpoint which may not be consistent with the views of the government. Care must be taken not to exclude such voices from the Parliament,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed. The court said slapping an indefinite suspension on a member was a “very serious matter for us as a constitutional court”. “The Parliament must have voices from across the spectrum, and that is why this indefinite suspension is a matter of concern,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said. The court asked whether the Rajya Sabha Chairman would accept if Chadha was “ready and willing” to apologise. Venkataramani said the Rajya Sabha Chairperson had suspended Chadha pending the inquiry by the Privileges Committee following a resolution passed by the House itself. At one point, the CJI questioned the source of power to suspend an MP indefinitely. The Chief Justice pointed out that Chadha even ran the risk of not attending the Winter Session due shortly. The Chief Justice prima facie agreed with Chadha, represented by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and advocate Shadan Farasat, that Rules 256 and 266 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (‘Rajya Sabha Rules’) mandated suspension only till the end of the session. “The power to suspend is meant only to be used as a shield and not as a sword, i.e. it cannot be penal. The power to suspend indefinitely is dangerously open to excess and abuse,” Chadha’s petition submitted. Chadha was suspended on August 11, the last day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, for “gross violation of rule, misconduct, defiant attitude and contemptuous conduct”. In Brief: Russian President [Vladimir Putin called a meeting of top security and law enforcement officials on October 30, the day after a mob stormed the airport in the region of Dagestan]( after a plane from the Israeli city of Tel Aviv landed there. Hundreds of angry men rushed onto the tarmac of the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region, late on October 29, looking for Israeli passengers, according to Russian news reports. Dagestan’s Ministry of Health said more than 20 people were injured, with two in critical condition. It said the injured included police officers and civilians. The local Interior Ministry said 60 people were detained in the unrest. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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