Delhi HC Reserves Judgment in Shivani Bhatnagar Murder Appeal

Source : Indlaw

The Delhi High Court has reserved its judgement on the appeal of former senior police officer R K Sharma (Pictured) and three others, who have been convicted to life imprisonment for killing journalist Shivani Bhatnagar more than 10 years ago. 

After conclusion of arguments from prosecution and defence counsels which were conducted in the High Court on a day-to-day basis, a bench comprising Justices BD Ahmed and Manmohan Singh reserved their judgement. 

Shivani, a journalist with the Indian Express, was murdered in her Navkunj Apartments flat at IP Extension in East Delhi on January 2, 1999. 

In March 2008, a Sessions court at Karkardooma had held the four accused -- former IPS officer RK Sharma, Sri Bhagwan, Pradeep Sharma and Satya Prakash -- guilty of her murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment in this connection. 

Sharma's counsel contended that he was falsely implicated in the case as there is lot of lacuna in the prosecution theory. There were several missing links, including the call records, in the chain of circumstances and the records were tampered with to implicate him. 

Government standing Counsel Pawan Sharma said since the prime accused was posted in the Prime Minister's Office when Shivani met him, any call record, if tampered with, could have been done on his behest. 

He also contended that Sharma was holding a high position in the police and had influenced the witnesses, as a result of which 43 prosecution witnesses turned hostile in the case. 

The prosecution also alleged that Sharma had provided certain classified documents to Shivani that led to her murder by the former officer as the journalist wanted to make the documents public.

BCI Suspends Inspections for Three Months

Source : Hindustan Times

Hit by a bribery scandal allegedly involving two of its key members - its Chennai-based vice-chairman Dhanpal Raj and member Rajinder Singh Rana -- the Bar Council of India (BCI) on Tuesday decided to suspend inspections of law colleges across the country for the next three months. This and some other drastic decisions came on a day when the CBI announced a recovery of Rs 75 lakh during the raids at the residence of Dhanpal Raj.

The BCI, the apex regulator for the legal profession and education in the country, in its emergency meeting on Tuesday night decided to form a three-member ombudsman body comprising top jurists to receive complaints from law colleges.

"The meeting passed a resolution to request eminent jurists Fali S Nariman, KK Venugopal and BV Acharya to be a part of the ombudsman panel to look into inspection-related complaints," BCI member Ashok Parija told HT.

"The meeting chaired by council chief Gopal Subramanium decided to keep a moratorium on fresh inspections for the grant of recognition to law colleges across the country for the next three months," Parija said.

BCI will now conduct inspections only after the formation of a specialised inspections committee with fresh rules.

The regulator is also likely to seek an external audit of all the inspections done by its members during the last five years and blacklist institutions offering any inducement. “The modalities are being worked out,” Parija said.

Also, the BCI is likely to remove both Dhanpal Raj and Rana from the legal education committee.

On Monday, the CBI had arrested Rana for accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh for a favourable inspection report to Ghaziabad-based Global Law College. It has also arrested another lawyer Manish Tyagi, a member of the advisory board of the Ghaziabad college. He was allegedly dealing with Rana. Rana and Tyagi have been remanded to CBI custody for two days.

The CBI has seized 52 files of other inspection cases of colleges from the BCI office.

A Delhi police inspector is also under the scanner for having removed evidence from Rana's residence.

Nithari Killings: Koli Sentenced to Death Again

Source: Indlaw

A special CBI court at Ghaziabad awarded death penalty to Surender Koli in the Deepali rape and murder case. 

This was his fourth death sentence in as many cases out of the 19 serial Nithari killings which rocked the nation in 2006. 

Earlier, special CBI Judge A K Singh pronounced Koli guilty in the case of rape and murder of 12-year-old Deepali. Koli, the domestic help of Moninder Singh Pandher who was not proceeded against in this case for want of evidence, has already been awarded death sentence by the special court in three of 16 cases filed in connection with the rape and murder of children and a young woman at Nithari in the district. 

Like in other cases, body parts of Deepali were also found in a drain behind Pandher’s bungalow in Nithari in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. 

In the first conviction in the series of horrific crimes, Koli and Pandher were found guilty and sentenced to death in the rape and murder of 14 year-old Rimpa Haldar on February 13, 2009. However, Pandher was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court on September 11. 

Koli was also awarded death sentence for rape and murder of eight-year-old Aarti last year and of nine-year-old Rachna this year. 

Deepali’s case is the fourth of the 16 cases filed by the CBI in connection with the rape and murder of children and a young woman whose skeletal remains were found in Nithari in 2006. 

Of the total 19 cases, CBI filed charge sheets in 16 cases, while the remaining three cases were closed without trial due to lack of evidence.

Nursery Admission Criterion Challenged Before Delhi High Court

Source : Indlaw

A Civil Rights Group has moved the Delhi High court against the recent guidelines issued by the government for admission of children in nursery class in private-aided and un-aided schools. 

Appearing on behalf of the parents and Social Jurist, lawyer Ashok Agrawal contended that the guidelines issued by Delhi government on December 15 and by Union HRD ministry on November 11 were contrary to the Right to Education Act and, therefore, violated the fundamental rights of a child. 

The PIL petitioner said Delhi government's guidelines give a free hand to the unaided and private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria. 

He further said the guidelines are contrary to the RTE Act and would lead to further commercialisation of education at the cost of hapless parents and students. Similar guidelines issued by the HRD ministry on November 11. 

'Such kind of discrimination as suggested by the government is not acceptable to us as it defeats the very purpose of the Right to Education Act initiated by the government itself,' the petition said. 

The government cannot violate its own provisions and formulate another set of rules to favour some persons for commercial benefits, Mr Agrawal added. 

The PIL will come up for hearing on Wednesday.