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The banks want the Supreme Court to pass an interim order to freeze Mr. Mallyas passport or direct him
not to leave the jurisdiction
of this country without the
courts permission.
Before moving the High
Court, the banks had filed
four pleas in the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) in Bengaluru, seeking freezing of
Mr. Mallyas passport, an arrest warrant against him and
issuance of a garnishee order against Respondent Nos.
10 [Diageo Plc] and 11 (United Spirits Limited) from disbursing $75 million. They
had also sought a directive

that Mr. Mallya disclose his

assets on oath.
The DRT had heard arguments on only one plea and
did not consider the other
pleas related to freezing of
the passport and restraining
Mr. Mallya from leaving
country, the banks said in
their appeal.
The banks had moved the
DRT in the backdrop of Mr.
Mallyas recent resignation
from the chairmanship of
United Spirits. Diageo Plc,
the current owner of the liquor company, has agreed to
pay Mr. Mallya $75 million
(roughly Rs. 515 crore) as
severance package.

Pension security was the aim: Jaitley

PUJA MEHRA
NEW DELHI: Union Finance Min-

ister Arun Jaitley, on Tuesday

told the Lok Sabha that the
objective of the Employees
Provident Fund tax proposal
was only to encourage more
private sector employees to
go for pension security after
retirement.

In a statement, Mr. Jaitley

said it was towards this objective that it was announced
that 40 per cent of the total
corpus withdrawn at the time
of retirement would be taxexempt under both provident
fund and the NPS.
It was expected that the
employees of private companies, the statement said,

would place the remaining 60

per cent of the corpus in annuity, out of which they could
get a regular pension.
We recognised that the
feedback and inputs we were
getting from the public and
salaried classes was relevant,
Minister of State Jayant Sinha
said, speaking at a post-budget session at the FICCI.

Labour Ministry exerted pressure

on PMO over EPF tax, says Bandaru
SOMESH JHA

Rahul claims
credit for
rollback

NEW DELHI: Labour Minister

Bandaru Dattatreya on Tuesday said that the governments

intention behind announcing a
tax on withdrawal of Employees Provident Fund savings
was to offer better returns on
investments in the National
Pension Scheme, but the two
retirement savings instruments could not be compared.
It is learnt that the Labour
Ministry took a strong stand
with the Prime Ministers Office and said in a note that the
proposal would hit the salaried
class which was the core constituency of the government,
and that the tax would only
yield around Rs. 300 crore
from 42 lakh workers.
The announcement was
made with the intent of getting
better returns in NPS. After
the stakeholders and we got in
touch with the Ministry of Finance, then a discussion took
place (where) we said that
both the NPS and EPF cant be
compared because NPS is only
for pension and EPF is a provi-

NATIONAL BUREAU
NEW DELHI: Congress

Bandaru Dattatreya says the

decision to withdraw EPF tax
proposal is in workers
interest.

dent fund scheme, Mr. Dattatreya told The Hindu in an exclusive

interview.
Mr.
Dattatreya said Congress vicepresident Rahul Gandhi had
made himself a laughing
stock by claiming that his
pressure had led to the withdrawal of the proposal. The
Minister said he had met
Prime Minister on Tuesday
and said the decision to withdraw the EPF tax proposal was
in the interest of workers.
(For full interview visit:
bit.ly/1W6CM6G)

vice-president Rahul
Gandhi on Tuesday
took credit for the
rollback by the
government of the
budget proposal to tax
the withdrawal of EPF,
saying his pressure did
work.
My pressure did
work. Whenever
somebody is being
oppressed wrongly or
victimised, I tend to try
and help those people. I
had said don't suppress
the salaried class, so I
think it is a good
decision, he said after
the Centre decided to
withdraw the proposal.

Talking to India on religious

freedom, says United States
VARGHESE K GEORGE
WASHINGTON: The U.S. on Mon-

day expressed disappointment over India denying visas

to members of the United
States Commission on International Religious Freedom
(USCIRF).
A USCIRF team was planning to travel to India on
March 4, but India did not
process their visa applications. The Indian embassy in
Washington said there was no
change in Indias policy with
respect to such visits and saw
no locus standi of a foreign
entity like the USCIRF to pass
its judgment and comment on
the state of Indian citizens
constitutionally
protected
rights.
India has been denying vi-

John Kirby expresses

disappointment over denial of
visas to members of religious
freedom panel.

sas to USCIRF for seven years

now.
Were disappointed by this
news, State Department
spokesman John Kirby said,

THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016

GREEN TRIBUNALS POSER ON AOL EVENT

Banks move Supreme Court

to ban Mallyas overseas travel
The banks told the Supreme Court that the threat
to their financial interests
were so immediate and grave
that the High Court should
have passed the interim order without first hearing the
embattled industrialist and
others, including the debtor
firm Kingfisher Airlines
Limited.
The High Court of Karnataka, at Bengaluru, by its impugned order has failed to
protect the interests of the
petitioner banks who are yet
to recover an amount in excess of Rs. 9,000 crore from
the respondents, the banks
said.

HYDERABAD

and added that religious freedom in India had been a topic

of conversation between the
two countries. Its not a topic
of conversation that were
afraid to have with our Indian
counterparts, he said.
We are supportive of the
commission and the important
role they play in reviewing
facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom
around the world. As President
Obama himself noted during
his visit last year, we support
the Government of Indias
commitments commitment
to promoting religious freedom and diversity, he said.
Our nations are stronger
when every person has the
right to practise the faith they
choose, or to practise no faith
at all, Mr. Obama had said.

Has eco-impact been assessed?

Plea seeks stoppage of construction on the Yamuna floodplains for the World Culture Festival
BINDU SHAJAN PERAPPADAN
NEW DELHI: Has any of the
agencies assessed the environmental impact of the Sri
Sri Ravi Shankars Art of Living Foundations three-day
World Culture Festival to be
held in the city starting this
Friday? asked the National
Green Tribunal (NGT) on
Tuesday. It was hearing a plea
seeking stoppage of ongoing
construction on the floodplains for the cultural festival. The Tribunal also questioned
the
Union
Environment Ministry as to
why no environmental
clearance is required for
erecting structures in Yamuna floodplains, and directed
it to file an affidavit detailing
its reasons on Wednesday.
The Bench headed by
NGT chairperson Justice
Swatanter Kumar sought to
know from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA)

The stage under construction for the World Culture Festival being organised by Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar, founder of the Art of Living Foundation, in New Delhi on Tuesday. PHOTO: PTI

about who issued permission

for the building of pontoon
bridge by the Army on the
Yamuna for the festival.
In response, the DDA

maintained that it was required only to issue a no-objection certificate for the
bridge while the Delhi Government stated that it would

be involved in the case of

flood. The Union Environment Ministry too chose to
pass the buck to the Ministry
of Water Resources.

The NGT chairperson

then added: As per some
photos in the media, construction seems to be happening inside the river. The
court wants to know exactly
the number of persons who
are expected to be present at
the site for the festival.
This, when all the involved
agencies AOL, the DDA or
the Delhi Police gave conflicting numbers of guests expected for the event.
Meanwhile, AOL maintained that they started work
at the site after taking requisite permissions. This was refuted by the Delhi Police and
the Delhi Pollution Control
Committee. They maintained ignorance of any environment assessment being
undertaken by the Foundation to assess the environmental damage caused by the
event.
The matter has been adjourned for Wednesday.

Attempt to fix Modi in Ishrat case: Jaitley

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Working to get Womens Bill

through, says Venkaiah Naidu

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister

Arun Jaitley hit out hard at

the Opposition parties on
recent controversies, accusing them of trying to fix
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi in the Ishrat Jehan
case.
Intolerance debate
Intervening in the debate
on the motion of thanks for
the Presidents address to
Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, Mr. Jaitley said: You talk
about intolerance. During
the Delhi polls, news about
attacks on religious places of
a particular community was
played up and an image was
created the world over that
it was political atrocity.
When police investigated,
they were found to be cases
of theft or simple vandalism
under the effect of liquor.
But you used it during the
Delhi elections.
In West Bengal a nun was
assaulted and a Bangladeshi
was arrested for it. This happened in a State [not ruled
by the BJP], but you gave it a
political colour. Today, the
debate on intolerance is who
will be the chairman of an
institution.
I have read history and
remember that when a singer did not sing in a Youth
Congress programme, he
was debarred from AIR, he
said referring to renowned
singer Kishore Kumar and
his blacklisting by All India
Radio during the Emergency of 1975-77.
Referring to the change in
affidavit by the Home Ministry in the Ishrat Jehan case
that did not refer to her as a
Lashkar-e-Taiba operative,
the Finance Minister said:
In the process, you unbarred the entire security
apparatus of India because
you wanted to fix a political
leader. Some day an investigation will take place on
how internal security was
played with.
At this, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha,
Ghulam Nabi Azad, intervened and said the rulings of
the metropolitan magistrates court and the High
Court cannot be dismissed.
Security Agencies are not
sacrosanct, that is why there
is something called counter

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Arun Jaitley says that free

speech cannot be allowed to
be used to advocate breakup of the country. PHOTO: PTI

You unbarred the

entire security
apparatus of India
to fix a political
leader
intelligence to keep an eye
on all this, Mr. Azad added.
To this, Mr. Jaitley said
that in a country like India,
which is frequently the victim of terror attacks, our
agencies have to struggle to
keep pace with forces out to
attack us.
On JNU row
Responding to the JNU
row, he said the government
has nothing against a particular student, an apparent reference to student
leader Kanhaiya Kumar, but
asserted that free speech
cannot be allowed to be
used to advocate break-up
of the country.
I expect mainstream political parties like Congress
to be in the forefront of being against these people.
Please dont do anything
that lends respectability to
such people, the Minister
said.
Mr. Jaitley rejected Congress vice-president Rahul
Gandhis charge that the
government has let Pakistan
off the hook, saying: We are
compelling Pakistan for the
first time to own up that the
attack in India is taking
place from their land.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi is expected to respond to the debate on the
Motion of Thanks to the
President
address
on
Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: On International

Womens Day on Tuesday,
the Union government said it
was working towards evolving a consensus on clearing
the womens reservation Bill
and hoped to bring it to the
Lok Sabha soon.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said
this in the Lok Sabha at the
end of a special hour, in
which 30 women MPs spoke.
The Bill was passed by the
Rajya Sabha in 2010, but ran
into opposition from a number of parties in the Lok
Ranjeet Ranjan, MP, rides a motorcycle to Parliament on
Sabha.
The proceedings started in Tuesday. PHOTO: R.V. MOORTHY
style with Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan arriving in Parlia- means giving women their and involves the expansion
ment House on a motorcycle. due, she said. It means that of the scope of debate withIn an impassioned speech, ensuring that the civil and out retaliation and retribuCongress president Sonia democratic rights of a citizen tion. Vrindavan MP Hema
Gandhi underscored the are not denied. It means pre- Malini of the BJP spoke about
need for passing the Bill. serving the social and com- multi-tasking, and said womMaximum
governance munal fabric of the nation, en excelled in it.

RS seats: tough task

ahead for Congress
MEHBOOB JEELANI

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As 17 Congress MPs

are retiring from the Rajya

Sabha in the next three
months, the party high command is meticulously choosing their replacements keeping in view the upcoming
Assembly elections.
The vacancies in the upper
House have triggered competition among the Congress
leaders. And the party high
command is aware that the
party may face a blowback if
they induct wrong candidates from the poll-bound
States. With Ashwini Kumars membership from pollbound Punjab coming to an
end, the State president Captain Amarinder Singh submitted the list of nominations
to Sonia Gandhi. Sources said
that Ms. Gandhi has decided
to select either a Dalit leader
or a Jat Sikh.
Similarly, in Assam, where
the elections are due in April,
Anjan Dutta, the State Con-

Cong. issues whip

to Rajya Sabha
members
NEW DELHI: The Congress has is-

Anand Sharma with Himachal

Chief Minister Virbhadra
Singh at the Vidhan Sabha in
Shimla on Tuesday. PHOTO: PTI

gress president, told The

Hindu that he has nominated
12 leaders for the two vacant
Rajya Sabha seats. We have
strongly
recommended
Apurba Bhattacharya, he
said. The first sign of older
leadership retaining their
posts became visible when
Anand Sharma gave up his
membership from Rajasthan
to contest from Himachal
Pradesh.

sued a three-line whip to its

members in the Rajya Sabha
to be present when Prime
Minister Narendra Modi delivers his reply to the Motion
of Thanks to the President's
address .
According to top sources in
the party, the whip was issued
for two reasons. We want to
be in full force when Mr. Modi
is speaking since he does take
a dig at the Opposition for not
being present and more importantly, if at the end of the
reply we are not offered clarifications on his reply (a privilege available to Rajya Sabha
members) then an amendment to the motion of thanks
will be moved, said a senior
MP. Last year, CPI(M) MPs
Sitaram Yechury and P. Rajeeve had moved and got
cleared an amendment to the
Motion of Thanks on the black
money issue.

Constitution Bench to decide if MPs, MLAs At JNU, caste trumps Hindutva Appointments
in judiciary
ABVP Dalit leader
can be disqualified upon framing of charges
burns Manu Smriti
VIKAS PATHAK

KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL

The Supreme Court

has been tightening
its grip on
corruption in
politics from 2013

was the case before. Before

this verdict, convicted lawmakers would file an appeal
NEW DELHI: Opening its third
in the higher court and conchapter against corruption in
tinue in the House.
politics, the Supreme Court
In March 2014, the Supreme
on Tuesday decided to lay
Court passed an interim order
down the law on whether the
that criminal trials, especially
country should even wait until a corrupt legislator is con- Chief Justice of India T.S. those dealing with corruption
victed to have him disquali- Thakur under Article 145 (3) and heinous offences, involvfied from Parliament or to set up a Constitution Bench ing elected representatives
of five judges indicates its should be completed in a year.
Assembly.
A three-judge Bench, head- positive resolve to settle this This order prevented lawed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, substantial question of law makers from sitting in the
interpreting
the House as their cases dragged
referred to a Constitution by
on.
Bench the question whether a Constitution.
Meenakshi Arora, who aplegislator facing criminal trial
The court has been tightenshould be disqualified at the ing its grip on corruption in peared for the Election Comvery stage of framing of politics from 2013 when it first mission in the case, told The
charges against him by the held that legislators, on con- Hindu that Tuesdays refertrial court. Should his disqual- viction, would be immediate- ence to the Constitution
ification be kept in abeyance ly disqualified from holding Bench was the third chapter
membership of the House of a clean-up act started in
till he is convicted?
The fact that the Supreme without being given three 2013.
Court referred the matter to months time for appeal, as
The hearing was on petCM
YK

NEW DELHI: With a sitting vice-

itions filed by the Public Interest Foundation and former

Chief Election Commissioner
J.M. Lyngdoh.
Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act deals
with disqualification on conviction for certain offences: A
person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for varying terms
under Sections 8 (1) (2) and
(3) shall be disqualified from
the date of conviction and
shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six
years since his release.
In 2013, the Bench found it
unconstitutional that convicted persons could be disqualified from contesting elections
but could continue to be
Members of Parliament and
State
Legislatures
once
elected.

president of the JNU unit of

the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP), the RSS
student affiliate, burning the
Manu Smriti on the campus on
International Womens Day on
Tuesday, something unprecedented in the Sangh Parivars
history happened.
While Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
who was also Indias first Law
Minister had indeed burnt
the document, associating it
with inequality, it was in sync
with the radical Dalit politics
he espoused.
But this time the challenge
comes from within Hindutva
which finds Hindu traditions to be meaningful
though the challengers are already marginal within and
seem to be on the verge of
staging an exit.
Present with Jatin Goraya,

which is seen as
an anti-Dalit,
anti-women text
the JNU ABVP unit vice-president, who is a Dalit from Haryana, were Pradeep Narwal
and other students who have
moved away from ABVP since
the arrest of JNUSU president
Kanhaiya Kumar out on bail
now under sedition law.
Clearly, young Dalit leaders
who had associated with Hindutvas Dalit outreach seem to
have moved away ideologically as the ABVP has clashed
with the Ambedkar Students
Association at Hyderabad
University where Rohith
Vemula committed suicide
and with the Left union at the
JNU.
These are contradictions

between Hindutva and Dalits

surfacing in the wake of recent
controversies. Hindutva does
not know how much to shift its
line to accommodate Dalits,
who are also Ambedkarites.
And young Dalits also cannot
adapt to it beyond a point. This
contradiction is already playing out in this case, said Badri
Narayan, who teaches social
exclusion at the university.
Prof. Narayan says caste as
an institution is a prime impediment to the growth of
Hindutva and the contradictions between the two are beginning to surface.
Mr. Narwal told The Hindu
that Mr. Goraya would quit the
ABVP if the organisation did
not condemn the Manu Smriti,
widely seen as an anti-Dalit
and anti-women text.
The Sangh Parivar, however,
seems to be playing down this
incident at the JNU for the moment.

out of RTI

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Union govern-

ment on Tuesday said it had

no plans to bring the process
of judicial appointments to
the High Courts and the Supreme Court under the ambit of the Right to Information(RTI) Act.
In a press conference,
Union Law Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda said transparency in judicial appointments could be achieved
without bringing it under
the information law.
The Minister said the
memorandum of procedure
(MoP) of appointments of
judges to the Supreme Court
and the 24 High Courts was
still in the final stage.
HY-HY