The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India has issued notice to the Delhi Chief Secretary and the Police Commissioner over reported sexual abuse of two juveniles by fellow inmates in the Child Protection Home in Mukherjee Nagar area of Delhi.

Taking suo motu cognisance of a media report, the Commission observed that the contents of the news report, if true, raised a serious issue of violation of human rights, which was a matter of concern.

It further noted that the reported incident apparently indicated that the authorities, who were the lawful guardians of the inmates in their custody, have failed to protect the juveniles.

The Commission directed the Delhi Chief Secretary and the Police Commissioner to file a detailed report in the matter within four weeks.

It said the report should include the action taken against the officers concerned and the steps taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur in future.

According to the media report, carried on November 20, 2023, the accused threatened the victims that if they reported the matter to any authority, the juveniles would be tormented for life.

Despite the threats, one of the victims informed one of the officers of the Home regarding the alleged crime. During investigation, another juvenile, aged 15 years, lodged in the Shelter Home came forward and reported that he was also sexually abused inside the Home.

The Supreme Court reserved its order in a plea filed by Kavitha Lankesh, the sister of journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017, challenging the judgment passed by the Karnataka High Court, which had quashed the charges under Karnataka Control of Organized Crime Act 2000 against accused Mohan Nayak. 

The matter was listed before the bench of Justices A. M. Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna and the bench has asked the parties to file written submissions. 

The petition was filed in the Supreme Court by Kavitha Lankesh aggrieved by the order passed by High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru, wherein the High Court partly allowed the petition filed by the respondent/accused Mohan Nayak, who sought to quash the order dated August 14, 2018 passed by the Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru City against him. 

On September 5, 2017, at around 8 pm, some unknown persons murdered Gauri Lankesh by shooting her near her house. Her sister Kavitha filed a complaint regarding the same before Rajarajeshwari Nagar police station. A chargesheet was filed against KT Naveen Kumar for the offence punishable under Sections 302,114,118,120B, 35 of IPC read with Sections 3 and 25 of Arms Act.

The Commissioner of Police, purportedly acting under Section 24(1)(a) of the Karnataka Control of Organized Crime Act 2000, granted approval to the Investigating Officer to conduct further investigation invoking Section 3 of the Karnataka Control of Organized Crime Act 2000.

The Counsel for Nayak had raised various grounds and challenged the order granting permission under Section 24(1)(a) Act against him (i) That he was not involved in continuing unlawful activity as contemplated in Section 2(1)(d) of the Act; (ii) The charge sheet allegations do not attract organized crime as contemplated under Section 2(e) of the Act; & (iii) By such unlawful invocation of Section 24(1)(a) of the Act, personal liberty of the respondent is violated, thereby the order Annexure-A is violative of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950.

Also Read: Supreme Court directs duo accused of various criminal offenses to surrender before the trial court within 15 days

The High Court said,

“It is clear that the approval order was contrary to the language and requirement of Section 24 (1)(a), 2(1)(d) and 2(1)(e) of the Act. H. S. Chandramouli, Special Public Prosecutor, tenaciously contended that the accused has not challenged the sanction order, the charge sheet or the order taking cognisance, therefore the petition challenging only the approval order is not maintainable.

All the subsequent acts namely sanction order, charge sheet and the order taking cognizance flow from the approval order. If the approval order itself is bad in law, the sanction order, the charge sheet and the approval order so far as the offences under the Act against the respondent have no legs to stand.”

The respondent not only sought quashing of the approval order, but also has sought for quashing of the additional charge sheet filed invoking Section 3 of the Act and Section 302, 114, 118, 120B read with Section 35 of IPC and Sections 3 and 25 of the Arms Act. The substantial challenge was against invocation of the provisions of the Act, the prayer of the respondent was considered only to that extent. 

The additional charge sheet filed by investigating officer against the accused for the offences under Sections 3(1)(i), 3(2), 3(3) and 3(4) of the Act was quashed.

The petitioner stated before the apex court that the accused was relying on the said judgement for seeking bail. The Supreme Court had issued notice and directed that the Court should decide the bail application without being influenced by the judgment. 

Supreme Court dismisses plea for removal of  Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy, says similar prayer being heard in another plea.

Supreme Court rejects Chanda Kochhar’s appeal against her sacking as the bank’s CEO, the court declines to interfere with the Bombay High Court order.

Madras High Court summons Police Commissioner and DGP in hearing of petition for criminal action against former judge CS Karnan.

Delhi’s High Powered Committee extends interim bail of prisoners for 45 more days to contain the spread of COVID inside prisons.

Read Also: Covid-19: Interim bail extended by 45 days to 3,499 undertrial prisoners, 1,183 convicts get 6 more weeks parole

Mumbai Police names Republic TV as TRP ‘manipulator’, channel hits back, says will sue

Mumbai (ILNS): The Mumbai Police, through a press note, has announced that it has “busted a major racket which is fraudulently involved in manipulating Television Ratings Points (TRP).” The major point in this is that the right-leaning Republic TV, politically aligned against the Shiv Sena-government state of Maharashtra, has been named as one of the perpetrators of such “malpractices” for which the police intends to take action.

The ‘bust’ has been done by the Detection Crime Branch of the police, says the press release. The police say it has already arrested two people in this regard.

Other channels in this net are Fakt Marathi, Box Cinema etc., as per the police.

Republic TV, headed by Arnab Goswami, has already hit back. In a tweet Goswami has said, among other things, that the Mumbai Police Commissioner had done this “…because we have questioned him (Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh) in the Sushant Sigh Rajputr case investigation… He should issue an offocial apology and get ready to face us in court.”

The details are available in the police press release. It says: “BARC is an organization which functions under the governance of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)… It has installed approximately 30,000 barometers in various parts of India which monitor various programmes and based on the statistical metrics, BARC awards ratings to various TV channels.  Based on these ratings, advertisers pay for their advertisers.  Manipulated TRP ratings adversely result in miscalculated targeted audience for the advertisers.  This further results into losses of hundreds of crores of rupees because of such manipulation’s and fake statistics of TRP.

“On a complaint the Crime Branch nabbed a person from Malad.  In the preliminary inquiry he revealed that he had been working for a company which is a part of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).  One of the arrested accused persons and some of the wanted accused persons were employees of Hansa Research Group Pvt Ltd and they have misused the confidential data which had been entrusted to them.

Read Also: Lalu Yadav gets bail from Jharkhand High Court in Chaibasa case, to stay in jail for Dumka case

“It has apparently been done for wrongful gains of various TV channels which had resulted in wrongful loss to various advertisers and their agencies. Preliminary investigations also revealed that these accused persons have manipulated the sampling metering services by inducing the barometer users by paying them periodically to watch particular tv channel / s.

“Many of the people in whose homes these barometers have been installed, have accepted that they have been monetarily beneficial for keeping their TV sets on even if they actually didn’t watch.

“An offense has been registered at Kandivali Police Station in this regard. The arrested accused persons were produced before the Hon ACMM, where they have been remanded to Crime Branch custody till 9th October…

“It has been revealed in the investigation carried so far that certain tv channels such as Republic, Fakt Marathi, Box Cinema etc have been indulged in such malpractices.  Certain witnesses have come forward stating that they were induced by the arrested accused persons and their accomplices for a monthly monetary consideration,” the press release added.

New Delhi: The Gauhati High Court has set aside the order passed by the Commissioner of Police, Gauhati, to suspend the telecast of Assamese serial ‘Begum Jaan’.

A single-judge bench of Justice Suman Shyam heard a petition filed by AM Private Television Ltd, challenging the order passed by the commissioner to ban the telecast of the serial, which is based on a theme of Hindu-Muslim love relationship, for a period of two months.

S Sarma, the counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the police commissioner can pass the order only on the basis of the recommendations of a District Monitoring Committee.

The counsel said that as per the latest guidelines of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued in 2017, a representative from the electronic media should be included in the Monitoring Committee. The recommendation of the Monitoring Committee, based on which the Commissioner passed the order, did not have a representative from the media.

The government advocate argued that even if the constitution of the committee was illegal, it did not have any consequence on the order, as the commissioner was independently competent to pass it.

The Court observed:

“The complaints were evidently addressed to the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee and therefore, a duly constituted monitoring committee was required to apply its mind on the merit of the complaints before making any recommendation in the matter which has apparently not been done in this case.”

The court noted that copies of the complaints were not served to the petitioner and no opportunity of hearing was given. Moreover, the impugned order did not record any reason.

Read Also: Plea in Jharkhand HC against NLSIU decision to hold own admission test

Therefore, the order was set aside, giving liberty to the competent authority to decide the matter afresh, after affording an opportunity of hearing to the parties.

Read the order here;

-India Legal Bureau