Court

The cash for votes scam – High court knocks aside basis of police complaint

Ever since a few BJP MP’s stood up in Parliament and displayed currency notes, claiming that they were being tried to be bribed for their vote, things have gone topsy turvy. The Delhi police ignored the case, putting it in deep freeze for a number of years (I would think that this was logical from their perspective, since any bribery in favor of the motion would mean supporting the Congress Government, and the police was not really expected to investigate anything against the Government). However, a few months back, the Supreme Court (in another action out of the many that put the Government on the defensive) asked the Delhi Police for its action report on the incident, and actually admonished the police for no action even after so much time has happened.
Given this step, the Delhi Police took a really interesting action. In most cases, when somebody complains that there was an attempt to bribe and exposes, you would try and find out who was trying to pay the bribe and who was the ultimate beneficiary of the bribe. However, the Delhi Police instead treated the intermediaries and the complaining MP’s both as the criminals in this case, and sought their arrest, which duly happened. So, there was no investigation as to who would have benefited from the bribe, since in this case, that would have been Manmonhan’s Government. Even when Amar Singh’s involvement was exposed, it was almost orders from the court that forced the police to arrest him, from where he went to the hospital and was then released on bail. The only people whom the police really wanted to keep in jail were the MP’s and ex-MP’s who complained about the attempt to bribe.
The lower court refused to give any relief in terms of bail, but the High Court took a different stand and released the MP’s under bail with a few well chosen comments that seems to knock the stuffing out of the Delhi police case (link to article):
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2G scam continues to haunt the Government – SC asks why PM did not follow through

The 2G scam continues to haunt the Congress party. For quite some time, the Congress evaded that there was any issue with the 2G scam issue, claimed that this was a policy decision (with the honorable purpose of reducing the telecom rates), that the CAG was off its rocker, that the Supreme Court had no locus standi. Next, the Congress tried to separate itself from the scope of the scam by claiming that all this was the work of a rogue minister, A Raja; the PM was helpless since he had to depend on the minister, was bound by the challenges of coalitions politics, and besides the poor PM was a single man, how could he monitor everything that was happening (thankfully, the PM did not repeat this particular line, else the charge of being a useless and non-caring PM would have stuck to his plate).
For quite some time, the Congress believed that this will work, that eventually the case will lost its media attention, and the CBI will be persuaded to back off or make the case much weaker (which is what the CBI is already being accused of). However, when other people smell blood, then it is difficult to stop them. So, the media is forever on the case, and Subramaniam Swamy is dedicated to targeting some of the senior members of the Congress in the 2G scam rather than be satisfied with the scalp of A Raja.
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High Court strikes down more land acquisition deals by the Noida administration

For many years now, the areas of Noida, Greater Noida, and Noida Extension near the capital city have been the center of a building boom. The many Governments of Uttar Pradesh in the past (run by different political parties such as the BJP, SP, BSP) have all played a part in this building boom, leveraging their closeness to Delhi and meeting the needs of a huge number of people who were bound for the national capital but could not afford to buy homes in Delhi. So, the Government would acquire land and give this to society and builders, who in turn would build a variety of residential units and sell these to an eager crowd of buyers.
Now, one would argue that this is part of development. After all, agriculture is seen as the starting point of economic activity, and in order to progress further, you need to build industry and residential units, and those need land. So, acquiring land for this purpose is necessary, and it would seem that the Government would be in the best position to get into the role of acquiring land and then handing this over to the people doing the building.
However, the recent past in India has been hit by a number of issues related to this very purpose, with land acquisition coming under dispute in a number of states, and the situation seems to scream out for a land acquisition act that promised to be equitable to all. The Congress has not been able to come up with such an Act because of its political issues with its allies, most notably Mamta Banerjee; and it would also seem that the Congress may be delaying such an Act so that it can apply political pressure in the prime state of Uttar Pradesh.
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