News18 Daybreak : SC on Judge Loya's Death, Ali Zafar Mired in Sexual Harassment Case and Other Stories You May Have Missed

In case you missed it

The Supreme Court has said that a "veiled attempt" was made to launch a "frontal attack" on the independence of judiciary through the pleas seeking probe into the death of special CBI judge B H Loya. Frivolous petitions instituted at the behest of business or political rivals to settle scores behind the "facade" of a public interest litigation pose a grave danger to the credibility of judicial process, the court said while dismissing the PILs seeking probe into Loya's death.

While hearing a clutch of petitions challenging Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law, the Supreme Court that said it was not sure whether bringing people "face to face" with authorities through Aadhaar was the best model as the State should reach them to accord the benefits of the welfare schemes.

The revolutionary #MeToo campaign has reached Pakistan. Actor and singer Meesha Shafi has accused her colleague and popular singer Ali Zafar of sexual harassment. Hoping that her experience will empower other women to stand up for themselves and speak about such encounters, the actor took to Twitter to share an elaborate post accusing Zafar of sexually harassing her on more than one occasion. Zafar, on his part, denied the allegations and said that silence is not an option and he will take a legal course to counter Shafi's charges against him.

BJP MLA Sanjay Patil stirred a controversy by saying that the electoral contest in Karnataka was "not about roads and drinking water but Hindu and Muslim religions". Sanjay Patil, Belagavi (Rural) MLA, is seen making the purported remarks in a video shot in his constituency amid loud cheers by a crowd of his supporters.

Meanwhile, Karnataka netas are hopping, skipping and jumping for election tickets after they were jilted by their parties. As BJP and JDS stand with open arms and welcoming eyes, the crestfallen ticket aspirants of Congress no longer have a reason to remain disappointed. It’s a party-hoppers’ galore for defectors in Karnataka with less than a month left for polling. Those who are aspiring for a ticket still have chances as the BJP is yet to announce candidates in 70 seats and JDS in 98. While the saffron party is “waiting for good candidates” to join them, JDS is already gleaming after inducting 11 ‘unhappy souls’.

The resignation of metropolitan sessions judge K Ravinder Reddy, who quit after pronouncing the judgement in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case, was rejected. The judge was asked to take up his charge immediately. 

The BJP has the highest number of MPs and MLAs facing cases of crime against women, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch said. Both election watchdogs analyzed 4,845 of 4,896 election affidavits of current MPs and MLAs. This includes 768 out of 776 affidavits of MPs and 4,077 out of 4,120 MLA affidavits.

The overburdened Delhi Forensic Science Laboratory helped the SIT of Jammu & Kashmir crack the gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua. The task was made difficult by the accused and some members of local police who allegedly tried to eliminate evidence in the case. This is how the forensic lab traced evidence from Kathua rape victim's washed Salwar Kameez to nail accused.

A sexual offence is committed against a child in India every 15 minutes and there has been an increase of more than 500 percent over the past 10 years in crime against minors, an analysis by child rights NGO CRY has found. 

For a party that’s battling for survival, both within and outside the Parliament and state Assemblies, the 22nd Party Congress of the CPI-M began with a kind of start in Hyderabad that many would not consider encouraging. The widening rift between Prakash Karat faction and those supporting general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s views on the party’s political-tactical line was already in public domain since its Kolkata Central Committee meeting in January this year. The inaugural vibes from the Hyderabad Party Congress seem to suggest that the process to formally remove Yechury as the party’s general secretary has well and truly begun. 

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While the BJP’s decision to change its Madhya Pradesh unit chief has come as setback for Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, he still managed to get some leverage by stalling the party high command’s choice for the post. Though MP Rakesh Singh had emerged as consensus candidate to take over as MP BJP chief, party sources claim he was not the first choice for the post. He replaced Nandkumar Singh Chauhan who, sources said, was a close confidante of Shivraj. Moves to curtail Shivraj’s influence in the party comes after the BJP lost the bypolls in Mungaoli and Kolaras even after Shivraj led the campaign from the front, with sources claiming that the party wants to pin the blame for the defeat on him. But Shivraj had the last laugh. 

One can be forgiven for thinking that the demon of demonetisation is back to haunt India as several states have begun reporting a crippling cash shortage at ATMs. Only, this is no demonetisation – at least not yet – but what appears to be India’s central bank and government being out of sync with all matters relating to currency. Indians’ trust in its banking system was already shaken and the RBI’s recent actions do not inspire much faith. Not only currency woes, we have also seen some of the biggest banking frauds come to light over the last few months – with no clear reason why and how they were allowed to inflate under the eyes of the government and RBI. The broken faith in the banking system needs healing.

On reel

In central Jail no. 6 at Tihar, women inmates are in the process of making history. After the setup of a fashion lab equipped with pattern making tools and sewing kits, the inmates are set to design costumes for a Bollywood film Marksheet under the mentorship of fashion designer Winky Singh.