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In a sign of escalating tensions between the Executive and the Judiciary, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said the majority of people had “sane views”, similar to the one expressed by a retired High Court judge, who said the Supreme Court had “hijacked” the Constitution by deciding to appoint judges by itself.
Mr. Rijiju took to Twitter to share a video interview of the former Delhi High Court judge, Justice R.S. Sodhi (retd), and called it the “voice of a judge”.
In the interview, Justice Sodhi also said the top court could not frame laws as it did not have the right to do so. “...Only Parliament will amend the Constitution.
But here, I feel the Supreme Court for the first time hijacked the Constitution. After hijacking, they [the SC] said that ‘we will appoint [judges] ourselves and the government will have no role in it’.
Endorsing the view, Mr. Rijiju tweeted: Actually majority of the people have similar sane views. It’s only those people who disregard the provisions of the Constitution and mandate of the people think that they are above the Constitution of India.
Another tweet said: “Voice of a Judge...Real beauty of Indian Democracy is— its success. People rule themselves through their representatives. Elected representatives represent the interests of the People & make laws.
Our Judiciary is independent and our Constitution is Supreme.” Mr. Rijiju’s remarks are the latest in the tussle between the Centre and the Supreme Court over judicial appointments.
Editorials
Changing politics, incompatible Governors (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Governors are once again becoming public spectacles in many States, as seen in Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Delhi, and in a few others earlier. Three issues stand out in their grandstanding with the elected governments in the States in question.
First, these are States where non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments are in power. Second, the contrarian interventions of Governors are in the name of the supposed powers of the Union or constitutional rectitude.
And third, their disagreements spill out in the open, to the media, reinforcing a political divide. Recently, the Governor of Tamil Nadu, R.N. Ravi, seems to have opened another front, i.e., defining the idea of Indian nationalism and imparting lessons to Tamil people.
Fortunately, there are a few Governors, even under non-BJP regimes in States, who have shown the sagacity of sorting out issues with their respective governments without attempting to muddy the waters.
While there have been endless arguments on whether the Governor enjoys discretionary authority or not — and if he does, under what constitutional and legal provisions — they may not be able to clinch the argument on an issue as they do not necessarily rule out the contrarian stances.
One of the examples of populist posturing is to play the blame game and accuse the other party of doing the same when it was in power.
While such charges may be factually correct or close to the charge, bad precedents may not be good examples to imitate. These charges also do not take into account the great churning that the Indian polity has undergone over the years and the challenges that institutions confront to remain abreast with them.
The arena of the relative autonomy of States underwent a decisive turn from the late 1980s without formally altering the constitutional frame very much.
This transformation was manifest in the rise of new political parties with their focus on States, liberalisation of the economy, and greater devolution of economic responsibility to the States. States were made to realise that they could not pass on this responsibility somewhere else.
On the shifting banks of the Ganga (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Growth and Development)
Afew weeks after several structures, including houses and a crematorium with a Kali temple, were washed away by the river Ganga, villagers at Pratapganj and Mahestola in Murshidabad’s Shamsherganj block organised an elaborate puja but to a deity they had never seen or worshipped in the past — a goddess dressed in all-white, seated on a gharial and fish.
This is Goddess Ganga. The people here are desperate and are trying everything to stop the erosion,” says Satyam Sarkar, a member of Bogdadnagar panchayat samiti.
Several houses have been reduced to rubble, and many others are poised precariously on the eroding banks of the vast flowing river along this stretch bordering Dhuliyan municipality.
The extent of erosion is such that thousands of people from nearby and far-off areas started coming here every day, Sarkar, a local Trinamool Congress leader, says. “It was like a mela (fair), they were coming to see the erosion. We had to put up barricades to prevent people from coming.”
Four months after the massive erosion in September 2022 left hundreds of people homeless, Pratapganj and Mahestola are pictures of devastation. Elaborately built two-storied houses on the edge of the river lie vacant.
A part of a road running parallel to the river has caved in, and thousands of sand bags have been placed along the river to prevent further erosion. Now, in the winter, the river flows calmly with several small fishing boats flying Indian flags out in the water.
Delawar Hossain, a friend of Sarkar, says that only a few hundred metres downstream, a burial ground at Sadikpara was swept away this monsoon.
At Kamalpur, my village, which is about 3 km downstream, a masjid, a health centre and a primary school are hanging on the edge and can fall into the river any day.
A primary school and an anganwadi centre at Pratapganj tell the story of sufferings. One room at the anganwadi now serves as home to four families.
Outside the anganwadi centre, there are few cabins made of jute sticks where families displaced by the Ganga have found shelter. Several families are taking shelter at Pratapganj Primary School after their homes were washed away.
Five-six families are huddled in every classroom. Clothes are left to dry across the school compound and children play in the classrooms. For more than two dozen families, there are only two toilets and two bathrooms.
Text & context
A lesson from China on gig and platform workers’ rights (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
On September 20, 2021, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers, on behalf of gig workers, filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court demanding that the Union government provide succour to workers affected by the pandemic. The petition has asked for ‘gig workers’ and ‘platform workers’ to be declared as ‘unorganised workers’ so they come under the purview of the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008.
In short, the petition demands social security benefits from food delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy and taxi aggregator apps such as Ola and Uber.
That same week, China strode ahead in this regard. Owing to public pressure, two of its food delivery platforms, Meituan and Ele.me, committed to end the practice of forcing workers to register as ‘independent businesses’, which has long helped these platforms evade responsibilities as employers.
Both platforms run a duopoly in the sector, capturing over 90% of the market share, and employ millions of gig workers. In a notice to labour aggregator partners, Meituan said it prohibited signing on delivery workers “through deceptive or coercive means”.
The one major factor that the pandemic has helped change is the erstwhile ‘invisibility’ of delivery workers. Through 2020, a trend that spanned China, India, the U.S. and Europe saw ‘invisible workers’ being propelled to ‘frontline workers’.
In China, this was especially the case in Wuhan, the pandemic’s epicentre, where there was a clear transition of social discourse in favour of delivery workers.
People’s Daily , the largest state-affiliated daily in China, responded to public sentiment by ranking delivery work among the top 10 occupations.
The media aided this transformation. In the fall of 2020, Renwu, a monthly Chinese magazine, took an exhaustive look at the plight of delivery workers across the two food delivery platforms.
Titled ‘Delivery Riders, Trapped in the System’, the article was shared over 200 million times on the Chinese internet indicating how deeply Chinese social media users connected with the issue.
One indicator of how seriously an issue is taken by the public is its virality on the Chinese web. In 2015, for instance, a TED-style talk on China’s pollution crisis got 100 million views across major video streaming sites within 48 hours of its release, resulting in policy change.
News
PM Modi calls for prison reforms and repeal of obsolete laws (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
At the annual police meet that concluded on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested prison reforms to improve the jail management, and recommended repealing obsolete criminal laws.
Mr. Modi attended the 57th All India Conference of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police organised by the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
A government statement said the Prime Minister suggested making the police forces more sensitive and training them in emerging technologies.
He emphasised the importance of the National Data Governance Framework for smoothing of data exchange across agencies.
The Prime Minister suggested that while we should further leverage technological solutions like biometrics etc., there is also a need to further strengthen the traditional policing mechanisms like foot patrols etc..
He recommended repealing obsolete criminal laws and building standards for police organisations across States. He also discussed strengthening of border as well as coastal security by organising frequent visits of officials to these locations.
He emphasised enhanced cooperation between the State Police and the Central agencies to leverage capabilities and share best practices.
He suggested replicating the model of the conference at the State/district levels for discussing emerging challenges and evolving best practices among their teams.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Ministers of State for Home, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and Home Secretary Ajay kumar Bhalla were present.
BSF starts ‘Ops Alert’ exercise ahead of Republic Day (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
The Border Security Force has started an "Ops Alert'' exercise to enhance security along the India-Pakistan border in Kutch district of Gujarat and Barmer in Rajasthan in view of the upcoming Republic Day celebrations, the BSF said.
The exercise, which began from Saturday, was being carried out to "thwart any ill designs of anti-national elements" during the Republic Day celebrations, the BSF Gujarat Frontier said in a release.
The 'Ops Alert' exercise commenced on January 21 and will continue till January 28 "all along the Indo-Pak international border from Sir Creek (marshy area) to the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat and Barmer district of Rajasthan”.
The BSF will carry out special operations in forward and depth areas as well as creeks and 'Harami Nalla' as part of the exercise. It has also planned public outreach programmes as part of the exercise, the release said.
The Indo-Pak border along Kutch in Gujarat is sensitive in view of a number of Pakistani nationals having been apprehended in the past after entering the Indian waters while moving on boats to catch fish.
According to official data, the BSF apprehended 22 Pakistani fishermen, seized 79 fishing boats and heroin worth ₹250 crore and charas worth ₹2.49 crore from this region of Gujarat in 2022.
To enhance its security, "permanent vertical bunkers" of concrete are being constructed for the first time to station BSF troops right at the strategically significant Sir Creek and Harami Nalla marshy area, sources earlier said.
The Union Home Ministry has sanctioned a ₹50-crore fund for the construction of eight multi-storey bunkers cum observation posts in this area along the Bhuj sector in view of the “constant infiltration of Pakistani fishermen and fishing boats in the area.