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2006 Malegaon blasts case: Bombay High Court grants bail to four accused

Agencies
June 14, 2019

Mumbai, Jun 14: The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to four accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case.

A division bench of Justices I A Mahanty and A M Badar granted bail to Dhan Singh, Lokesh Sharma, Manohar Narwaria and Rajendra Chaudhary. "The petitions are allowed. The applicants shall be released on cash bail of Rs 50,000. They shall attend the special court on each day during the trial and shall not tamper with evidence or contact witnesses," the bench said.

The four, who are in jail since their arrest in 2013, had approached the high court in 2016 after a special court rejected their bail pleas in June that year. The serial bomb blasts outside a cemetery near Hamidia mosque at Malegaon near Nashik on September 8, 2006, claimed 37 lives and injured over 100 people.

The Maharashtra's Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), which first probed the case, had initially arrested nine accused from the minority community. The case was later handed over to the CBI, which followed the same line of investigation. When the probe was taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) later, it concluded that the blasts were carried out by people belonging to the majority community.

The NIA decided to drop charges against the nine accused and booked Singh, Sharma, Narwaria and Chaudhary. The special trial court in 2016 accepted the NIA's stand and discharged the nine accused. Apart from seeking bail, Singh and others had challenged the discharge of the nine men.

 The four accused also challenged the special court's order rejecting their own applications seeking discharge. Those appeals will be heard by the high court at a later stage.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

Kochi, Jul 30: The Kerala High Court on Thursday refused to grant the extension for the stay of a 74-year-old US citizen, Johnny Paul Pierce, who had earlier said that he felt safer to remain in India than in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The single-judge bench of Justice CS Dias, which considered the writ petition, observed that the grant or extension of visa to foreign nationals fall exclusively within the domain of the Government of India (GoI) and that judicial review in such matters is minimal.

The power of the GoI to expel foreigners is absolute and unlimited, the bench said.

"In view of the categoric declaration of law by the Supreme Court, the plea of the petitioner to permit him to stay back in India cannot be accepted, as it falls within the purview of the guidelines and the discretion of the Government of India," the order said.

"The petitioner cannot be heard that the guidelines/policies/regulations formulated by the Government of India, that an American national though has been granted a visa having validity of five years has to leave India within 180 days, is irrational or unreasonable," it added.

The High Court, which was hearing a plea to permit the US citizen to stay in India for a further period of six months, said that the petitioner does not have a case that there is an infraction of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

"The petitioner was well aware of the visa conditions when he arrived in India, and it is too late in the day for him to raise a grievance on the visa conditions," the bench said noting that the petitioner's love for India was heartening.

The High Court also directed the Foreigners Registration Officer to consider the petitioner's representation within a period of two weeks in accordance with the applicable guidelines and policies.

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News Network
July 3,2020

New Delhi, Jul 3: India reported the highest ever single-day spike of 20,903 COVID-19 cases in 24 hours on Friday, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With these new cases, India's coronavirus tally has risen to 6,25,544 cases of which 2,27,439 patients are active cases while 3,79,892 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated.

379 more deaths due to COVID-19 were reported in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the number of deaths due to the infection to 18,213.

As per the Health Ministry, Maharashtra -- the worst-affected state from the virus -- has a total of 1,86,626 cases including 8,178 fatalities while Tamil Nadu has 98,392 coronavirus cases in the state inclusive of 1,321 fatalities.

Delhi has reported 92,175 cases so far inclusive of 2,864 patients succumbing to the virus.

The Indian Council of Medical Research on Friday said that the total number of samples tested till July 2 is 92,97,749 of which 2,41,576 samples were tested on Thursday.

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Agencies
February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11 Congress's performance touched a record low in the Delhi Assembly election as the party bagged less than 5 per cent of the total votes polled and 63 of its candidates lost their deposits.

The party, which ruled Delhi for 15 years on the trot under former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, failed to open its account for the second consecutive assembly election in Delhi.

Only three of its candidates Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar, Devender Yadav from Badli and Abhishek Dutt from Kasturba Nagar managed to save their deposits.

Security deposit of a candidate is forfeited if he/she fails to secure one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency.

Most of Congress candidates got less than 5 per cent of the total votes polled in their respective constituencies.

Delhi Congress chief Shubhash Chopra's daughter Shivani Chopra, who was the party candidate from Kalkaji, also could not save her deposit.

Former Delhi Assembly Speaker Yoganand Shastri's daughter Priyanka Singh also forfeited her deposit.

The party's campaign committee chairman Kirti Azad's wife, Poonam Azad, lost badly and stood fourth, polling only 2,604 (2.23) votes.

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