Congress wrests Mangaluru, Bantwal Taluk Panchayats from BJP

Bengaluru, Mar 3: Bengaluru mayor Gautam Kumar on Tuesday said that the decision to ban protests in front of Town Hall was made by the council and not only by him.

"The decision to ban the protest in front of the Town Hall was made by the entire council and not only my decision. Also, the things which are approved by the councillor are also read by the ruling party leaders," Bengaluru mayor told media.

"Still it is the discretion of the Commissioner to take a call after the council also. As of now, we have banned any protests in front of Town Hall," he added.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders staged a protest against Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Mayor Gautam Kumar and BJP at Council BBMP building against the decision.

"If people will start protesting, it will badly affect the traffic of the city," said Kumar, while commenting on the protest. If they want to talk about the matter, let us have a healthy discussion. I don't have a problem with and I don't think the ruling party has a problem too," he added.

On Sunday, pro-Kannada activist and former MLA Vatal Nagraj staged a protest in front of Sir KP Puttanna Chetty Town Hall (Bangalore Town Hall) against the decision taken by Bengaluru mayor.

Talking to reporters, Nagraj had said: "He does not know the history of the Town Hall. It is a historic building and protests can be staged there."

"Mayor's decision is against Bengaluru's tradition and culture, that's why we are condemning it and are protesting against this decision. We will not allow Mayor's programs in Bengaluru and he will be shown black flags", he added.

Bengaluru, Feb 14: In a major embarrassment to the police, the Karnataka High Court has termed as illegal the prohibitory orders imposed under Section 144 of CrPC by the City Police Commissioner in December 2019 in the light of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Bengaluru.

The orders were passed “without application of mind” and without following due procedures, the court noted. Giving reasons for upholding the arguments of the petitioners that there was no application of mind by the Police Commissioner (Bhaskar Rao) before imposing restrictions, a division bench of the High Court said he had not recorded the reasons, except reproducing the contents of letters addressed to him by the Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs). 

The state government had contended that prohibitory orders were passed based on reports submitted by the DCPs who expressed apprehension about anti-social elements creating law and order problems and damaging public property by taking advantage of the anti-CAA protests.  

The High Court bench said the Police Commissioner should have conducted inquiry as stated by the Supreme Court to check the reasons cited by the DCPs who submitted identical reports. Except for this, there were no facts laid out by the Police Commissioner, the court said.

“There is complete absence of reasons. If the order indicated that the Police Commissioner was satisfied by the apprehension of DCPs, it would have been another matter,” it said.  

“The apex court has held that it must record the reasons for imposition of restrictions and there has to be a formation of opinion by the district magistrate. Only then can  the extraordinary powers conferred on the district magistrate can be exercised. This procedure was not followed. Hence, exercise of power under Section 144 by the commissioner, as district magistrate, was not at all legal”, the bench said. 

“We hold that the order dated December 18, 2019 is illegal and cannot stand judicial scrutiny in terms of the apex court’s orders in the Ramlila Maidan case and Anuradha Bhasin case,” the HC bench said while upholding the arguments of Prof Ravivarma Kumar, who appeared for some of the petitioners.   

Partly allowing a batch of public interest petitions questioning the imposition of prohibitory orders and cancelling the permission granted for protesters in the city, the bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar observed that, unfortunately, in the present case, there was no indication of application of mind in passing prohibitory orders.

The bench said the observation was confined to this order only and it cannot be applicable in general. If there is a similar situation (necessitating imposition of restrictions), the state is not helpless, the court said.

Bengaluru, Apr 30: Four ministers of Karnataka have gone into self-quarantine after they got here in touch with a video journalist of native channel who has examined optimistic for COVID-19. The listing contains state’s Deputy Chief Minister Dr Ashwath Narayan.

All 4 introduced the quarantine on Twitter.

Mr Narayan, dwelling minister Basvaraj Bommai , medical training Minister Dr. Sudhakar and tourism minister CT Ravi tweeted to say that they’ve examined detrimental for coronavirus however will likely be beneath self-quarantine.

They mentioned they got here in touch with a video journalist from a neighborhood tv channel  who was discovered COVID-19 optimistic on April 24. He had met the ministers between April 21 and April 24.

At least 40 different contacts of the video journalist, together with his household and journalists from numerous media retailers have been quarantined, reported news agency.

Earlier this month, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani put himself in quarantine after an MLA who attended a gathering with him turned out to be coronavirus-positive.

Karnataka to date had 532 circumstances of coronavirus. Of them, 215 sufferers recovered and 20 sufferers died.

Earlier immediately, the state authorities determined to chill out lockdown restrictions in plenty of districts the place the coronavirus has not had a serious affect. The authorities is permitting industries to operate in these areas with sure circumstances.

The listing contains spots in Chamarajnagar, Koppal, Chikmagaluru, Raichur, Chitradurga, Hassan, Shivamogga, Haveri, Yadgir, Kolar, Udupi, Davanagere and Kodagu districts.

Manufacturing will likely be allowed within the particular financial zones in these districts and standalone outlets exterior municipal limits will likely be allowed to operate.