Don’t blame minority Brahmins for past ‘tragedies’: Pejawar seer

New Delhi, Mar 6: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea seeking framing of a proper mechanism to deal with alleged misuse of the sedition law by the government machinery. A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar dismissed the plea filed by a social activist and said it was open for the petitioner to approach the appropriate authority.

At the outset, the apex court told advocate Utsav Singh Bains, appearing for the petitioner, that he could not seek quashing of an FIR in a sedition case filed against the management of a Karnataka school for allegedly allowing students to stage an anti-CAA and anti-NRC drama.

Bains told the bench that he was not just pressing for a prayer to quash the FIR but the petitioner has also sought a direction for framing of a proper mechanism to deal with the alleged misuse of the sedition law.

"Let the affected party come and we will hear them. Why it should be done at your instance," the bench said, refusing to entertain the petition.

The petition had sought quashing of the FIR against the principal and other staff of the Shaheen School at Bidar who have been booked under sections 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) of the Indian Penal Code.

The plea had also sought an apex court direction for a proper mechanism to deal with alleged government misuse of the sedition law.

Section 124A of the IPC says that "whoever brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards... the Government shall be punished with imprisonment for life...".

The plea had sought a direction to the Centre and the Karnataka government "to quash the FIR registered in connection of seditious charges against the school management, teacher and a widowed parent of a student for staging a play criticising CAA, NRC and NPR."

The petition had claimed that the police "also questioned students, and videos and screenshots of CCTV footage showing them speaking to the students were shared widely on social media, prompting criticism."

The drama was staged on January 21 by students of the fourth, the fifth and the sixth standard.

The sedition case was filed based on a complaint by social worker Neelesh Rakshyal on 26 January.

The complainant alleged that the school authorities "used" the students to perform a drama where they "abused" Modi in the context of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens.

Mangaluru/Udupi, Jul 7: Coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi crossed 100 plus Covid19 positive cases mark again on Tuesday, after slipping to double digit cases for a day on Monday. While Dakshina Kannada accounted for 83 of these cases and one death, Udupi tallied 28 fresh cases taking the combined tally of new cases to 111.

DK stood second behind Bengaluru Urban that recorded 800 out of 1,498 new cases that the state recorded for the day.

In all, 48 primary contacts testing positive led DK district’s spurt of 83 cases, Sindhu B Rupesh, deputy commissioner, said. Influenza like illness (ILI) cases accounted for 20 of the 83 cases, one each were diagnosed with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and from pre-surgery sample collected before delivery, two had history of inter-district travel, three each were cases of random, pre-surgery samples and source of infection being traced.

A 65-year-old male from Moodbidri who had co-morbid conditions including diabetes, pneumonia and heart ailment succumbed to the pandemic during the day. He was admitted for treatment at a private hospital on July 3. With this, the death toll due to coronavirus in DK district rose to 26 and two of them are due to non-Covid reasons including a case each of suicide and a person succumbing to liver cirrhosis and they tested positive post death.

G Jagadeesha, deputy commissioner, Udupi district said the 28 new cases took the total positive cases in Udupi to 1390. With 1182 patients discharged and three deaths, Udupi as on date has 205 active cases. Those who tested positive include KSRTC driver who travelled to Bengaluru, vegetable vendor at Adi Udupi market and people with travel history to Tumakuru, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Dubai and two even from DK and rest primary contacts, DC said.

Health authorities in DK district also discharged 99 patients during the day to keep their active cases tally at 650. The two districts combined have 855 active cases as on date. As per revised protocol issued by the department of health and family welfare, the district administration also permitted 28 patients with mild symptoms to undergo home isolation while the rest are being treated either at private hospitals or at the designated Covid19 hospital for DK.

Bengaluru, Jul 9: The M Chinnaswamy cricket stadium and the Bengaluru Palace in Karnataka will be converted into a COVID-19 care centre, informed the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) on Thursday.

The Bangalore International Exhibition Centre was also recently converted into a COVID-19 care facility by the state government amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

R Ashoka, the state's COVID management in charge said, "People of Bangalore need not panic. All necessary equipment and preparation are being arranged by the state. We have over 600 ambulances ready to take care of COVID patients."

As per the data from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Karnataka now has a total of 28,877 COVID-19 cases, including 16,531 active cases and 11,876 recoveries.

470 people have died of the infectious virus in the state so far.