Blow to Mamata as HC nixes Singur Act

June 23, 2012
mamatha

Kolkata, June 23: The Calcutta High Court on Friday held the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, “unconstitutional and void.”

The Act was the brainchild of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The Division Bench comprising Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Mrinal Kanti Chaudhury observed that the Act was unconstitutional and void since “sections of compensation in the Singur Act were in conflict with the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and the legislation had been enacted without obtaining assent of the President.”

The judgment is seen as a major blow to Banerjee. Earlier, a single bench of the Calcutta High Court, headed by I P Mukherjee, upheld the Act on September 28, 2011.

Tata Motors had subsequently moved the division bench challenging the verdict.

“The Single Bench had no jurisdiction to fill up loopholes left by the legislature,” Justices Ghosh and Chaudhury said.

The Bench observed that “though the single judge had awarded compensation on the basis of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, but the court had no power to insert, rewrite or reframe the Singur Act and the part dealing with compensation is not sustainable.”

The court, however, gave the state government two months time to appeal to the Supreme Court, but barred it from disbursing the reclaimed land in the interim period.

Trinamool Congress MP and government counsel Kalyan Bandopadhyay said: “The judges were also confused. So they had given a two month period for appeal which is rare. The state government would now definitely move the Supreme Court against the judgment.”

The Left Front government in West Bengal had leased out 997 acres to Tata Motors at Singur in Hooghly district for the Nano car factory.

While 645 acres were allotted to the company, the rest were given to the vendors.

Following mounting opposition by local farmers, led by the Trinamool Congress, Tata Motors shifted the factory to Sanand in Gujarat citing law and order issues, but kept possession of the land.

After coming to power, Banerjee scrapped the lease to Tata Motors, triggering a legal battle between the automobile giant and the government.

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March 23,2020

Thrissur, Mar 23: Kerala police on Monday has booked a Catholic priest for violating the Covid-19 advisory against conducting Holy Mass in which more than 100 people attended.

Fr. Pauly Padayatti, vicar of Nithya Sahaya Matha (Mother of Perpetual Help) church at Koodapuzha near Chalakudy in Thrissur district has been arrested by the police.

Despite the strict restrictions of the health department and the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) to temporality suspend church services involving laity in churches, the vicar conducted the Holy Mass on Monday.

The police have also registered case against the devotees for violating the guidelines by attending the service.

The top church leadership including Cardinal Mar George Alencherry repeatedly urged the laity not to go to churches for Holy Mass or other services.

The faithful have been asked to participate in the online streaming of Holy Mass by bishops and priests and pray from their homes.

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News Network
April 12,2020

Hyderabad, Apr 12: Indicating that prolonged lockdown to contain coronavirus spread may lead to job cuts in the Indian IT industry, NASSCOM former president R Chandrashekhar has said that the work-from-home culture may become a positive development in the long run as it opens up newer avenues and save investments by IT firms.

The former bureaucrat also said startups which are surviving on funds infused by venture capitalists may face tougher situations if the present scenario deteriorates.

"The larger companies may not be actually cutting jobs for two reasons. One is that they do not want to lose their employees and they have money to pay. Many of them ( big companies), even if they do shed some jobs it might be at the most people who are on temporary or intern type and all. But they would not want regular and permanent employees to go. So as long as they have sufficient flexibility in their books, they would continue," said NASSCOM former president.

"But beyond a point that it goes on, for let us say, two months or three months, then even for them, they will feel the pressure. They may not just keep on providing subsidies to the employees. So the key question will be how long that goes on," Chandrasekhar said.

He also said the work-from-home systems being adopted by several firms across the globe, including India, may have a negative impact on the industry in the short-term, but in the long run it would change the work culture which hitherto was not experienced by many of the IT firms in India.

 On impact of the prolonged lockdown on startups, he said it would be a big challenge for the budding enterprises as the investments they get are based on their ideas and future revenues and the present situation under which peoples movement is curbed may shackle their progress.

 "Where will they (startups) get money to pay salaries to their employees. Venture capital investors would not pay the money or invest their money to pay salaries because they are not in the charity business."

If the employees are not paid and if they leave and it is difficult for the startup againto come up. So the whole investment plan goes for a toss, he said.

Former chairman of NASSCOM, B V R Mohan Reddy said a clear picture as to what is going to happen has not yet emerged as the situation with all respects is still evolving. Reddy said there will be a demand shrinkage for the IT industry as the entire world is under stress. "There is no economy in this world that is going to do well in this situation.

So, therefore, there will be a demand shrinkage, he said, indicating tougher times of the industry ahead.

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News Network
April 25,2020

Chennai, Apr 25: Civic authorities on Saturday turned down a plea for exhuming the body of a doctor who died of COVID-19 here and burying it in another cemetery, citing health experts' view that it was unsafe to do so. Citing a request from the wife of the deceased doctor to allow exhumation and then re-burial at a cemetery in Kilpauk, the Greater Chennai Corporation said it sought a report from a committee of public health experts to ascertain the feasibility of entertaining her plea.

The spouse of the doctor had appealed to the GCC on April 22 to exhume and bury again her husband's body. She had said that burial in the Kilpauk cemetery here was her husband's last wish and he had conveyed it to her before he was put on a ventilator.

The report of experts has said that "it is not safe" to exhume and again bury the body of a COVID-19 victim and hence "it is not possible to accept her request," the GCC said in an official release. On April 19, a city-based 55-year-old neurosurgeon died of coronavirus and his burial at the Velangadu crematorium here was marred by violence.

A mob which falsely feared that the burial may lead to the spread of contagion had attacked the corporation health employees and associates of the deceased doctor. The doctor's wife and son also had to leave the burial ground in view of the violence.

The body was brought to Velangadu as people of Kilpauk area had opposed his burial there. Over a dozen men involved allegedly in violence were arrested and remanded to judicial custody. Later, in a video message, the surgeon's wife had said that it was her husband's last wish to be interred at the Kilpauk cemetery as per Christian rituals

Chief Minister K Palaniswami and DMK president M K Stalin had spoken to her on Wednesday over the phone and condoled her husband's death.

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