HYDERABAD  TUESDAY  SEPTEMBER 26, 2023  `9.00  PAGES 18  LATE CITY EDITION ASIAN GAMES: SHOOTING STARS AND GOLDEN GIRLS WORLD RECORD FOR SHOOTING TEAM The men’s 10m air rifle team kept the hosts at bay with a world record score to win the team gold. Their combined 1893.7 eclipsed the record held by China (1893.3). In fact, all three finished in the top eight in the qualifying but Divyansh didn’t advance as only the top two from each NOC could feature in the final. In the final, Aishwary won bronze The men’s 10m air rifle team and the women’s cricket side won India the first gold medals in Hangzhou. A look at Monday’s haul GOLD FOR WOMEN’S CRICKET SIDE ■ Captain Harmanpreet Kaur, back after serving a two match suspension, marshalled the bowling troops well to beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs in the final. Opting to bat first on a tricky surface, they made 116 before restricting the Islanders to 97. For India, Titas Sadhu excelled with the ball, picking 3/6 in her four overs | P13 FIVE ROWERS FINISH ON A HIGH WITH FIVE MEDALS CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI LAW PANEL’S ‘ONE POLL’ REPORT TO SUGGEST 2029 ROLLOUT P R E E T H A N A I R @ New Delhi LAYING the groundwork for the Centre’s ‘One Nation, One Poll’ proposal, the 22nd Law Commission will submit its final report on the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, according to top sources in the law ministry. The commission headed by Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi has been working on the final re- AIADMK general secretary EPS at party headquarters on Monday | P JAWAHAR Break-up official: AIADMK exits NDA T M U R U G A N A N D H A M @ Chennai THE uneasy relationship between the AIADMK and BJP, which had endured for four years due to various political compulsions, came to an end on Monday with the Dravidian major unambiguously calling it quits. The AIADMK also announced that it had exited the BJP-led NDA and would form its own alliance to face the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The AIADMK’s decision, just seven months before parliamentary polls, is seen as a setback for the BJP at the national level as it was one of the few key allies of the saffron party . “The decision to leave the NDA was taken unanimously and in deference to the views and feelings of more than two crore AIADMK cadre who were outraged by the continued criticisms of the BJP’s state leadership. The AIADMK will face the Lok Sabha elections by forming an alliance with like-minded parties” the party’s deputy general secretary KP Munusamy told reporters after the meeting chaired by general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami in Chennai. Munusamy said the resolution adopted by the meeting said that for the past year the BJP’s state leadership, with ulterior motives, has been criticising the AIADMK’s ideals and leaders, including CN Annadurai, and J Jayalalithaa. Besides, the BJP’s state leadership belittled the AIADMK’s historic state-level conference held on August 20 and has been criticising the party’s general secretary . In Coimbatore, BJP state president K Annamalai said his party’s national leadership would respond to the development. “I will talk about this later,” he said. port since February this year. The first meeting of a highlevel committee on simultaneous polls headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind was held last Saturday . The Justice Awasthiled panel held extensive consultations with political parties, bureaucrats, academicians and experts. “I won’t say that there was consensus among parties on the idea,” an official said, adding that the government may send the Law Commission’s report to the Kovind-led committee for their perusal. Speaking to this newspaper, the official said the law panel would recommend synchronised elections in the next five years so that the simultaneous poll rollout will start in 2029. To synchronise Guv refuses to send Dasoju, Kurra to Council Tamilisai finds leaders picked by Cabinet for MLC posts ‘lacking’ V V B A L A K R I S H N A @ Hyderabad My earnest request to the Cabinet and the CM is to avoid such politically aligned persons to fill nominated posts under Article 171(5), and consider only genuinely eminent persons in the respective field Tamilisai Soundararajan, Governor The decision raises questions. The unique situation of Tamilisai Soundararajan, who was Tamil Nadu BJP president and now serves as Governor in Telangana, deserves examination T Harish Rao, Finance Minister BRS leaders don’t like Governor as she highlights the misdeeds of KCR. She acts independently and she is not aligned to any political party G Kishan Reddy, TS BJP president IN a surprise move, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Monday rejected the proposal of the State Cabinet to nominate BRS leaders Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanarayana to the Legislative Council under Governor’s quota, stating that both of them lack the knowledge or practical experience in their relevant fields. The Governor’s decision came at a time amidst talk of bonhomie between the Raj Bhavan and Pragathi Bhavan after Tamilisai visited the Secretariat and appreciated the government. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had invited her to the inauguration of a temple, mosque and church in the new Secretariat on August 25. The Governor’s decision is likely to have political ramifications, especially during election time, as the pink party may see it as yet another attempt by the BJP-led Union government to create problems for the BRS government. However, legal experts say that the Governor’s decision was ‘correct’, as she rejected the nominations citing Constitutional provisions and the lack of knowledge and practical experience of Sravan and Satyanarayana in their respective fields. The State Cabinet, in the first week of August, had recommended Sravan and Satyanarayana for nominating to the Legislative Council under Governor’s quota. However, after examining the nominations for over one and half a month, the Governor wrote that they were rejected. “My earnest request to the Cabinet and Chief Minister is to avoid such politically aligned persons to fill up nominated posts under Article 171(5) of the Constitution, defeating its objectives and enactment and consider only genuinely eminent persons in the respective field,” the Governor said in her separate letters addressed to the chief minister and the chief secretary . PRESS CLUSIVE the elections, the process has to begin from this year, the official said. He also dismissed the possibility of holding simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies in 2024. The commission has drawn most of its recommendations from the draft report of the pre- vious Law Commission led by Justice B S Chauhan, submitted in 2018, said the source. “We have taken many recommendations of the Justice Chauhan committee report into consideration. On the same lines as the previous law commission’s report, we have recommended synchronisation of elections in the next five years,” he said. The suggestions of the previous Law Commission included advancing or postponing elec- tion timings in certain states, such that polls to all state assemblies and the Lok Sabha may be held together. If assembly elections are due before Lok Sabha elections, it said that the term of these assemblies may be extended to synchronise it with the Lok Sabha elections, by amending the Constitution. “We have also made proposals on similar lines. It is up to the government to take the final call,” the official said. ‘Flaws’ in Kanugolu’s survey report raise hackles of Congress veterans I R E D DY S R I N I VAS R E D DY @ Hyderabad SENIOR leaders of the Telangana Congress have expressed their displeasure with political strategist Sunil Kanugolu regarding survey reports related to candidate selection. These veterans have raised concerns about the survey results, particularly those pertaining to leaders who recently joined the party, some just 15 to 20 days ago, as well as those who joined several months back. Questioning the survey ratings, which show some candidates getting scores as high as 68 and 70 within a short period, the veterans have demanded transparency regarding the methodology used and called for the full survey details to be shared. One party veteran even raised questions about a particular leader who received a high rating in the survey despite not having joined the party until two days ago. The veterans also expressed their incredulity at some leaders who joined the party in Delhi just two days ago applying for tickets and the party’s screening committee discussing their candidature in a recent meeting in the capital. Sources said that veterans from various regions, including Mahbubnagar, Karimnagar, Rangareddy, Adilabad and Warangal districts, have raised objections to the survey reports, particularly over the fact that some senior leaders and former ministers did not receive favourable CONTINUED ON P6 ratings. EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad IN its interim orders on Monday , the Telangana High Court has set aside implementation of GO 84, dated July 26, 2023, regularising property registrations through notary/unregistered documents. Abench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice NV Shravan Kumar held that GO 84 prima facie falls outside the HC BARS IMMERSION OF PoP IDOLS IN HYD LAKES The Telangana High Court on Monday ordered the State government to ensure that no idols made of Plaster of Paris are immersed in either the Hussainsagar or any other water body in Hyderabad | P3 scope of Section 9 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, as it attempts to regularise notarised documents related to non-agricultural urban properties in the State and directs authorities to treat them as valid link documents. The petitioners had argued that the GO has the effect of overriding statutory provisions, including those found in the Transfer of Property Act1882, the Registration Act, 1908, and the Indian Stamp Act, 1899. They also contended that the regularisation of transactions SHARMILA SAYS YSRTP TO FIELD CANDIDATES IN ALL 119 Assembly segments if there is no merger or alliance with the Congress for the upcoming elections | P6 FOR the first time, a deaf lawyer argued her case before the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, paving the way for more physically-challenged lawyers to defend their cases. Sarah Sunny on Friday argued her case with the help of an Indian sign language interpreter. Senior advocate Sanchita Ain made a plea to Chief Justice Chandrachud to let Sarah Bhopal: PM Narendra Modi on Monday tore into the Congress, likening it to ‘rusted iron’ and alleging that its functioning has been outsourced to ‘urban Naxals’. He said Congress is no longer run by its leaders | P10 Will do caste census if Cong wins, says Rahul Raipur: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said PM Modi is denying SCs, STs & OBCs their fair share by refusing to do the caste census. He said Cong will do it if voted to power | P10 based on plot size, as prescribed in the GO, lacks an intelligible difference compared to verifiable economic criteria. It was argued that this GO could lead to further litigation. SGP Harender Pershad argued that the intention behind GO 84 was not to register documents prohibited by the Registration Act, 1908, but to collect stamp duty on notarised documents, a power vested in the State government under Section 9 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899. Y E S H I S E L I @ New Delhi AUSPICIOUS BEGINNING Union defence minister Rajnath Singh draws an Om as part of the puja ceremony to induct the first C-295 MW transport aircraft into the Indian Air Force at Hindon Air Force station on Monday | PARVEEN NEGI SC hears arguments from deaf lawyer for the first time argue her case with an interpreter. He immediately gave his assent. This historic moment would not have taken place as the control room responsible for managing virtual hearings hesitated to accommodate Sarah and her interpreter. With the CJI’s approval, the control room accommodated Sarah, who is based in Bangalore, and her inter- Congress is now run by urban Naxals, says Modi Canada’s 2nd India travel advisory out ANOTHER GLASS CEILING BROKEN S HRU T I KAK KAR @ New Delhi EXPRESS READ HC orders interim stay on notary registrations Guv correct in her decision: Former A-G Stating that the Governor was correct in her decision to reject the proposal to nominate Dasoju Sravan and K Satyanarayana to the State Legislative Council under the Governor’s quota citing ‘lack of knowledge or practical experience’ in their relevant fields, Constitutional expert and former advocate general of Telangana K Ramakrishna Reddy explained that now there were two options before the State government. The first option is that the chief secretary provides necessary material stating that the two persons had knowledge and practical experience in their relevant fields and recommends their names again for the Legislative Council under the Governor’s quota. The second option is that the government selects two other persons having knowledge and practical experience in fields like education, science and others and recommends their names CONTINUED ON P5 to the Governor. If simultaneous elections cannot be conducted, all elections falling due in a calendar year should be conducted together, the panel had suggested. It would require at least five Constitutional amendments. The official further said, “The previous commission gave suggestions for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. We have considered its suggestions on hung House and no-confidence motion, etc,” he said. preter, Saurav Roychowdhury, too appearing virtually . As Sarah’s turn came, her interpreter stepped forward and acted as a bridge between her and the world. In the process, he received praise from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who said the speed at which the interpreter is interpreting in sign language is amazing. Sarah’s determination has broken down more barriers. The CJI, when he took his oath of office in November last year, had said, “My work, not words, will speak.” In line with his commitment, he established the “SC Committee on Accessibility,” chaired by Justice S R Bhat. This committee’s mission is to conduct comprehensive accessibility audits of Supreme Court premises and its opera- tions. It involves reaching out to persons with disabilities who visit the Supreme Court, soliciting their feedback, and assessing the nature and extent of the challenges they face. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to ensure that justice is accessible to all and to gain a deep understanding of the hardships faced by differentlyabled individuals in their interactions with the Supreme Court of India. CANADA on Monday updated its travel advisory for its citizens in India asking them to stay vigilant and exercise caution in the wake of the recent developments and the “negative sentiment” towards Canada. This is its second advisory within a week. It sought to flag the threat of terrorist attacks across the country “Avoid non. essential travel to Assam and Manipur due to risk of terrorism and insurgency and avoid all travel to Jammu and Kashmir due to unpredictability civ, il unrest, kidnapping,” it said. The advisory added that Canadian citizens currently in India should avoid all travel to areas within 10 km of the border with Pakistan due to the presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance. “The level of tension between India and Pakistan may change suddenly You could ex. perience difficulties when travelling between the two countries,” it said. WOMEN’S SAFETY The advisory has a special word of caution for women. “Crimes committed against women frequently occur in India. Foreign women are often the target of unwanted attention,” it adds