dharmapuri l thursday l may 23, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION RBI to pay highest-ever dividend of `2.11 lakh crore to government The Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday approved the transfer of `2,10,874 crore as surplus to the Centre for FY24 A shot in the arm for the next government Record payout AMID higher risk buffer The payout is more than double the expected amount. The Centre had budgeted a receipt of `1.02 lakh crore as dividend from the RBI, public sector banks and financial institutions in the interim budget for 2024-25. Experts say the higher-than-budgeted dividend payout will provide headroom to the new government to enhance expenditure and better manage the fiscal deficit ■ The RBI’s balance sheet rose 11.4% in FY24 due to the increase in foreign currency assets, loans and advances to scheduled commercial banks and gold reserves, Gaura Sen Gupta, the chief economist at IDFC First Bank, said ■ The record payout comes even as the RBI raised its contingency risk buffer from 6% to 6.5% — which is at the higher end of the statutory requirement `87,416 cr The size of dividend transfer by the RBI to the Centre in the previous fiscal 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 Form 17C sharing open to mischief: EC Images of booth-wise record of votes polled could be morphed, leading to mistrust and chaos, poll body tells SC S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi The Election Commission of India on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that uploading Form 17C (record of votes polled) on its website could lead to mischief, since the images could be morphed, creating “widespread discomfort and mistrust”. It added that no legal right can be claimed towards publishing the final authenticated data of voter turnout in all polling stations. A three-judge bench of the court led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud had on May 17 asked the poll panel to file its affidavit on a plea by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) seeking directions to upload the polling station-wise voter turnout data on the ECI website within 48 hours of polling for each phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The court had wanted to know the difficulty in putting up the Form 17C images on the ECI’s website and scheduled the next hearing for Friday May 24. , “In any electoral contest, the margin of victory may be very close. In such cases, disclosure of Form 17C in public domain express read Buzz on Bangladesh MP’s murder in Kolkata New Delhi: Veteran Bangladeshi MP Anwarul Azim Anar, who went missing in India, was possibly killed in Kolkata, reports on Wednesday said. The West Bengal police said investigations into the case of the politician’s killing has been taken up by the state CID. Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan claimed that it was a planned murder | P7 First human case of bird flu in Aus tied to India Canberra: Australia has announced the first confirmed case of human bird flu in a child who is believed to have acquired it while in India some weeks ago, according to a media report on Wednesday. The child experienced a severe infection but is no longer unwell,” the Victorian Department of Health posted on X. There is no evidence of transmission in Victoria, it said in the post | P9 No scanner, no Net connection to upload There are no scanners for Form 17C at polling stations. Further, no internet facility is allowed so as to remove doubts on connectivity with EVMs. If uploading is to be done centrally by ARO or RO, it will violate the extant legal design of keeping Form 17C in the strong room, the ECI said may cause confusion in the minds of the voters with regard to the total votes polled as the latter figure would include the number of votes polled as per Form 17C as well as the votes received through postal ballots. However, such difference may not be easily understood by the voters and may be used by persons with motivated interests to cast aspersion on the whole electoral process ... cause chaos in the election machinery which is already in motion,” the affidavit said. It warned that the disclosure of Form 17C is amenable to mischief and could vitiate the entire electoral space. “ the moAt ment, the original Form 17C is only available in the Strong Room and a copy only with the polling agents whose signatures it bears. Therefore, there is a one-to-one relationship between each Form 17C and its possessor,” the ECI said. Indiscriminate disclosure of the form through public posting on the website increases the possibility of the images being morphed, creating widespread public discomfort and mistrust, it reasoned. “There is a consistent malafide campaign/design/efforts to keep on raising suspicion and doubt in every possible manner and by misleading assertions and baseless allegations regarding the conduct of elections by the Election Commission of India,” it submitted. The ECI went on to question the motive of the petitioners. “The petitioners are not approaching the courts with clean hands,” the affidavit argued. Over the last few weeks, Opposition parties, including the Congress, CPI (M) and Trinamool Congress have written to the ECI over the delay in release of final voter turnout and to publish the total number of voters in each constituency. The Congress questioned the big difference between the real time voter turnout data and the final figures released by the ECI. Election commission ticks off Nadda, Kharge MUKESH R AN J AN @ New Delhi The Commission expects BJP to fully align the campaign methods to the practical aspects of the composite and sensitive fabric of India ECI to Nadda Do not make statements that give false impression that the Constitution may be abolished or sold ECI to Kharge With just two phases of the Lok Sabha polls left, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday issued advisories to BJP national president J P Nadda and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge admonished their star campaigners, saying their utterances “follow patterns and create narratives, which can be damaging beyond the MCC period”. In separate letters to them, the ECI said, “Technical loopholes or extreme interpretations of other political parties’ utterances cannot discharge star campaigners from the core responsibility of their own content, which ought to be corrective to the ongoing discourse and not further plummeting the quality of campaign discourse.” The ECI was responding to the responses of Nadda and Kharge to its earlier missives to them following charges of violation of the model code of conduct by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress Rahul Gandhi respectively . Both Nadda and Kharge stoutly defended their respective party’s campaigning method and utterances of their star campaigners. But the ECI found the utterances by the star campaigners is “not tenable”. It directed Nadda to convey to the BJP’s star campaigners not to make speeches along religious or communal lines. It also directed parties to desist from making potentially divisive statements regarding the socio-economic composition of defence forces. Political temperatures are soaring with the mercury in Haryana’s Sirsa. Two ex-Congress state presidents—Kumari Selja and Ashok Tanwar—are locked in a fierce battle in this constituency reserved for Scheduled Castes. Not too long ago, they had fought side-byside against the dominance of Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the state Congress. Tanwar left the Congress after failing to get the central leadership’s support against Hooda. He first joined the Aam Aadmi Party before switching sides again: he is now fighting the Lok Sabha election on a BJP ticket. Both Selja and Tanwar have roots in Sirsa. Selja’s father Dalbir Singh was an MP from Sirsa for four terms while Selja represented the constituency S u l a g n a S e n g u p ta @ Kolkata The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday cancelled the Other Backward Class (OBC) status of several classes in West Bengal granted since 2010, calling these reservations to fill vacancies in services and posts in the state, illegal. A division bench comprising justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha struck down the OBC status of several classes given under the West Bengal Backward Classes Act, 2012. Besides, the bench quashed the state’s executive orders classifying 42 classes as OBCs from March 5, 2010 to May 11, 2012, with prospective effect, given the illegality of the reports recommending such classification. However, those who have already benefited from the quota would not be disturbed. The bench clarified that the executive orders of the state government classifying 66 classes of OBC before 2010 were not interfered with, since these were not challenged in the petitions. The SC sets aside bail given to eight men by HC in PFI case S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside a Madras High Court order that granted bail to eight alleged PFI operatives last year, holding that national security is of paramount importance and the accusations against them are ‘prima facie true’. A bench of Justices Bela M Trived i a n d Pa n k a j Mithal directed the accused arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), who were granted bail by the HC on October 19, 2023, to surrender forthwith and go back to jail. The court said it can’t be denied that national security is of paramount importance and any act linked to terrorism is liable to be restricted. “Prima facie a case has been made out against them in terms of the material placed before us by the agency (National Investigation Agency),” the bench said in the order delivered on an appeal filed by the NIA challenging the HC judgment granting bail to the accused. “Having regard to the gravity of the offence and considering that only 1.5 years have been spent in incarceration given the maximum punishment (under the law), we are inclined to interfere with the Madras HC order granting bail. Courts can interfere with orders granting personal liberty if the same is perverse,” the judges said. The apex court also directed the trial to be expedited. twice. Tanwar won the Sirsa seat in 2009. This time, the BJP has replaced its sitting MP Sunita Duggal to bet on Tanwar. Sirsa’s rich alluvial soil and advanced irrigation system help the district’s bumper agricultural production. Over half of the cotton produced in Haryana is grown in Sirsa. Its massive wheat production makes the state the second largest contributor of the grain to the central pool. Home to a strong farming community Sirsa was the epicentre , of the farmers’ protest in Haryana. During his campaign, Tanwar sometimes gets a taste of farmers’ ire in the form of black flags. He, however, dismisses them as paid workers of the Congress. Tanwar’s main thrust in his speeches is BJP’s rural infrastructure push. At a meeting in Rania, he asks a sarpanch if it’s not true that she is getting double the money for her panchayat now compared to the payout under the previous regime. “Earlier, we used to Kumari Selja (left) and Ashok Tanwar Jobs already availed won’t be affected The court clarified that the services of citizens of the struck-down classes, who are already in service or have availed the benefit of reservation or have succeeded in any selection process of the state will not be affected by the order. court directed the Backward Classes Welfare Department, in consultation with the Backward Classes Commission, to place a report before the legislature with recommendations for inclusion or exclusion of new classes in the state. Reacting to the order, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her government will appeal before the Supreme Court. “We are not in favour of this judgment as hundreds of people will suffer,” she said. The OBC reservation, she added, will continue, as the bill was passed within the framework of the Constitution. Superfund law NGT orders CPCL to pay `5cr for 2023 Nagai oil leak Si d d h a r t h Pr a b h a k a r @ Chennai summer siesta People sleep on the Yamuna riverbed under a bridge to save themselves from summer heat in New Delhi | Parveen Negi ACTING CJ JUDGE Mahadevan NAMED Acting CJ of THE Madras HC Friends-turned-rivals raise poll heat in Sirsa SHAH I D FA R I D I @ Sirsa (Haryana) Calcutta HC cancels OBC status of several classes since 2010 fight to get `5 crore for a panchayat. Now we are spending up to `70 crore,” he says. Tanwar’s plank is development, Viksit Bharat and Modi’s vision of a developed India. He reminds the voters about the kharchi-parchi (bribe-recommendation) system of recruitment under the Hooda regime and says the BJP government has offered jobs on merit. Selja loses no time in mocking her former colleague’s image as a party hopper. “Given the speed with which he has been changing parties, don’t be surprised if he is back in the Congress soon,” she says. The Congress has caught voters’ attention with its relentless campaign about the threat to reservation in government jobs and educational institutions. And that’s the leitmotif of Selja’s speeches. Illustration: Mandar Pardikar Justice R Mahadevan, senior-most judge of the HC, will succeed Chief Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala who is retiring on Thursday. Mahadevan was elevated as HC judge in 2013 | P4 Plan to acquire land for Chennai airport dropped C S h i v a k u m a r @ Chennai The Chennai airport’s ambitious target to serve 55 million passengers per annum may be in trouble as the Tamil Nadu government has dropped its plan to acquire 193 acres of land for expansion of the airport. A Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) official told TNIE that the proposal has been dropped due to problems in land acquisition. The Airport Authority of India (AAI) had sought 133 acres of land for airport expansion and an additional 60 acres for road connectivity for the airport. “The area to be acquired has several buildings and the acquisition cost is unviable and the plan has been dropped,” the official said. The decision comes months after the AAI and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) conducted a joint survey of six land parcels for expansion of the airport to meet the target of 55 million passengers per annum (MPPA). The AAI had initially requested the Tamil Nadu government to acquire 306 acres of land to build an international terminal and cargo terminal on the other side of the Adyar River. But after TIDCO officials said land acquisition was not possible as the cost was too high and a lot of families will be affected, a revised proposal for 138 acres was presented to the state. According to sources, apart from government land, private land parcels too need to be acquired for implementing the project. P5 Invoking the ‘Superfund’ law of the US statutes, the National Green Tribunal’s souther n bench in Chennai on Wednesday ruled that Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd (CPCL) should pay a fine of `5 crore to the TN Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) within two months for the oil leak from its pipeline in coastal Nagapattinam in March 2023. The bench said that though official reports by multiple agencies showed swift containment of the leak with minimal damage, state-owned CPCL had to be held accountable for “breaching” its duty of care as potential consequences for the marine ecosystem and local fishing communities could not be disregarded. The penalty amount has to be used for improving the environment and health of the local community the NGT said. , The bench applied the concept of ‘no-fault’ liability tak, ing a cue from the American Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, 1980, commonly known as ‘Superfund’, which addresses cleanup of hazardous waste sites and responses to environmental emergencies. The case pertains to an oil spill from CPCL’s nine-km long, 20-inch diameter pipeline that carried crude oil from the company’s Cauvery Basin Refinery storage tanks in Nagai to Karaikal port on March 2, 2023. File picture of oil slick along Nagapattinam coast in 2023 | Express
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