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Observing that it is aware of the “LakshmanRekha” in matters of government policy, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court said it will examine the procedure followed and the manner in which the 2016 demonetisation exercise was carried out before deciding if the issue is only academic now.
Justice B V Nagarathna, one of the five judges of the Constitution Bench hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 currency notes, said, “The wisdom of the government is one aspect of the matter, and we know where the LakshmanRekha is.
But the manner in which it is done and the procedure is something which can be examined.But for that, we need to hear. Any declaration one way or the other is for posterity and I feel it is the duty of the Constitution Bench to answer it one way or the other.
Her remarks came as the Centre took the stand that in view of the subsequent developments and passage of time, it had now become an academic issue.
After a preliminary hearing, the bench, presided by Justice S Abdul Nazeer and also comprising Justices B R Gavai, A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, asked the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India to submit their response to the petitions.
In November 2018, The Indian Express reported that less than four hours before the Prime Minister announced demonetisation on November 8, 2016, the Central Board of the RBI gave its approval to the scheme but also rejected, in writing, two of the key justifications — black money and counterfeit notes — that he would make in his televised address to the nation.
The minutes of the 561st meeting of the RBI’s Central Board, which was convened in New Delhi at 5.30 pm that day, revealed that the central bank’s directors described the move as “commendable” but also warned that demonetisation “will have a short-term negative effect on the GDP for the current year”.
The RBI directors, after receiving a proposal draft of the scheme from the Ministry of Finance on November 7, 2016, argued that the government’s reasoning, that the withdrawal of HD (high denomination) currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 would help in curbing black money and restrict circulation of counterfeit cash, did not really hold good.
Under cheetah deal, sought India’s support on lifting ivory ban: Namibia (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In the deal it signed with Namibia to fly in cheetahs, India agreed to promote “sustainable utilisation and management of biodiversity” by supporting advances in this area of bilateral cooperation “at international forums including meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna” (CITES).
While the word “ivory” has not been mentioned, Namibia has already sought India’s backing, under the commitment to support “sustainable management” at the CITES, for its longstanding proposal to allow trade in ivory derived from elephants of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
It will be put to vote again in November, and if India supports this, it will mark a radical shift in position given that it has backed a total ban on ivory trade since the 1980s.
Asked if the agreement assured Namibia of India’s support on lifting the ban on ivory trade at the 19th meeting of the CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP19) due in Panama next month, India’s CITES management authority S P Yadav said: “We are still working on the stand of the Government of India.”
The Namibian side is more categorical. “It will be good if Namibia and other range countries are allowed to trade the ivory stockpiles.
We have approached India to support us in this regard as per the provision of the agreement. With one more country supporting us, it increases our chances to succeed in our proposal,” Romeo Muyunda, chief public relations officer of Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.
On July 20, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav signed the deal on “Wildlife Conservation and Sustainable Biodiversity Utilisation” with Namibia’s Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah to bring cheetahs home.
An official, who was part of the negotiation process, said “the elephant was always in the room” since the “very beginning of our discussions” over cheetahs.
The drafting took time and a direct reference was avoided to keep the matter open-ended. Namibia’s proposal was defeated 4:1 in 2019. Both parties understand that a similar scenario this time will make India’s vote inconsequential.
Namibia and the other three southern Africa countries – Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe – argue that their elephant populations have bounced back and their stockpiled ivory, if sold internationally, can generate much-needed revenue for elephant conservation and incentivising communities.
Govt. and Politics
Govt clears Bill to amend multi-state co-op law (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Union Cabinet approved the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to enhance transparency and accountability, as well as improve ease of doing business, among others.The Bill is expected to be introduced during the winter session of Parliament.
The move comes after Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah announced the government’s intention to amend the existing multi-state cooperative societies law. Shah had also announced bringing in a new national cooperative policy.
Soon after its formation in July 2021, the Cooperation Ministry began holding consultations with stakeholders on formulating a new cooperative policy and amending the existing law.
According to sources, the Bill will “incorporate provisions of the 97th Constitutional Amendment.” It will improve governance, reform electoral processes, “strengthen” monitoring mechanisms, “improve” composition of the Board, enhance transparency and accountability, improve ease of doing business, increase financial discipline and enable raising of funds in multi-state cooperative societies, a source said.
Provisions for setting up of cooperative election authority, cooperative information officer, cooperative ombudsman, etc, have been proposed in order to make governance of multi-state cooperative societies more democratic, transparent and accountable.
The election authority will ensure that elections are held in a fair, free and timely manner, which in turn will help reduce complaints and malpractices.
Sources said the proposed Bill will have provision to debar offenders for three years and will bring in more “electoral discipline”. The cooperative ombudsman will set up a mechanism for redress of member grievances “in a structured fashion.
According to sources, the Bill proposes to appoint a Cooperative Information Officer, who will “enhance” transparency by providing members timely access to information.
To promote equity and facilitate inclusiveness, provisions relating to representation of women and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe members on the board of multi-state cooperative societies have been included.
Over Rs 6,000-crore scheme for Northeast gets Cabinet nod (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Union Cabinet has approved the Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) – a new scheme for the Northeastern states which was announced in the Union Budget earlier this year.
The scheme will be operational for the remaining four years of the 15th Finance Commission, from 2022-23 to 2025-26, and will have an outlay of Rs 6,600 crore.
PM-DevINE will target the creation of infrastructure, support industries, social development projects and create livelihood activities for the youth and women, with the focus on job creation. These projects will include basic infrastructure in all primary healthcare centres and government schools.
A central sector scheme with 100% central funding, PM-DevINE will be implemented by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), through the North Eastern Council or central ministries and agencies.
Efforts will be made to complete the PM-DevINE projects by 2025-26 so that there are no committed liabilities beyond this year, said DoNER officials.
The justification for announcement of PM-DevINE is that the parameters of N-E states in respect of Basic Minimum Services (BMS) are well below the national average and there are critical development gaps as per the NER District Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Index 2021-22 prepared by NITI Aayog, UNDP and MDoNER,.
Validity of Act ‘may not be covered by Ayodhya verdict (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court that the validity of the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which is under challenge before it, “may not be covered” by the opinion of its five-judge Constitution bench in the Ayodhya case.
Mehta said this when Chief Justice of India U ULalit, who was presiding over a three-judge bench hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Act, asked him what his personal opinion was about the argument of those opposing the petitions that the validity of the Act is already covered by the Ayodhya judgment.
With the Centre seeking two more weeks to place its stand on the issue and those opposing the petitions also seeking a week to reply, the Supreme Court adjourned the matter to November 14.
Commenting on the Act in its November 9, 2019 judgment in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, the SC said, “In providing a guarantee for the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship as they existed on 15 August 1947 and against the conversion of places of public worship, Parliament determined that independence from colonial rule furnishes a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered.”
“The law addresses itself to the State as much as to every citizen of the nation…The State, has by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalised its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism which is a part of the basic features of the Constitution.
The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution.
The law is hence a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution. The Places of Worship Act is a legislative intervention which preserves non-retrogression as an essential feature of our secular values. Those supporting the Act, therefore, claim that the judgment already recognised its purpose.
Those challenging the Act, however, contend that the Act itself was not under challenge in the Ayodhya case and therefore the comments were not made after examining its constitutional validity.
The Act declares that the character of a place of worship as on August 15, 1947, shall be maintained and no suit or proceeding shall lie in any court in respect of any dispute against encroachment of any religious properties at any point of time before this date.
Express Network
No person should be prosecuted under Sec 66A of IT Act: Top Court (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Taking note of law enforcement agencies continuing to book people under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which has been struck down, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed that no person should be prosecuted under it anymore.
Hearing a plea which raised the issue, a three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India U ULalit asked the Home Secretary and Director Generals of Police of states to direct their officers not to register any complaint with respect to violation of Section 66A and to see to it that reference to the provision, which was held unconstitutional by the court in the Shreya Singhal case in 2015, is removed from all pending cases.
Hearing the PIL on September 6, the top court had expressed “serious concern” over states continuing to register FIRs for offences under the provision and asked Advocate Zoheb Hossain, who appeared on behalf of the Centre, to “get in touch with the concerned Chief Secretaries of the respective states where the offences are still being registered or stand registered and impress upon” them “to take remedial measures as early as possible”.
Hossain submitted a status report outlining the statistics on such cases before the bench also comprising Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Ajay Rastogi.
Taking note, the bench said in its order that Section 66A was already held unconstitutional and no citizen can be prosecuted under it. It said that in all cases where citizens are facing prosecution for violations of Section 66A, the reference and reliance upon 66A shall stand deleted.
Red alert: 69% dip in wildlife in five decades ,shows report (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Monitored wildlife populations — including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish — have seen a 69-per cent drop between 1970 and 2018, according to the latest Living Planet Report, released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Thursday. And India is no different.
According to WWF-India programme director Dr SejalWorah, the country has seen a decline in population of the likes of honeybees and 17 species of freshwater turtles in this period.
Worah said the report finds that the Himalayan region and the Western Ghats are some of the most vulnerable regions in the country in terms of biodiversity loss, and where increased biodiversity loss is expected in future if temperatures are to increase.
Projects like the recent cheetah translocation are therefore good in preservation of species, and India has seen successes such as Project Tiger, or (projects for) the one-horned rhino and lions,” WWF India secretary-general Ravi Singh said. There is an umbrella effect on all other species living in that habitat due to conservation of these species.
The biennial report, produced by the Zoological Society of London, measures how species are responding to pressure in the environment due to biodiversity loss and climate change.
This year’s report has tracked 32,000 species populations of 5,230 species, with 838 species and just over 11,000 new populations added. There has been a significant increase in the number of fish species (481) that have been added to the Living Planet Report.
Stating that there has been “an average 69% decline in monitored wildlife populations over the 48-year period” up to 2018, the report stated: “Latin America and the Caribbean regions have seen the largest decline of monitored wildlife populations globally, with an average decline of 94% between 1970 and 2018.
During the same period, monitored populations in Africa plummeted by 66%, while Asia Pacific’s monitored populations fell by 55%.”
The WWF has found that freshwater populations have declined the most, with an average 83% decline between 1970 and 2018. The IUCN Red List shows cycads — an ancient group of seed plants — are the most threatened species, while corals are declining the fastest, followed by amphibians.
Idea Page
That remote village along the border (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Article 280 of the Constitution mentions Finance Commission (FC). There is a history behind the evolution of federal finance. The obvious bit is Section 142 from the Government of India Act (1935).
Such sums as may be prescribed by His Majesty in Council shall be charged on the revenues of the Federation in each year as grants in aid of the revenues of such Provinces as His Majesty may determine to be in need of assistance, and different sums may be prescribed for different Provinces.
But there were reports too. To name three — Indian Financial Enquiry Report (Niemeyer Report, 1936), Krishnamachari Enquiry Committee Report (1949) and Committee on Financial Provisions of Union Constitution (Sarkar Committee, 1948). Why should provinces need assistance? Equity is the idea.
There is a basket of goods and services that should be delivered by the State. It is best not to call them public goods, since “public goods” have a specific meaning for economists and this basket has items that are typically collective private goods.
Curlew Island is in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Until the 2011 Census, it had a population of two. Pulomilo Island, also in Andaman and Nicobar, had a population of 20 in 2011.
At the time of elections, we read of astounding attempts made, so that voters in remote locations can vote. No one should be disenfranchised because of remoteness of location.
By the same token, a resident, regardless of location, must be entitled to that basket. Provinces, now states, can have differential sources of revenue. Alternatively, the cost of delivering that basket may vary across geographical zones.
Over time, villages of course get depopulated. They are reclassified, get absorbed into larger agglomerations, or disappear because of migration.
For instance, in the 2021 Census, Curlew Island no longer has any inhabitants. Until then, the State cannot abdicate its responsibility of providing the basket. “It cannot be provided in such a remote location.
Therefore, migrate.” That would be a most perverse argument. Migration is a voluntary decision, often driven by the pull (and push) of economic forces. That voluntary decision cannot be replaced by fiat. Indeed, depopulation is not necessarily desirable.
Think of remote villages along the border in Arunachal. With China forcibly populating villages near the border, it is strategically important that our remote villages do not get depopulated.
Indeed, in the last few years, physical and social infrastructure in remote and border areas have vastly improved, countering incentives to migrate.
This brings us to the question of the cost of delivering that physical and social infrastructure, the basket, and per capita, it is not uniform throughout the country. Union-state and intra-state devolution should be a function of that.
Explained
Reading IMF’s economy report (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2/3, International Institutions /Economy)
The central message of the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) — it publishes two WEOs each year (in April and October) as well as two updates (January and July) — to policymakers around the globe: The worst is yet to come” for the world economy.Although it doesn’t spell the dreaded word “stagflation” — a portmanteau describing an economic state where growth stalls (or contracts) even as inflation remains high and persistent — the IMF does separately state that “more than a third of the global economy will contract this year or next, while the three largest economies—the United States, the European Union, and China—will continue to stall” and that “increasing price pressures remain the most immediate threat to current and future prosperity by squeezing real incomes and undermining macroeconomic stability.
Persistently high inflation and stalling growth is possibly the toughest policy challenge available. That’s because policy measures to contain inflation typically drag down growth even further while measures taken to boost growth tend to spike inflation.
Perhaps that is why the foreword to the latest WEO, written by Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas (the Economic Counsellor), starts by stating: “As storm clouds gather, policymakers need to keep a steady hand.”
The IMF has sharply cut the forecast for global growth — from 6.0 per cent in 2021 to 3.2 per cent in 2022 and 2.7 per cent in 2023. Barring the global financial crisis of 2008 and the sharp fall immediately after the Covid pandemic in 2020, this is the weakest growth profile for the world since 2001.
In his official blog, Gourinchas explains both the cause — “The global economy continues to face steep challenges, shaped by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a cost-of-living crisis caused by persistent and broadening inflation pressures, and the slowdown in China” — and the effect — “Overall, this year’s shocks will re-open economic wounds that were only partially healed post-pandemic. In short, the worst is yet to come and, for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession.
Global inflation is now expected to peak at 9.5 per cent in late 2022 (see CHART 2). It is expected to remain elevated for longer than previously imagined and is likely to decrease to 4.1 per cent only by 2024.
Languages panel recommendations and a fresh ‘Hindi imposition’ row (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The 11th volume of the Report of the Official Language Committee headed by Home Minister Amit Shah, which was submitted to President DroupadiMurmu last month, has triggered angry reactions from the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, who have described the Report as an attempt by the Union government to impose Hindi on non-Hindi-speaking states.
Members of the Committee, however, argued that their reaction was “misplaced” because media reports on the purported contents of the Report were “misleading”. The Report submitted to the President is confidential, they said.
The Committee of Parliament on Official Language was set up in 1976 under Section 4 of The Official Languages Act, 1963.
Section 4 of the Act says “there shall be constituted a Committee on Official language, on a resolution to that effect being moved in either House of Parliament with the previous sanction of the President and passed by both Houses”.
The Committee is chaired by the Union Home Minister, and has, in accordance with the provisions of the 1963 Act, 30 members — 20 MPs from Lok Sabha and 10 MPs from Rajya Sabha.
The job of the Committee is to review the progress made in the use of Hindi for official purposes, and to make recommendations to increase the use of Hindi in official communications.
The name of the Committee is a little misleading. This is because unlike the other Parliamentary panels, the Committee of Parliament on Official Language is constituted by the Home Ministry, and it does not, like the Committees of Parliament, submit its report to Parliament.
Under the provisions of the 1963 Act, the panel submits its report to the President, who “shall [then] cause the report to be laid before each House of Parliament, and sent to all the State Governments”.
The contents of the report submitted to President Murmu on September 9 by Shah and other members of the Committee are not in the public domain.
Sources close to the Committee said it has made around 100 recommendations, including that Hindi should be the medium of instruction in IITs, IIMs, and central universities in the Hindi-speaking states. The panel has the largest representation from the BJP — the majority of members belong to the ruling party — and includes MPs from the BJD, Congress, JD(U), Shiv Sena, LJP, AAP, and TDP.