NEW DELHI, May 9: A seven-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said, “We are of unanimous view that Justice C S Karnan committed contempt of court, contempt of judiciary and the process.”

The bench also comprising Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph said that it is satisfied that Justice Karnan be sentenced for six months in jail

“The sentence shall be executed and he be taken into custody forthwith,” the bench said.

This is the first time that a high court judge is being sent to jail by the Supreme Court on charges of contempt.

The bench also banned the media, both print and electronic, from publishing the content of further orders, if passed by Justice Karnan.

The 61-year-old judge earned the top court’s ire after he named 20 ‘corrupt judges’ in the judiciary earlier this year and demanded an investigation alleging corruption.

He also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging a probe.

The Supreme Court then transferred him from the Madras High Court to Kolkata – a decision he critiqued as victimisation since he was a Dalit.

Justice Karnan had on May 4 declined to undergo a mental health checkup as ordered by the Supreme Court, telling a team of doctors he was “absolutely normal” and had a “stable mind”.

The apex court has taken suo motu cognisance of various letters written by Justice Karnan against judges of the Madras high court and the Supreme Court and restrained him from exercising administrative and judicial power from February 8.

Justice Karnan appeared before the Supreme Court on March 31 in connection with the contempt proceeding, becoming the first high court judge to do so in the history of Indian judiciary.

JAIPUR: A controversial spiritual guru was arrested early Sunday on a rape charge filed by a teen-age girl in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan, police said.

Asaram Bapu was arrested at a spiritual retreat in central India and flown to the city of Jodhpur where police say he is wanted for allegedly raping the girl, said Ajay Singh Lamba, a top police officer.

The case is the latest in a series of high-profile rape cases in India that have fueled public protests and raised questions about how police handle the cases and treat the victims.

The girl filed a complaint two weeks ago accusing the Hindu religious preacher of raping her when she visited his retreat in Jodhpur with her mother. The girl’s family says they have been followers of Asaram Bapu for more than a decade.

Asaram Bapu, who has hundreds of thousands of followers in India and is well known for his discourses on Hindu religion, has denied the charge.

There was drama Saturday when Rajasthan police arrived at his retreat to arrest Asaram Bapu. Hundreds of his supporters thronged the ashram and attacked television crews.

Asaram Bapu was questioned for nearly three hours before he was arrested, police said.

Asaram Bapu outraged many Indians earlier this year when he said the victim of a gang rape on a New Delhi bus would have been let off if she had addressed her attackers as brothers and pleaded with them to spare her.

NEW DELHI: Sonia Gandhi, the leader of India’s ruling Congress Party and the country’s most powerful politician, has been discharged from a hospital after falling ill during a debate in Parliament, the health minister said Tuesday.

Gandhi underwent a series of medical tests during the five hours she spent in the hospital late Monday and was then allowed to return home, Ghulam Nabi Azad told journalists.

Gandhi, 67, had been suffering from fever for two days, but still decided to deliver Monday’s parliamentary speech in support of a landmark bill that proposes to provide cheaper grain to more than 800 million across the country.

Gandhi felt unwell during the 9-hour long debate on the food security bill in the lower house of Parliament and was escorted to a hospital by her son Rahul and other Congress party colleagues.

“She is perfectly fine. There is nothing to worry,” Azad said. Doctors have advised her to rest for a few days, he said.

Gandhi is the Italian-born widow of slain former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. After his death, she entered politics reluctantly but has led the Congress party to successive election triumphs in 2004 and 2009.

New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) The Delhi police Saturday, during final arguments in the Dec 16, 2012 gangrape case, told a city court that the accused had a clear intention to kill the victim so that no witness of the horrific incident was left behind.

Special Public Prosecutor Dayan Krishnan told Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna that the intestine of the gangrape victim was so damaged that it was “impossible for her to survive”.

He said the accused also tried to kill the gangrape victim’s male friend, who was also present in the bus with her.

Krishnan said the woman and her friend were dragged with their hair from the rear of the bus to the front and thrown out of the moving vehicle.

The prosecution added: “Later they tried to crush them under the wheels, but it was their fate which kept them alive. The modus operandi of the accused shows their conduct, that they were on roads to satisfy their lust.”

The intestine of the 23-year-old intern physiotherapist was damaged with an iron rod, which left her bleeding profusely and resulted in her death, Krishnan added.

“The victim’s (girl) intestine was so damaged that it was impossible for her to survive. The system on which the human body works was completely destroyed by the accused persons by using blunt object (the rods),” he said.

“The injuries were caused deliberately with an intention to eliminate the victims (the girl and her male friend), with a clear intention to murder them.”

He also told the court that all the six accused had attacked the victim’s male friend with the intention to kill him.

Krishnan added: “There cannot be a clear case than this. They wanted to kill both the victim and her friend by trying to run the bus over them. The accused had the clear intention to eliminate them so that there will be no victim to tell the story of the Dec 16 horrific night.”

Accused Ram Singh (who is dead)), his brother Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and a juvenile are accused in the case.

The woman succumbed to her injuries Dec 29, 2012 while undergoing treatment in a

Singapore hospital.

The juvenile is facing proceedings before a Juvenile Justice Board, while the four other accused are standing trial in the fast-track court. Accused Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail, where he was lodged.

The Juvenile Justice Board is likely to pronounce the order Aug 31.

Lucknow, Aug 24 (IANS) The Uttar Pradesh government Saturday arrested hundreds of saints and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists as they tried to march towards Ayodhya for the proposed ’84 kosi parikrama’ (procession) beginning Sunday.

Police officers said 46 saints were arrested in Kanpur while 42 were nabbed in Agra.

Security and checking at the borders of Uttar Pradesh with Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh were stepped up. In all, 339 saints have so far been held from Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Basti and other districts, home department officials told IANS.

Additional security forces have been sent to Ayodhya, Ambedkarnagar and Gonda, police officials said. Saturday, only 80 percent of state roadways bus fleet plied on the Faizabad route where more than 52 check points and barriers have been erected.

Several prominent seers, including Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, have urged the state government and officials to allow the peaceful passage of the ’84 kosi parikrama’.

Meanwhile, VHP leaders have gone underground and are refusing to talk to the media but maintain they will discreetly reach Ayodhya early Sunday.

The dispute is centred on a plot of land in Ayodhya of Faizabad district in Uttar Pradesh. The issues revolve around access to a site traditionally regarded as the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram, the history and location of the Babri Mosque at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create the mosque.

— Indo-Asian News Service

NEW DELHI (AP) — In a tangle of forgotten, overgrown brush in the heart of India’s capital, a quiet plan has been hatched to change the landscape of one of the world’s most populous cities.

An intricate Mughal garden is being created. Crumbling sandstone tombs nearly lost to history are being rebuilt. An artificial lake is being carved out. The renovation of Sunder Nursery is intended to serve as the catalyst for an even more ambitious project: the creation of a mammoth, iconic park that would rival New York’s Central Park as a refuge from urban chaos.

“It would be the place where the city descends. It would be an oasis,” said Ratish Nanda, project director for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the driving force behind the dream of a mega-park.

To create that park would require the merger of a string of adjoining gardens, heritage areas and a zoo administered by different government agencies, an incredibly complicated task in a land where bureaucratic turfs are fiercely protected. And though some officials are beginning to discuss the plan, no formal proposal has been formulated.

But sometimes in India, it takes tenacious dreamers like Nanda to achieve the seemingly impossible.
Nanda and the Aga Khan Trust have taken on seemingly impossible tasks before. They helped wrest a 17 acre compound in the area, along with a large monument, from India’s version of the Boy Scouts. They are currently fighting with railways officials to get them to remove a storeroom blocking access to another monument.

“One single man has to be there, to strive, to go out and achieve this,” said Ashok Khurana, a powerful supporter and the recently retired head of Delhi’s Central Public Works Department, one of the many agencies that would need to work together to create the giant park.

The payoff would be considerable. Delhi, with a population of about 17 million, is a surprisingly green city, with small parks dotting many neighborhoods and Lodhi Gardens — with a clutch of crumbling monuments of its own — attracting speed walkers and picnickers in upscale south Delhi.

The mega-park would tower over them all.

It would be 480 hectares (1,200 acres), considerably larger than Central Park. It would have 100,000 trees of more than 300 species, Nanda said. It would encompass one of the most impressive collections of medieval Islamic monuments, anchored by the grandiose tomb of Emperor Humayun, a 16th Century prototype for the Taj Mahal. It would have an ancient fort, a Buddhist stupa, flocks of exotic birds and white tigers in the zoo.
Nanda imagines families rolling out carpets on the grass in the winter and enjoying a book in the shade of a tree in the summer. He imagines people touring the tombs or just crossing the park on their daily commutes.

The heart of the dream is the restoration of Sunder Nursery, a 40-hectare (100-acre) field adjacent to Humayun’s Tomb, both of which are being restored by the Aga Khan’s trust. The nursery was founded by British colonists to grow experimental plants. In recent years it was barely functioning, became a dumping ground for construction waste, and was visited by a few hundred people a month.

The trust fought back a government plan to cut the nursery in half — and destroy a garden tomb — to make way for a major road planned for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Nanda said. It had to remove 1,000 truckloads of construction rubble scattered about the fields.

It restored the 500-year-old Sunderwala Burj tomb from a gray building patched with concrete to the striking burnt orange sandstone and white lime mortar of its original design. A dozen other monuments in the nursery stand testament to the era, half a millennium ago, when the Islamic Mughal emperors from Central Asia ruled over a vast swathe of the Indian subcontinent.

The Sunderwala Burj stands at the entrance to a Mughal garden being built under the inspiration of Persian carpet designs, with squares of grass and flower beds bordering a thin pond that will send water flowing into narrow channels and over intricately carved stone patterns.
Nearby, workers have dug a reservoir to be filled with fish swimming in water from a specially built treatment plant. That water will also flow through streams into areas forested with plants from Delhi’s different habitats. There is an amphitheater and a bonsai pavilion and plans for a restaurant.

Peacocks wander through the thick grass, one of the 56 bird species in the nursery.

“That was a kingfisher,” Nanda said excitedly as he gave a tour. He pointed to a Mughal-era lotus pond being excavated. To the first fruits growing on a young lemon tree. To the new rose garden and the bright white and red edifice of the newly restored Lakkarwala Burj monument.

“This is beautiful. This is how it’s meant to be. Look at this parapet, it’s like a jewel,” he said.

The nursery project, he said, is intended to turn what had been a dead zone “into a thriving ecological hub.”
“The idea here is that this is a magical space that takes people away from the humdrum of daily life,” he said.

But this is just a small step he hopes will create a creeping momentum toward the larger park.

He is already eyeing the crumbling Azimnganj Sarai, an early 16th Century pilgrim’s motel just outside the nursery on zoo land. The Mughal garden, in fact the entire design of the nursery, points directly at the sarai, and he is hoping to get permission to restore it and add it to the park. That would bring him a small step closer to the mega-park dream.

That park, as envisioned by Nanda and his colleagues, would start with Humayun’s Tomb and its complex of gardens and monuments. Just to the north is the nursery, then the national zoo, then the Purana Qila, the oldest fort in the city. Running alongside all this is the narrow Millennium Park, which borders the Yamuna River. These areas are so cut off now that a trip from Humayun’s Tomb to Millennium Park, only about 100 meters (yards) away, would take 5 1/2 kilometers (3 miles).

“These are all things that have been originally linked and these artificial boundaries are just silly,” Nanda said, pointing to the walls around a cluster of monuments.

He fears, however, the struggle of getting government agencies to cooperate.

“It takes centuries to get anything done here,” he said.

The Archaeological Survey of India runs Humayun’s Tomb and the Purana Qila. Delhi’s Central Public Works Department controls the nursery. The environment ministry controls the zoo and the Delhi Development Authority runs Millennium Park. Even the railways have land involved.

The agencies would have to pool their budgets, pull down their walls, work together to provide parking and maintenance.

Mohammad Shaheer, a landscape architect who worked on the nursery, said the draw of creating such a unique space where residents of this city of migrants could interact and create memories will be irresistible.

Pravin Srivastava, the director general of the Archaeological Survey of India, said the recent renovation at Humayun’s Tomb, which involved about a dozen different agencies, proved such cooperation was possible.

“Everyone has their perceived priorities and their way of functioning. Getting around those certain blocks and mindsets is something that needs to be addressed,” he said. Yet he predicted the new park could be inaugurated within five years.

“It can, and it should,” he said.

Khurana, the former head of CPWD, predicted the park would be a tourist magnet with 20,000 to 30,000 visitors a day.

“The mindset is, everyone wants it,” he said. “When the heart is willing, everything is OK.”
___

Follow Ravi Nessman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ravinessman

NEW DELHI (AP) — Police on Saturday arrested a second man in the gang rape of a young photojournalist in the Indian financial hub of Mumbai, and said they had enough evidence to prosecute those responsible for a crime that has renewed public outcry over sexual violence in the country.

The victim, a 22-year-old Indian woman, remained in a hospital Saturday and was recovering well after being repeatedly raped by five men Thursday night in a deserted textile mill, said Mumbai’s police commissioner, Satyapal Singh.

She and a male colleague, who was tied up and beaten during the attack, had been on a magazine assignment as interns taking photographs of a south Mumbai neighborhood where upscale malls, trendy restaurants and luxury condominiums sit alongside sprawling slums and abandoned mills.

Police said the suspects approached the journalists on the pretense of helping them get permission to shoot inside the crumbling building.

The first suspect arrested, an unemployed 19-year-old man from south Mumbai, appeared in court Saturday and was ordered to remain in custody until Aug. 30, police said. Dozens of protesters rallied and called for justice outside the court.

View gallery.”Photojournalists sit with placards during a protest …
Photojournalists sit with placards during a protest against the gang rape of a photojournalist in Mu …
A second suspect was arrested before dawn Saturday and confessed to authorities about his involvement in the incident, Singh told reporters. Members of India’s elite crime unit were hunting three more suspects.

Singh said police had the evidence needed to prosecute the five suspects, including testimony given by the woman immediately after the attack while she was in the hospital receiving treatment.

The attack incensed many in India already sickened by sexual violence after the deadly gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December raised alarms about women’s safety and revealed a culture in which rape victims are often pressed by social pressure or police into keeping silent.

Pledging to crack down, the federal government created fast-track courts, increased prison terms for rape, and criminalized voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women.

But Thursday’s gang rape reignited debate over whether more measures, including educational outreach, were needed to improve safety for women.

View gallery.”Photojournalists participate in a protest against the …
Photojournalists participate in a protest against the gang rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai in Ja …
“It is appalling that a young woman working in the heart of Mumbai was attacked in this manner,” Bob Dietz, Asia program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.

The Indian Women’s Press Club demanded authorities “provide a secure environment for women on a priority basis.” Journalists rallied in Indian cities from the south-coast metropolis of Chennai to Gauhati in northeast Assam state.

Politicians across parties expressed outrage. Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi said she was “saddened and pained” by the “heinous crime,” while Parliament asked for a detailed report on the investigation and the government urged the “harshest” punishment for those found guilty.

The Tourism Ministry said it was launching a nationwide “I Respect Women” campaign to improve security and “raise awareness about the need for more sensitive behavior toward women.” India is particularly worried about its image abroad, after a Swiss bicycle tourist was gang raped in March in central Madhya Pradesh state and an American woman was gang raped in June in the northern resort town of Manali.

About 1,000 people wearing black armbands protested Friday night in Mumbai, long considered one of India’s safest cities for women.

View gallery.”Photojournalists participate in a protest against the …
Photojournalists participate in a protest against the gang rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai in Ja …
“If such an incident can take place with a media person in a metropolis like Mumbai, what can be said about the security of a common woman in smaller towns?” said S.M. Pari, president of the Indian Media Photographers’ Club, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Local media were providing a steady stream of reports on new rape cases across India. A 16-year-old girl was in critical condition Saturday after being raped and stabbed in the throat Tuesday in the eastern state of Orissa, according to PTI. In Jharkhand state to the north, a group of bandits allegedly gang raped a female police constable before dawn Thursday on a highway as she was driving to attend her brother-in-law’s cremation.

___

Follow Katy Daigle on Twitter at http://twitter.com/katydaigle

According to police, Sukumari (25) consumed pesticide around 2pm near a fountain at Vijay Chowk close to the Parliament House complex.

She was rushed to a nearby hospital where her condition is said to be out of danger, police said.

The woman consumed some pesticide as she was miffed over not getting a job in Central Coalfields Limited in Jharkhand after the death of her father who was employed with the company, said a police official.

According to the woman, her father died in 1989 and she was supposed to get a job on compassionate grounds.

She has claimed to have ran from pillar to post in attempts to get a job, but was not given one, he said.

The woman had arrived in the national capital yesterday and wanted to commit suicide near the Parliament House so that her plight would come into notice, police said.

Highlighting the achievements of various governments since Independence, Manmohan Singh said India is on the path of progress.

Earlier, Manmohan Singh started his Independence Day speech by paying homage to the Uttarakhand flood victims.

We are saddened by the massive tragedy in Uttarakhand, Prime Minister told the gathering.

The Prime Minister lauded the efforts of armed forces in the relief and rescue operations in Uttarakhand.

We are also deeply pained over the loss of INS Sindhurakshak, Manmohan Singh said referring to the explosion and fire that led to destruction of Navy’s submarine.

A spokesman for the Taliban militant group immediately denied any responsibility for the attack, which rocked the city and left a mosque, private houses, tailors and other nearby shops in ruins.

“A car containing explosives hit a barrier near the consulate and detonated,” Ahmadzia Abdulzai, spokesman for Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, told AFP. “There were three suicide bombers in the car.”

Nangarhar police chief Sharif Amin confirmed that the consulate was the intended target of the blast, which created a large crater in the road as survivors wearing blood-stained clothing ran for cover.

The interior ministry condemned the attack as “heinous” and said nine people had died, with 21 other civilians wounded. The death toll included at least one child.

An AFP photographer reported that ambulances rushed to the scene and took the injured to hospital as security forces cordoned off the area, where several large buildings were badly damaged.

Syed Akbaruddin, a spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry in New Delhi, said on his Twitter account that all officials were safe after the attack — the first major strike in Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan that started on July 10.

India, which has spent more than two billion dollars of aid in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell in 2001, has been previously targeted in the war-torn country.

In 2008, a car bomb attack on the Indian embassy killed more than 60 people and, in 2010, suicide attacks on two guesthouses killed at least 16 people including seven Indians.

“Our fighters have not carried out any attack in Jalalabad,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP. “We do not claim the responsibility for this attack.”

Jalalabad is situated on the key route from the Pakistani border region — where many militants are based — to Kabul, and it has been the location of repeated attacks in recent years.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) compound in the city was hit on May 29, with the Taliban rebels also denying any involvement.