NEWS

Gujarat government hastold the High Court, “marriage (interfaith) per se” was not prohibited but it could not be “used as a tool or instrument for effecting forceful conversion”. 

In response to the submission by Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, a bench led by Chief Justice Vikram Nath, however, said that the law kept a “sword hanging” on interfaith couples and that it can’t be read (from the Act) that interfaith marriage is permissible.

Section 3 of the 2003 Act was amended this year to redefine “prohibition of forcible conversion” as “no person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religion to another by use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting a person married or by aiding a person to get married nor shall any person abet such conversion”. This was challenged before the Gujarat HC.

The Bombay High Court Saturday partially stayed the controversial Information Technology Rules 2021 noting that certain provisions prima facie went beyond the scope of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The order came on two sets of pleas, filed by legal news portal The Leaflet and Mumbai-based journalist Nikhil Wagle, which challenged the newly notified IT Rules for being ultra vires of Information Technology Act, 2000 — the act these rules were made under — and for being violative of Articles 14 (Right to Equality) and 19 (Right to Free Speech) of the Constitution.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over cases filed by the key accused in the Kerala solar scam against five Congress members and BJP national vice-president AP Abdullakutty. CBI’s Thiruvananthapuram unit registered FIRs against former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, Congress MPs Hibi Eden and Adoor Prakash, MLA AP Anilkumar and Abdullakutty.

Earlier, the woman, who was accused in a series of financial frauds, had petitioned the police about sexual abuse by these leaders. While the FIR against five of them was submitted at the CJM court here, the one against Anilkumar is learnt to have been filed at Ernakulam CJM court.

Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar slammed the Centre on Monday over the Constitution (127th Amendment) Bill, 2021 that was passed during the recently concluded Monsoon Session of Parliament, and alleged it was deceiving the OBC community. He said he will generate public awareness around the issue and pressure the government to make changes to the Bill.

Pawar demanded a caste-based census, adding that the data should be made available to the state governments, and sought that the limit of 50% reservation due to the Indra Sawhney judgment should be removed.