FOREIGN 2-3 OPINION 10-11 BUSINESS 12 SPORT 14-16

CALCUTTA WEDNESDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2016 Rs 3.50 www.telegraphindia.comXXCM44 PAGES

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28523.20

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INBRIEF

Woman stabbedover 20 times■A21-year-old schoolteacher, KarunaKumari,was stabbedmore than20 times over threeminuteson a busy northDelhi roadonTuesday by amanwhohad been stalking herformonths in spite of apolice complaint.NATION P8

Cauvery ruling■The SupremeCourt onWed-nesday directedKarnatakato provide 6,000 cusecs ofCauverywater a day to Ta-milNadu till September 27,when itwill hear thematteragain, and asked theCentreto constitute theCauveryWaterManagementBoardwithin fourweeks.NATION P8

Duncans order■CalcuttaHighCourt hasallowed theDuncans groupto run seven ailing teagardens in northBengalfor now.However, it hasnot stayed theUniongovernment’s notificationto take control of thegardens.BUSINESS

Amar Singh post■Amar Singh,who survivedthe “outsider” storm in theruling Samajwadi Party, hasbeen appointed generalsecretary by party chiefMulayamSinghYadav.

Doon Express derails■Five coaches of theDoonExpress, on itsway fromDehradun toHowrah,jumped rails at Faizabad inUttar Pradesh onTuesday.No casualtieswere reportedbut train services on theroutewere disrupted.

There is noGodofwar

POPE FRANCISdenouncing thosewhowagewar in the nameofGod

Fast bowler Ishant Sharma(in filepicture) hasbeenruledout of the first TestagainstNewZealand

startingSeptember 22ashe is recovering from

chikungunya.■SeeSport

PM, sleep in RCR and rise in EkatmaAttempt to change name of power road after Jana Sangh founder

PHEROZEL.VINCENT

NewDelhi, Sept. 20:Aneffort has beenmounted torenameRaceCourseRoad,whichhouses thePrimeMinister’s residence, EkatmaMarg.

EkatmaManavvador IntegralHumanism is asso-ciatedwithDeendayalUpadhyaya, the founder oftheBJP’s predecessorBharatiyaJanaSangh,whosecentenary falls this year.

Theproposal has beenmovedbyMeenakshiLekhi,NewDelhiMunicipalCouncilmemberandtheBJPparliamentarian representing theNewDelhi constituency. The council is themunicipal au-thority of LutyensDelhi.

The agenda for tomorrow’s councilmeeting says:“To take thephilosophyof ‘Ekatma’ to themindofthepublic at large, andas thenameof the road, viz‘RaceCourseRoad’, onwhich residence of Prime

Minister of India is situated, doesnotmatchwith In-dian culture.Hon’bleMPhas, therefore, requested torenameRaceCourseRoadunder theNDMCareaasEkatmaMarg so that this namewould remind everyPrimeMinister about the last personof the societythroughout life.”

Lekhi didnot respond to calls and textmessagesfromthis paper.

RaceCourseRoadbecame thePrimeMinister’saddresswhenRajivGandhihad come topower.Hehad chosen5and7RaceCourseRoadashis residen-ce. The entire stretchhadonly five palatial bunga-lows. Today, all fivehouses are part of thePrimeMinister’s residence. 7RaceCourse is among the fewhouses inLutyensDelhiwhosemaindoor faces adi-rection that someastrologers consider auspicious.

RaceCourseRoad inNewDelhi

Give-and-take on judgesR.BALAJI

New Delhi, Sept. 20: ThePrimeMinister has personal-ly assured the Chief Justice ofIndia that most of the 311 ap-pointments and transfers invarious high courts would becleared but the shift of JusticeK.M.Josephcontinues tohangfire, a source said.

The collegium of SupremeCourt judges, whose recom-mendationsarebindingon thegovernment, has agreed to re-scind its decision to transferJustice Valmiki Mehta fromDelhiHighCourt toGujarat.

The Centre has been sit-ting on the transfer of JusticeMehta, who hails from Gujar-at, generating an impressionthat the government was keenthat judge remain in Delhi.This is one of the instancesthat appears to have prompted

Chief Justice T.S. Thakur totell attorney-general MukulRohatgi last month that if theCentre failed to clear the tra-nsfers, the collegiumwould beforce to withdraw work fromsuch judges.

Justice Joseph, the Ut-tarakhand High Court chiefjustice whose order hadquashed President’s rule im-posed on the recommendationof the NDA government, hadsought a transfer to AndhraPradesh on health groundsand the collegium had recom-mended it in the last week ofApril. Since then, the transferhas been withheld by theUnion government.

Prime Minister NarendraModi,whohad a one-to-one br-eakfast meeting with ChiefJustice Thakur on Saturdayon Modi’s birthday, is unde-rstood to have told the top ju-

dge that barring a few names,all the recommendations ofthe collegiumhaveeitherbeencleared or are in the process ofbeing cleared shortly.

Hours after the sourcespoke to this newspaper, a gov-ernment official said thenames of five high court chiefjustices had been cleared.

On Saturday, the PrimeMinister told the Chief Jus-tice that the government hadno intention to hold back therecommendations, said thesource who did not want to benamed because of the delicatenature of the subject.

“But there was nomentionof Justice Joseph. Neither thePrime Minister nor the gov-ernment has given any reasonfornot accepting so far the rec-ommendation to transfer himto Andhra Pradesh,” thesource said.

The Chief Justice and thePrimeMinister were togetherfor over 40 minutes at the RajBhavan on Saturday, duringwhich the two are understoodto have discussed the pendingjudicial appointments.

Justice Thakur had earlierthreatened to pass judicial or-ders to ensure that the namescleared by the collegiumwereapproved by theCentre.

Relations between thejudiciary and NDA govern-ment had hit a nadir after astring of judicial verdictsagainst the Centre. The Na-tional Judicial AppointmentsCommission to replace the col-legium was quashed by theapex court last year.

Today, the source said:“‘Everything is fine, the filesare being cleared’ is what weare being told. Let’s see whathappens.”

Cong leader swims against tide of hysteria, says selfies can’t build Kashmir strategy

Govt tooto blame:Rahul

SANJAYK.JHA

NewDelhi, Sept. 20: RahulGandhi today blamed “thepolitics of theNDA” for thespurtof terrorisminKash-mir and asked PrimeMini-ster NarendraModi to for-mulate a long-term strate-gy todealwith theprobleminstead of relying on “eve-nt-based responses” thatcould be “very dangerous”for the country.

“The first responsibilityis on Pakistan and the gover-nment’s politics,” the Con-gress leader told reporters inKanpur, referring to the Uriattack.

Rahul’s comments are op-en to the interpretation thathedoes not appreciate the warhysteria being whipped up bythe ruling dispensation in thewake of the savage attack onthe soldiers and feels the de-velopment could not be entire-ly delinked from the explosiveinternal situation inKashmir.

This is a bold position totake in the charged ambience,given the BJP’s propensity toportray differing voices asanti-national.

Rahul’s comments were insharp contrast with those ofBJP leader and Jammu andKashmir minder Ram Madh-avwhosaid Indiawouldnot to-lerate or succumb to Pakist-an’s “nuclear blackmail”.

“Any sort of blackmail willnotbe tolerated.Nobodywantsanuclearwar inourregionbutnobody will succumb to nu-clear blackmail,”Madhav saidat a time the foreign ministerhas advised the governmentagainst a military responsewithout building an interna-tional consensus. (See Page 4)

Rahul, who is touringUttar Pradesh to highlightfarmers’ distress, told re-porters this evening: “ A lot ofworkwas done silently behindclosed doors in nine years….Forty flights were coming intoKashmir (daily). But theNarendraModi government’sshort-sightedalliancewith thePDP opened the space for ter-rorism inKashmir.”

Rahul added: “Our soldiershavedied, theymadehuge sac-rifices. I stand by the soldiers.I condemnwhat is being doneto them by Pakistan. However,the space for them has beencreated by the politics that theNDA has carried out in Kash-mir. The PrimeMinister goesfrom one event to anotherevent. National security can-not be dealt like a publicmeet-ing. This is a serious matter.The Congress is ready to helpbut the government shouldhave a concrete, long-termstrategy. Event-based activityis extremely dangerous for thecountry.”

In a tweet, the Congress

vice-president said: “FYIMod-iji: a Kashmir strategy cannotbe developed using selfies andsound bites.”

Although Rahul’s state-ment reflects the position theCongress took yesterday, it isbound to be subjected to thestrictest scrutiny in the pre-vailing atmosphere. The BJPwill find it hard to digest hiscontention that the Indiangovernment “created spacefor” such an eventuality.

Rahul not only askedModito use foresight and wisdomwhile handling diplomacy, hesuggested the governmentwas following a casual ap-proach towards the gatheringcrisis inKashmir.

“I met Arun Jaitleyjisometime back and in a con-versation I categorically toldhim we are heading for somevery serious trouble in Kash-mir. The finance ministerbrushed me aside and told methere is no trouble,” Rahulsaid.

Heightened activity near LoCMUZAFFARRAINAAND

SUJANDUTTA

Sept. 20: The Indian Armysaid today that it had foiled aninfiltration bid and killed anunspecified number of mili-tants in the Uri sector whereSunday’s attack took place.

Other sources said a soldi-erwas killed in a separate gunbattle just north, in Nowgam.Both Uri and Nowgam are innorthKashmir.

Today’s firefights near theLine of Control (LoC) may ormay not portend the situationthat is in the making since 18soldierswere killed inUri.

There is the possibilitythat the Indian Army is revis-ing rules of engagement andfurther reinforcing its deploy-ment on the LoC. Formally, a

ceasefire is still in force alongthe LoC. The defenceministryspokesperson in Srinagar saidPakistani troops violated theceasefire in Uri by openingfire on the Indian positionsbut therewas no casualty.

In theperspectiveof the In-dianArmy, the encounterswe-re a consequence of hurriedefforts to pushmore militantsacross the LoC before a possi-ble spike in armed conflict.

Since last week, three batt-alions were pushed into southKashmir following protestsafter militant commanderBurhanWani’s killing in July.Anarmyofficer said threemo-re battalions would be enscon-ced along the LoC where thedeployment is heavy in anycase. But another officer said:“It is important to not jump to

conclusions during the plan-ning phase.”

Prime Minister NarendraModi has called a meeting ofthe cabinet committee on sec-urity, which includes the high-est collective military leader-ship, tomorrowmorning.

An army source said a pat-rol spotted a group of 10-15mi-litants crossing intoUri throu-gh the hills in Lachipora, aro-und a kilometre from theLoC.

An unspecified number ofmilitants was killed, the sou-rce said. The number couldnot be specified by this even-ing because some bodies hadfallen into a ravine. The en-counter was continuing afterdusk.

These firefights are coinci-ding with unrest in the Kash-mir Valley. Among the latest

casualties was a 13-year-oldgirl who was said to have diedof cardiac arrest during aclash between security forcesand stone-throwers.

“There were some clashesbut the level of violence hascome down significantlyacross the Valley, particularlyin the (worst-affected) southKashmir districts,” a policesource said.

Further south of Kashmir,the western army command-er,LtGen.SurinderSingh,vis-ited the border areas in Jam-mu, Samba and Kathua regi-on. “The army commander re-viewed the deployment in theentire region…. He empha-sised the need for ensuring ahigh degree of alertness andoperational preparedness,” anofficial statement said.

TBREAKELINA FOREIGN

Hollywood’sfairy-tale coupleBrangelina filefor divorce

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 ▼

Anshika (right), one of thefour childrenof NaikSunilKumarVidyarthiwhowaskilled inUri, bids farewelltoher father at his funeralinGayaonTuesday.Vidyarthi’s sonAryanRaj,not yet 2 years old, lit thefuneral pyre from the lapof his uncle SudhirYadav.Vidyarthi’s threedaughters,Arti (14),Anshu (12), andAnshika(9), had stunnedmanybyturningup in school fortheir examsonMonday. “Iwas takenaback, seeingthe girls in the schoolyesterday,” principalAshishKumar said, addingthat the school hadexempted the girls fromthe examsonTuesday.Vidyarthi’swifeKiran saidshehad sentherdaughtersto school as shedidnotwant their educationaffected. Picture bySuman

FOREIGN 2-3 OPINION 10-11 BUSINESS 12 SPORT 14-16

CALCUTTA WEDNESDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2016 Rs 3.50 www.telegraphindia.comXXCM44 PAGES

TTMARKETSINDEX

BSE SENSEX

NSE NIFTY

RS/$

GOLD

28523.20

8775.90

67.01

31655

CHANGE

111.30

32.50

0.05

+50

INBRIEF

Woman stabbedover 20 times■A21-year-old schoolteacher, KarunaKumari,was stabbedmore than20 times over threeminuteson a busy northDelhi roadonTuesday by amanwhohad been stalking herformonths in spite of apolice complaint.NATION P8

Cauvery ruling■The SupremeCourt onWed-nesday directedKarnatakato provide 6,000 cusecs ofCauverywater a day to Ta-milNadu till September 27,when itwill hear thematteragain, and asked theCentreto constitute theCauveryWaterManagementBoardwithin fourweeks.NATION P8

Duncans order■CalcuttaHighCourt hasallowed theDuncans groupto run seven ailing teagardens in northBengalfor now.However, it hasnot stayed theUniongovernment’s notificationto take control of thegardens.BUSINESS

Amar Singh post■Amar Singh,who survivedthe “outsider” storm in theruling Samajwadi Party, hasbeen appointed generalsecretary by party chiefMulayamSinghYadav.

Doon Express derails■Five coaches of theDoonExpress, on itsway fromDehradun toHowrah,jumped rails at Faizabad inUttar Pradesh onTuesday.No casualtieswere reportedbut train services on theroutewere disrupted.

There is noGodofwar

POPE FRANCISdenouncing thosewhowagewar in the nameofGod

Fast bowler Ishant Sharma(in filepicture) hasbeenruledout of the first TestagainstNewZealand

startingSeptember 22ashe is recovering from

chikungunya.■SeeSport

PM, sleep in RCR and rise in EkatmaAttempt to change name of power road after Jana Sangh founder

PHEROZEL.VINCENT

NewDelhi, Sept. 20:Aneffort has beenmounted torenameRaceCourseRoad,whichhouses thePrimeMinister’s residence, EkatmaMarg.

EkatmaManavvador IntegralHumanism is asso-ciatedwithDeendayalUpadhyaya, the founder oftheBJP’s predecessorBharatiyaJanaSangh,whosecentenary falls this year.

Theproposal has beenmovedbyMeenakshiLekhi,NewDelhiMunicipalCouncilmemberandtheBJPparliamentarian representing theNewDelhi constituency. The council is themunicipal au-thority of LutyensDelhi.

The agenda for tomorrow’s councilmeeting says:“To take thephilosophyof ‘Ekatma’ to themindofthepublic at large, andas thenameof the road, viz‘RaceCourseRoad’, onwhich residence of Prime

Minister of India is situated, doesnotmatchwith In-dian culture.Hon’bleMPhas, therefore, requested torenameRaceCourseRoadunder theNDMCareaasEkatmaMarg so that this namewould remind everyPrimeMinister about the last personof the societythroughout life.”

Lekhi didnot respond to calls and textmessagesfromthis paper.

RaceCourseRoadbecame thePrimeMinister’saddresswhenRajivGandhihad come topower.Hehad chosen5and7RaceCourseRoadashis residen-ce. The entire stretchhadonly five palatial bunga-lows. Today, all fivehouses are part of thePrimeMinister’s residence. 7RaceCourse is among the fewhouses inLutyensDelhiwhosemaindoor faces adi-rection that someastrologers consider auspicious.

RaceCourseRoad inNewDelhi

Give-and-take on judgesR.BALAJI

New Delhi, Sept. 20: ThePrimeMinister has personal-ly assured the Chief Justice ofIndia that most of the 311 ap-pointments and transfers invarious high courts would becleared but the shift of JusticeK.M.Josephcontinues tohangfire, a source said.

The collegium of SupremeCourt judges, whose recom-mendationsarebindingon thegovernment, has agreed to re-scind its decision to transferJustice Valmiki Mehta fromDelhiHighCourt toGujarat.

The Centre has been sit-ting on the transfer of JusticeMehta, who hails from Gujar-at, generating an impressionthat the government was keenthat judge remain in Delhi.This is one of the instancesthat appears to have prompted

Chief Justice T.S. Thakur totell attorney-general MukulRohatgi last month that if theCentre failed to clear the tra-nsfers, the collegiumwould beforce to withdraw work fromsuch judges.

Justice Joseph, the Ut-tarakhand High Court chiefjustice whose order hadquashed President’s rule im-posed on the recommendationof the NDA government, hadsought a transfer to AndhraPradesh on health groundsand the collegium had recom-mended it in the last week ofApril. Since then, the transferhas been withheld by theUnion government.

Prime Minister NarendraModi,whohad a one-to-one br-eakfast meeting with ChiefJustice Thakur on Saturdayon Modi’s birthday, is unde-rstood to have told the top ju-

dge that barring a few names,all the recommendations ofthe collegiumhaveeitherbeencleared or are in the process ofbeing cleared shortly.

Hours after the sourcespoke to this newspaper, a gov-ernment official said thenames of five high court chiefjustices had been cleared.

On Saturday, the PrimeMinister told the Chief Jus-tice that the government hadno intention to hold back therecommendations, said thesource who did not want to benamed because of the delicatenature of the subject.

“But there was nomentionof Justice Joseph. Neither thePrime Minister nor the gov-ernment has given any reasonfornot accepting so far the rec-ommendation to transfer himto Andhra Pradesh,” thesource said.

The Chief Justice and thePrimeMinister were togetherfor over 40 minutes at the RajBhavan on Saturday, duringwhich the two are understoodto have discussed the pendingjudicial appointments.

Justice Thakur had earlierthreatened to pass judicial or-ders to ensure that the namescleared by the collegiumwereapproved by theCentre.

Relations between thejudiciary and NDA govern-ment had hit a nadir after astring of judicial verdictsagainst the Centre. The Na-tional Judicial AppointmentsCommission to replace the col-legium was quashed by theapex court last year.

Today, the source said:“‘Everything is fine, the filesare being cleared’ is what weare being told. Let’s see whathappens.”

Cong leader swims against tide of hysteria, says selfies can’t build Kashmir strategy

Govt tooto blame:Rahul

SANJAYK.JHA

NewDelhi, Sept. 20: RahulGandhi today blamed “thepolitics of theNDA” for thespurtof terrorisminKash-mir and asked PrimeMini-ster NarendraModi to for-mulate a long-term strate-gy todealwith theprobleminstead of relying on “eve-nt-based responses” thatcould be “very dangerous”for the country.

“The first responsibilityis on Pakistan and the gover-nment’s politics,” the Con-gress leader told reporters inKanpur, referring to the Uriattack.

Rahul’s comments are op-en to the interpretation thathedoes not appreciate the warhysteria being whipped up bythe ruling dispensation in thewake of the savage attack onthe soldiers and feels the de-velopment could not be entire-ly delinked from the explosiveinternal situation inKashmir.

This is a bold position totake in the charged ambience,given the BJP’s propensity toportray differing voices asanti-national.

Rahul’s comments were insharp contrast with those ofBJP leader and Jammu andKashmir minder Ram Madh-avwhosaid Indiawouldnot to-lerate or succumb to Pakist-an’s “nuclear blackmail”.

“Any sort of blackmail willnotbe tolerated.Nobodywantsanuclearwar inourregionbutnobody will succumb to nu-clear blackmail,”Madhav saidat a time the foreign ministerhas advised the governmentagainst a military responsewithout building an interna-tional consensus. (See Page 4)

Rahul, who is touringUttar Pradesh to highlightfarmers’ distress, told re-porters this evening: “ A lot ofworkwas done silently behindclosed doors in nine years….Forty flights were coming intoKashmir (daily). But theNarendraModi government’sshort-sightedalliancewith thePDP opened the space for ter-rorism inKashmir.”

Rahul added: “Our soldiershavedied, theymadehuge sac-rifices. I stand by the soldiers.I condemnwhat is being doneto them by Pakistan. However,the space for them has beencreated by the politics that theNDA has carried out in Kash-mir. The PrimeMinister goesfrom one event to anotherevent. National security can-not be dealt like a publicmeet-ing. This is a serious matter.The Congress is ready to helpbut the government shouldhave a concrete, long-termstrategy. Event-based activityis extremely dangerous for thecountry.”

In a tweet, the Congress

vice-president said: “FYIMod-iji: a Kashmir strategy cannotbe developed using selfies andsound bites.”

Although Rahul’s state-ment reflects the position theCongress took yesterday, it isbound to be subjected to thestrictest scrutiny in the pre-vailing atmosphere. The BJPwill find it hard to digest hiscontention that the Indiangovernment “created spacefor” such an eventuality.

Rahul not only askedModito use foresight and wisdomwhile handling diplomacy, hesuggested the governmentwas following a casual ap-proach towards the gatheringcrisis inKashmir.

“I met Arun Jaitleyjisometime back and in a con-versation I categorically toldhim we are heading for somevery serious trouble in Kash-mir. The finance ministerbrushed me aside and told methere is no trouble,” Rahulsaid.

Heightened activity near LoCMUZAFFARRAINAAND

SUJANDUTTA

Sept. 20: The Indian Armysaid today that it had foiled aninfiltration bid and killed anunspecified number of mili-tants in the Uri sector whereSunday’s attack took place.

Other sources said a soldi-erwas killed in a separate gunbattle just north, in Nowgam.Both Uri and Nowgam are innorthKashmir.

Today’s firefights near theLine of Control (LoC) may ormay not portend the situationthat is in the making since 18soldierswere killed inUri.

There is the possibilitythat the Indian Army is revis-ing rules of engagement andfurther reinforcing its deploy-ment on the LoC. Formally, a

ceasefire is still in force alongthe LoC. The defenceministryspokesperson in Srinagar saidPakistani troops violated theceasefire in Uri by openingfire on the Indian positionsbut therewas no casualty.

In theperspectiveof the In-dianArmy, the encounterswe-re a consequence of hurriedefforts to pushmore militantsacross the LoC before a possi-ble spike in armed conflict.

Since last week, three batt-alions were pushed into southKashmir following protestsafter militant commanderBurhanWani’s killing in July.Anarmyofficer said threemo-re battalions would be enscon-ced along the LoC where thedeployment is heavy in anycase. But another officer said:“It is important to not jump to

conclusions during the plan-ning phase.”

Prime Minister NarendraModi has called a meeting ofthe cabinet committee on sec-urity, which includes the high-est collective military leader-ship, tomorrowmorning.

An army source said a pat-rol spotted a group of 10-15mi-litants crossing intoUri throu-gh the hills in Lachipora, aro-und a kilometre from theLoC.

An unspecified number ofmilitants was killed, the sou-rce said. The number couldnot be specified by this even-ing because some bodies hadfallen into a ravine. The en-counter was continuing afterdusk.

These firefights are coinci-ding with unrest in the Kash-mir Valley. Among the latest

casualties was a 13-year-oldgirl who was said to have diedof cardiac arrest during aclash between security forcesand stone-throwers.

“There were some clashesbut the level of violence hascome down significantlyacross the Valley, particularlyin the (worst-affected) southKashmir districts,” a policesource said.

Further south of Kashmir,the western army command-er,LtGen.SurinderSingh,vis-ited the border areas in Jam-mu, Samba and Kathua regi-on. “The army commander re-viewed the deployment in theentire region…. He empha-sised the need for ensuring ahigh degree of alertness andoperational preparedness,” anofficial statement said.

TBREAKELINA FOREIGN

Hollywood’sfairy-tale coupleBrangelina filefor divorce

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 ▼

Anshika (right), one of thefour childrenof NaikSunilKumarVidyarthiwhowaskilled inUri, bids farewelltoher father at his funeralinGayaonTuesday.Vidyarthi’s sonAryanRaj,not yet 2 years old, lit thefuneral pyre from the lapof his uncle SudhirYadav.Vidyarthi’s threedaughters,Arti (14),Anshu (12), andAnshika(9), had stunnedmanybyturningup in school fortheir examsonMonday. “Iwas takenaback, seeingthe girls in the schoolyesterday,” principalAshishKumar said, addingthat the school hadexempted the girls fromthe examsonTuesday.Vidyarthi’swifeKiran saidshehad sentherdaughtersto school as shedidnotwant their educationaffected. Picture bySuman

XXCE

THETELEGRAPH CALCUTTAWEDNESDAY21 SEPTEMBER 2016 11LAW

Q:My nephew was married in India. When hisemployer asked him to go to the US for aminimum of two years, he got visas for both his

wife and himself. But a few days before they were toleave, his wife changed her mind and he had to goalone. It has been more than four years now, and therehas been total silence from his wife and her parents.Can he file for divorce in the US? He cannot come andfight a case in India. What should he do?

Arvind Kumar, Calcutta

A:Since themarriage took place in India andboth parties last resided together here, the cause ofaction has arisen in India.Hence the jurisdiction forthe divorce suit would be in the appropriate court inIndia.Your nephewor his wellwishers could ap-proach hiswife to knowhermind.Shemay agree toa divorce bymutual consent.This would not only besimpler but also speedier.

Q:My sister died in the US in 2011, leaving be-hind her husband, son and daughter.They areNRIs. She owned a flat near Calcutta. She had

written on a piece of paper the names of persons towhom she wanted to give her movable and immovableproperties and had signed it. In it, she expressed herwish to give this flat to me. Her heirs want to transfer itto me. What is the best way to effect the transfer?

Ashim Mazumdar, Uttarpara, West Bengal

A: Though your sister’s letter can be treated asawill and her legal heirsmay apply for its probate,the proceduremay be slightly complicated andmaytake some time. If the heirs wish to transfer it to youimmediately, theymay execute a gift deed in yourfavour.Else, theywill have towait for the grant of theprobate to transfer her assets as per her wishes.

Q:Before our mother died, she gifted the groundfloor to my sister, where she has been residingfor 30 years. A part of it has been rented out. I

got the first floor. I am 67 now. I suffer from osteo-arthritis and face difficulty in negotiating stairs.Thedoctor, too, has advised me to avoid using the stairs.Can my sister file an eviction suit against the tenantciting medical reasons for my relocation?

A. Chakrabarty, Calcutta

A: If your sister can show that you are part ofher family and that she requires the property for herpersonal use,which includes your need tomove inwith her owing to your health, then shemay file aneviction suit against her tenant—on grounds ofreasonable requirement.

Please send your legal queries with your name andaddress to Legal FAQs, The Telegraph (Features),6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001. Or emailus at legalfaqs@abp.in

LEGAL FAQsAdvocate NIBEDITA ROYE

answers your queries

T heories on criminal jus-tice can often operate inan ambiguous realmwhere the legislature isin a constant endeavour

to strike a balance between deter-ring criminals and upholding theirbasic human rights. The lines oftenget blurredwhen the issue relates todrug abuse. To create an effectivecriminal justice system, institu-tions need to not only prevent anddeter but also reform the deviant.

Reform and rehabilitation of of-fenders forms the core of a restora-tive justice system — where thefocus lies on the victims and offend-ers and the communities at largerather than a restricted focus onpunishment to the offender. Theseelements are required to be infusedin the reality of pragmatic function-ing in our fight against drug abuse.

Whilemost countries shudder atthe thought of scheduled drugs likeheroin and cocaine slithering intotheir homes, we as a country face asituation where most lethal drugscan be bought over the counter, es-pecially in the border states ofnorth India.

The drug menace in India is apressing reality today and it is onlyif the idea of rehabilitation of ad-dicts is explored within or outsidethe parameters of our legislationthat the issuecanbe tackled.With70per cent of addicts between the agesof 17 and 35 and 50 per cent of thedrug-related cases being registeredonly in Punjab, the loss to posterityis already incalculable.

Inanattempt tocater to theprob-lem, the ministry of social justiceand empowerment lately sanc-tioned 28 new rehabilitation centresin Punjab in order to pay special at-tention to the issue.

The surging nature of the prob-lem is evident from the fact that inPunjab the need for rehabilitation

facilities are equated to a bare ne-cessity of a dispensary— there nowexists a demand of having one ineach district.

The stigma attached to the labelof an addict and the societal tabooinherent in getting treatment for de-addiction does not help either. Ad-dicts are mostly tried under ourpenal laws and eventually impris-onedwithout any hope for a healthyand a stable future.

In 1985, the legislature consoli-dated the then existing legislationson narcotics into a single act andnamed it the Narcotic Drugs andPsychotropic Substances Act, 1985,(NDPS Act). If one was to strictlycompartmentalise the provisions ofthisact intoaconventional criminaljustice theory, thenmost provisionswould fall in thecategoryof retribu-

tive justice — a system based onpunishment of offenders ratherthan rehabilitation.

Section 27 of the act is an exam-ple. It prescribes a punishment ofsix months to one year for posses-sion of a small quantity of narco-tics. Having ratified the Single Con-vention on Narcotics, 1961, about 40years ago, it was time for us to insti-tutionalise a change, reformative innature, consistent with the legisla-tions across the globe.

The Narcotic Drugs and Psy-chotropic Substances (Am-endment) Act, 2001, intro-

ducedSection64Ato theact, aprovi-sion that allowed an addict immuni-ty from prosecution in case he orshe volunteers to undergo medicaltreatment for de-addiction.

Although, this insertion can beseen as a paradigm shift in the atti-tude of the legislature towards theplight of drug addicts, Section 64Ais the least used provision in theNDPS Act. The fact that only a sin-gle landmark judgment is availableon this issue shows that the provi-sion is nothingmore than an embel-lishment for the restorative theoryof justice in an otherwise retribu-tive statute.

The BombayHigh Court, in Far-deen Feroz Khan vs Union of India,refused to grant the petitioner im-munity under Section 64A for thereason that nine grams of cocainedid not constitute as small quantityand at the same time, a mere state-ment of the petitioner to the effectthat he was an “addict” was notenough toqualifyhimfor immunity.

This brings us to the issue athand— two areas that require con-siderable scrutiny for the effectiveimplementation of this provisionare the terms, “addict” and “volun-teer”asbothentail avery subjectiveapproach, (sometimes scientific).Section 2(i) of the act defines theterm addict as a person who has de-pendence on any narcotic drug orpsychotropic substance.

As noticed in the FardeenKhan case, it was not possi-ble for courts to evaluate

the criminal as an addict unless anuanced approach in terms of psy-chology and science are taken intoconsideration.

Thereafter, it must be estab-lished that the consent of the addictto undergo medical treatment is infact voluntary,without any externalpressures.Thecourtsmustnothesi-tate to take the assistance of psy-chotherapists and medical expertsin order to decide the fate of an ad-dict under Section 64A.

The problem may, however, notend here due to the yawning gap be-tween the policy and its implemen-tation by the executive. The provi-sion might with the most laudableintention grant access to rehabilita-tion but it still remains to be seenwhether the governmental institu-tions are sufficiently equipped totake on the challenge of rehabilita-tion. The executive and the judici-ary need to work together to streng-then this provision and fortify itinto an exemplary model of ourcriminal justice system.

It must be realised that drugabuse and dependence on narcoticsis an issue that is more of a psycho-logical disorder and less of a moti-vated crime, where the actus (act)remains but themens (intention) isabsent. The addict remains a pris-oner to a justice model that leads toone of the three least warrantedoutcomes, i.e. relapse, incarcerationor death, none of which addressesthe core issue of addiction.

It is important to use the NDPSAct as a prismwhichhelps filter outthe negative dimensions of the ad-dicts and enables us to foster a drug-free environment. Instead of adopt-ing a hyper-sensitive outlook bor-dering on denial to the insidiousnarco-plight, there is an urgentneed for institutions to come togeth-er and create a society where ad-dicts can be rehabilitated into themainstreamwith cleansed systemsand quenched cravings.

Palli andGrover are advocates

Chritarth Palli andAbhilaksh Grover

argue thatnarcotics control

laws need tobecome much

more humane inorder to tackle theworrying spread of

addiction

Punish themsoftly