AAP, BRS, Shiv Sena-UBT stage walkout from Rajya Sabha after chair rejects their adjournment notices
New Delhi (PTI): Members of the Aam Aadmi Party, Shiv Sena Thackeray faction and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Wednesday staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha after their adjournment notices were disallowed by the chair.
Soon after laying of papers, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said he has received four notices under Rule 267 from BRS member K Keshava Rao, AAP member Sanjay Singh and Shiv Sena members Sanjay Raut and Priyanka Chaturvedi and disallowed the same.
Rao stood up and raised objection to the Rajya Sabha chairman's remarks on Tuesday on their boycott of the House.
Sanjay Singh also rose to seek a discussion on the Adani issue but was not allowed by the chair as their notices were disallowed.
Soon, the BRS, Sena and AAP members staged a walkout from the House.
The House started the discussion on the motion of thanks to the president's address as there was no Zero Hour and Question Hour. The discussion on the motion of thanks would continue without lunch break.
"I have received four notices under Rule 267 from Sanjay Raut, K Keshava Rao, Sanjay Singh, Priyanka Chaturvedi. I reiterate my stand. I have carefully gone through them. I do not find the notices in order. I am constrained not to allow them," the chairman said.
On BRS member Rao's anguish over the chairman's remarks made on Tuesday, he said, "The kind of aggressive body language you are reflecting is most unfortunate. You have perhaps not had the occasion to go through what I had said yesterday with full sense of sublimity, sobriety and seriousness."
Asking him to take his seat, he said, "This is not the way we conduct this House. What I said is on record, you can take recourse to rules. This is not the way to do it. I have conveyed my sentiments and these are the sentiments of millions of people."
Dhankhar said for the first time in this country, a history of the "wrong type" has been created by engaging in a proclaimed boycott of the President.
"I would urge the members, we are sending a very dangerous signal to people. Their anger is beyond tolerance. Every time in the morning they see this spectacle of the House being plunged into disorder as part of strategy," the chairman said.
AAP, BRS members created uproar by raising slogans of "PM sadan mein aao. jawaab do. JPC se jaanch karao (PM should come to the House and answer and JPC probe should be ordered)" and later staged a walkout.
They later held a demonstration in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament premises.
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US SC rejects 26/11 attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s plea seeking stay on his extradition to India
New York, Apr 7 (PTI): The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's appeal seeking a stay on his extradition to India, moving him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice.
Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.
He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.
Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus' on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan.
Kagan had denied the application earlier last month.
Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana's renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.”
Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”
The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."
"The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.
The US Supreme Court denied Rana's petition for a writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21. The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorise” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.
Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.
The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.
It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India".
During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has approved the extradition of "very evil" Rana, wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, "to face justice in India”.
A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.
