National Herald building lease: Centre assures HC status quo will be maintained till Nov 22
New Delhi, Nov 15 : The Centre Thursday gave an oral assurance to the Delhi High Court that it will maintain status quo till November 22 in the land lease matter of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), publisher of the National Herald newspaper.
The assurance by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was representing the Land and Development Office (L&DO), came after Justice Sunil Gaur said he will hear the matter another day and the Centre shall maintain status quo till then.
The court listed the matter for further hearing on November 22.
The publisher had approached the high court on November 12 challenging the October 30 order of the Urban Development Ministry, ending its 56-year-old lease and asking it to vacate the premises in the press enclave at ITO here by November 15.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for AJL, said status quo should mean that possession should not be taken and no proceedings under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, should be initiated till then.
To this, the court said "obviously" and added, "when the matter is sub-judiced, then that much courtesy they need to show to the court".
On November 13, when the matter had come up for hearing, the court said there is no urgency in the plea and it would hear it on November 15 as it had not received the case file from the registry.
The Centre's counsel had earlier said they were initiating the process and if AJL does not hand over the possession of the premises to them they will re-enter.
The petition, filed through advocates Sunil Fernandes and Priyansha Indra Sharma, sought quashing of the L&DO's order on the grounds that it was "illegal, unconstitutional, arbitrary, tainted with malafide and without authority and jurisdiction".
"The petitioner (AJL) has been in lawful possession of the demised premises for the last 56 years (since 1962) and the respondent (Centre) vide the impugned order, seek to dispossess the petitioner and re-enter the premises...," it said.
It also said the Centre has warned them of action under the PP Act, if they failed to vacate the premises.
One of the grounds mentioned in the L&DO order is that no press has been functioning in the premises for last at least 10 years and that it is being used only for commercial purposes in violation of the lease deed.
This allegation has been refuted by the AJL in the petition filed by the firm and its company secretary.
"The requirement of running a press cannot mean that all press and printing related activities have to necessarily be conducted at the same premises, that is, demised premises. The imperatives of prudent commercial business operations may necessitate that the petitioner company utilise the infrastructure or the premises at some other place as a supplement to their operations in the present demised premises," the plea said.
According to the petition, AJL initially received a show cause notice from L&DO in June this year which was based on an inspection carried out in April.
It claimed that the inspection was not conducted to ascertain whether there was any printing activity at the premises.
The AJL gave a detailed reply to the notice on July 16 and October 9, saying printing activity was carried out by it over the last several decades and also as on the date of issuance of the notice, it said.
As per the petition, the digital versions of English newspaper 'National Herald', Hindi's 'Navjivan' and Urdu's 'Qaumi Awaz' have commenced since 2016-17.
The weekly newspaper 'National Herald on Sunday' resumed from September 24 last year and the place of publication was the ITO premises, the petition claimed, and added that the Hindi weekly newspaper 'Sunday Navjivan' was also being published since October this year from the same premises.
"The necessary licenses and authorisations for the purposes of publication were also placed on record, in particular, the necessary licenses have been obtained by the petitioner (AJL)," it said.
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Constitution amendment bill defeat was BJP’s first embarrassment in Parliament: Margaret Alva
Bengaluru (PTI): Senior Congress leader Margaret Alva on Monday said that the constitution amendment bill's defeat in the Lok Sabha on April 17 was the first embarrassment faced by the BJP-led government in Parliament.
She also alleged that the BJP has no real concern regarding women’s reservation.
The opposition INDIA bloc defeated the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill that sought to facilitate the implementation of women's reservation by expanding the strength of the Lok Sabha, apart from making changes to delimitation.
"This is the first embarrassment and defeat faced by the NDA government in the Lok Sabha," the former Governor of Gujarat and Rajasthan said in a press conference here.
According to her, the women’s reservation has been under discussion since the time of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
"During Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure, a 14-member committee was formed, and I was appointed as its chairperson. We prepared a report after studying what needed to be done to enhance the dignity of women across 12 sectors. This was submitted to the government in 1989,” Alva, 84-year-old veteran Congress leader, said.
She said political empowerment for women was emphasised in that report, without which, empowerment in any other sphere is not possible.
“Many people in Parliament used to question me — should we vacate seats for women and stay at home cooking? Why insist on this? Has anyone written these seats in your name? This debate has been ongoing since 1975,” Alva explained.
The Congress leader said Rajiv Gandhi had introduced 33 per cent reservation for women in local bodies.
“At that time, all opposition parties united and defeated the Bill,” she pointed out.
Again, during the tenure of former Prime Minister late P V Narasimha Rao, the 33 per cent reservation Bill in local bodies was passed.
“It was the Congress party that first introduced women’s reservation. Now they are falsely accusing us of being anti-women,” Alva charged.
In 2023, the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed with much fanfare, but it was not immediately implemented.
According to her, a condition was imposed for its implementation that it would be enforced based on census data.
"Once it is in the statute book, what is preventing its implementation? Two years for the census and another two years for delimitation — this means it cannot be implemented by 2029. It was not given in 2024, and there is no possibility even in 2029," Alva charged the BJP-led government at the Centre.
The Congress leader said the BJP is saying that the Bill can be implemented based on the 2011 Census, but when the same suggestion was made in 2023, the BJP rejected it.
On increasing the Lok Sabha seats by 50 per cent, she sought to know the basis for it.
“Where did this (idea) come from? Whose advice was taken? Was it decided by the RSS? Or ordered by a court?” Alva asked.
The former union minister said the Constitution amendment bill, which was defeated on April 17 appears to favour certain North Indian states.
“We pay taxes, but they receive greater benefits and allocations. If seats are increased by 50 per cent based on their calculations, we would get only 14 additional seats, while they would get 40. How is this fair?” she questioned.
While 298 members voted in support of the bill in Lok Sabha, 230 MPs voted against it. Out of 528 members who voted, the bill required 352 votes for a two-third majority.
According to the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, Lok Sabha seats were to be increased to "operationalise" the women's reservation act before the 2029 parliamentary polls, following a delimitation exercise based on the 2011 Census.
Seats were also to be increased in state and Union territory Assemblies to accommodate 33 per cent reservation for women.
