No Probe Into Judge Loya's Death: Supreme Court Rejects Review Petition
NEW DELHI: Judge BH Loya's death in 2014 while deciding on murder charges against BJP president Amit Shah will not be investigated. The Supreme Court today rejected a petition against its April verdict that held the judge died of natural causes.
The Bombay Lawyers' Association, which was one of the petitioners, had asked the top court to recall its verdict since it had "resulted in miscarriage of justice, if not complete negation of justice.
The special CBI judge was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, in which Amit Shah was an accused, when he died of a heart attack in Maharashtra's Nagpur, where he was attending a wedding. The judge who replaced him ruled there was not enough evidence against Amit Shah to merit a trial and discharged the BJP chief.
When judge Loya's family alleged last year that he had been under threat and there were suspicious circumstances about his death, it triggered a huge controversy and calls for an independent investigation.
In January, Judge Loya's son Anuj Loya said the family no longer had any suspicion about the death.
In its decision in April, a four-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra called the petitions for investigation "scandalous" and a "frontal attack on the judiciary". Four Mumbai judges who were with Judge Loya at the time of his death, and had asserted that he died of natural causes.
The court, without naming anyone, had also said that it took "strong exception" to the Insinuation that "one individual controls judiciary".
The case was also taken up by the opposition, which said there was a threat to democracy when lawyers and judges working on important cases were targeted. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also led a group of 15 opposition lawmakers that met President Ram Nath Kovind to ask for an independent investigation.
courtesy : ndtv.com
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Union government assumes full control over TV ratings, TRAI role curtailed: Report
New Delhi: The Union government has assumed full control over television audience measurement, removing the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from oversight of the ratings system that underpins the country’s ₹36,000 crore television advertising market, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The report in Mint said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) now has exclusive authority over the framework governing how television ratings are measured and regulated. TRAI had been entrusted with oversight of TV ratings in 2012 during the UPA government’s tenure. TRAI is no longer mentioned in the relevant policy document, effectively vesting sole authority in the MIB.
The report said TRAI will continue to regulate other aspects of broadcasting, including channel pricing, advertising caps, interconnection and distribution norms, service quality and compliance standards. Its role in determining how ratings agencies track viewing behaviour has been withdrawn.
Television Rating Points (TRPs), which reflect viewership patterns, guide advertisers in deciding where to allocate spending across channels and time slots.
A government source quoted in the report said the ministry could modify TRAI’s decisions even when the regulator oversaw broadcasting.
A former CEO of Prasar Bharati told the newspaper that the MIB has historically regulated rating agencies through licensing and guidelines, and by holding them accountable under existing norms.
During its tenure overseeing ratings, TRAI had taken decisions affecting the broadcast sector, which included capping advertising time at 12 minutes per hour following complaints about excessive commercial breaks and it now remains unclear how these matters will be addressed under the revised arrangement.
Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at TRAI, was quoted as saying that merging regulatory functions with policy oversight and removing an independent regulator from the process was a retrograde step.
TRAI’s involvement in broadcasting had earlier attracted criticism as well. In 2012, its consultation paper on quantitative limits on television advertising was viewed by some as overlapping with the Advertising Standards Council of India’s code. Subsequent recommendations covering television audience measurement, ownership of news channels and issues such as paid news had also raised concerns among sections of the industry.
Television ratings have faced scrutiny in recent years, including during the controversy involving the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), where officials of the ratings body were prosecuted over allegations of manipulation of viewership data.
