US' Georgia announces hand recount of votes
Washington: The US state of Georgia on Wednesday announced a hand recount of votes as President-elect Joe Biden has a narrow lead of over 14,000 over President Donald Trump.
With the margin being so close, there is a need to recount, Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said. He is from the Republican Party.
The hand recount of votes, however, will be only for the presidential election, he said. Georgia has 16 electoral college votes. Trump has alleged there has been massive voter fraud and electoral malpractice.
State officials, according to The New York Times, have said that there has been no such evidence so far. As of Wednesday, President-elect Biden had 279 of the 538 electoral college votes, with 270 being the halfway mark.
Biden has enough electoral votes to be the president even without Georgia, The New York Times reported.
Along with Georgia, Trump has filed lawsuits in the state of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and sought recounting of votes in Wisconsin.
With the margin being so close, it will require a full by-hand recount in each county, Raffensperger told reporters at a news conference in Atlanta.
Such a decision has been made because of the national significance of the outcome of the election results in the state, he said.
It will be a heavy lift. This will help build confidence. It will be an audit, a recount and a recanvass all at once. We have all worked hard to bring fair and accurate counts to assure that the will of the voters is reflected in the final count, he said, adding that observers from both the political parties would be present during the hand recount.
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Delhi court sentences Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia, associate to life imprisonment
New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court has sentenced Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia and his associate to life imprisonment under MCOCA provisions, but refused the death penalty saying the offences did not fall under the category of 'rarest of the rare cases'.
Additional Sessions Judge Vandana Jain sentenced Gulia and Dhirpal alias Kana to rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
In an order dated December 13, the judge said, "Death sentence can only be awarded in 'rarest of the rare cases' wherein the murder is committed in an extremely inhumane, barbarous, grotesque or dastardly manner as to arouse umbrage of the community at large."
The judge said that on weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it could be concluded that the present case did not fall under the category, and so, the death penalty could not be imposed upon the convicts.
"Thus, both the convicts are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs 3 lakh each, for committing the offence under Section 3 of MCOCA," she said.
The public prosecutor, seeking the death penalty for both the accused, submitted that they were involved in several unlawful activities while they were on bail in other cases.
He argued that the accused had shown no respect for the law and acted without any fear of legal consequences, and therefore did not deserve any leniency from the court.
The court noted that both convicts were involved in offences of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, robbery, house trespass, and criminal intimidation. Besides, they had misused the liberty of interim bail granted to them by absconding.
It said, "The terror of the convicts was such that it created fear psychosis in the mind of the general public, and they lost complete faith in the law enforcement agencies and chose to accede to the illegal demands of convicts. Despite suffering losses, they could not gather the courage to depose against them."
The court noted that Gulia was involved in at least 18 criminal cases, while Dhirpal had links to 10 serious offences.
It underlined that MCOCA had been enacted "keeping in view the fact that organised crime had come up as a serious threat to society, as it knew no territorial boundaries and is fuelled by illegal wealth generated by committing the offence of extortion, contract killings, kidnapping for ransom, collection of protection money, murder, etc."
Both accused persons had been convicted on December 10 in a case registered at Najafgarh police station. The police filed a chargesheet under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) and 4 (punishment for possessing unaccountable wealth on behalf of member of organised crime syndicate) of MCOCA.
