Bengal CM urges CJI Kant to protect Constitution, judiciary, democracy
Jalpaiguri (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday urged Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to protect the country’s Constitution, democracy and judiciary.
Banerjee, speaking at a programme to inaugurate a new building of the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of the Calcutta High Court, also called upon Justice Kant to protect the people of the country from being wrongly targeted by “agencies”.
“Please protect the Constitution, democracy, judiciary, history and geography, as well as the country’s borders, from disaster,” she said, without elaborating.
“You (the CJI) are the guardian of our Constitution. We are under your legal guardianship. Nobody is superior to you in the judiciary. On behalf of the people of the country, we request that there should be no bias on the basis of caste or religion. Let us work, speak and think for unity,” she said.
Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, urged the CJI to ensure that “media trials” of cases before their disposal are stopped completely.
“There is a growing trend of media trials before cases are disposed of. This must stop,” she asserted.
The chief minister also urged Justice Kant to take care of the new generation of lawyers, alleging that junior lawyers were struggling and not receiving their due benefits.
Banerjee said that although the central government had “stopped funding” for fast-track courts in West Bengal, her government had set up 88 such courts.
“We have already spent more than Rs 1,200 crore on courts. Please do not mind (referring to Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal among the attendees); though the Centre has stopped the funding, we are continuing the fast-track courts,” she said.
Of these, 52 courts are for women, seven are POCSO courts, four labour courts, and 19 are human rights courts, the CM said.
She also said that the new Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench building was “better than the Calcutta High Court (building)”.
Around 40.08 acres of prime land was allocated for construction of the building here, and the state government spent more than Rs 500 crore on it, she said.
“We have given 14 acres of prime land to the Calcutta High Court for a new building in Rajarhat in New Town,” Banerjee said, adding, the state government has set up six district judges’ courts and eight sub-divisional judges’ courts.
Justice Kant, Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court Sujoy Paul, former Supreme Court judges, West Bengal Advocate General Kishore Datta, Meghwal, and state Law Minister Moloy Ghatak were among those present at the programme.
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Screenwriter Salim Khan on ventilator support and stable, say doctors
Mumbai (PTI): Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan suffered a brain haemorrhage which has been tackled, is on ventilator support as a safeguard and stable, doctors treating him said on Wednesday, a day after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital here.
The 90-year-old, one half of the celebrated Salim-Javed duo which scripted films such as "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don" with Javed Akhtar, is in the ICU and recovery might take some time given his age.
"His blood pressure was high for which we treated him and we had to put him on a ventilator because we wanted to do certain investigations. Now the ventilator was put as a safeguard so that his situation doesn't get worse. So it is not that he is critical," Dr Jalil Parkar told reporters.
"We did the investigations that were required and today we have done a small procedure on him, I will not go into the details. The procedure done is called DSA (digital subtraction angiography). The procedure has been accomplished, he is fine and stable and shifted back to ICU. By tomorrow, we hope to get him off the ventilator. All in all, he is doing quite well," he added.
Asked whether he suffered a brain haemorrhage, the doctor said, "Unko thoda haemorrhage hua tha, which we’ve tackled. No surgery is required.
As concern over Khan's health mounted, his children, including superstar Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan, daughter Alvira, and sons-in-law Atul Agnihotri and Aayush Sharma, have been seen outside the hospital along with other well-wishers. His long-time partner Akhtar was also seen coming out of the hospital.
Khan, a household name in the 70s and 80s, turned 90 on November 24 last year. It was the day Dharmendra, the star of many of his films, including "Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", passed away.
Hailing from an affluent family in Indore, Khan arrived in Mumbai in his 20s with dreams of stardom. He was good looking and confident he would make a mark in the industry as an actor. But that did not happen. And then, after struggling for close to a decade and getting confined to small roles in films, he changed lanes.
He worked as an assistant to Abrar Alvi and soon met Akhtar to form one of Hindi cinema's most formidable writing partnerships. They worked together on two dozen movies with most of them achieving blockbuster status.
Other than "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don", Khan and Akhtar also penned "Trishul", "Zanjeer", "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Haathi Mere Saathi", "Yaadon Ki Baarat" and "Mr India".
