Delhi HC asks Centre to decide on woman's plea to travel to Yemen to save daughter on death row
New Delhi, Nov 16: The Delhi High Court asked the Centre on Thursday to take a decision within a week on a request to travel to Yemen from the mother of a Kerala woman who is on death row there for the murder of a Yemini national.
The lawyer for the central government informed the court that the top court in Yemen on November 13 dismissed the appeal of Nimisha Priya, who was working as a nurse in the West Asian country, against her sentence.
Priya has been convicted of murdering Talal Abdo Mahdi, who died in July 2017 after she injected him with sedatives in order to get her passport from his possession.
It was stated that Priya injected him with sedatives so that she could take her passport from him while he was unconscious. However, he died of an overdose.
Priya's mother moved the high court earlier this year, seeking permission to travel to Yemen in spite of a travel ban for Indian nationals and negotiate the "blood money" to save her daughter.
Blood money refers to the compensation paid by an offender or his kin to the family of the victim.
On Thursday, the Centre's lawyer said according to a notification issued recently, the travel ban may be relaxed and Indian nationals may be allowed to travel to Yemen for specific reasons and durations.
"In view of the representation, let the present petition be treated as a representation. Respondent is directed to decide the representation within one week from today," Justice Subramonium Prasad ordered.
The petitioner, represented by lawyer Subash Chandaran K R, had told the court earlier that the only way to save her daughter from the gallows was to negotiate with the deceased's family by paying blood money and for which she has to travel to Yemen but due to the travel ban, she is unable to go there.
The "Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council" approached the high court last year, seeking a direction to the Centre to "facilitate diplomatic interventions as well as negotiations with the family of the victim on behalf of Nimisha Priya to save her life by paying blood money in accordance with the law of the land in a time-bound manner".
The high court had earlier refused to direct the Centre to negotiate the payment of blood money to save the woman, but asked it to pursue the legal remedies against the conviction in Yemen.
In the earlier petition, it was alleged that Mahdi had forged documents to show that he was married to Priya and had subjected her to abuse and torture.
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36 ex-judges slam Opposition move to impeach Justice Swaminathan
New Delhi (PTI): Thirty-six former judges on Saturday gave a call to people, including parliamentarians, to denounce opposition leaders' move to impeach Madras High Court judge Justice G R Swaminathan, saying such an attempt, if allowed to proceed, would cut at the very roots of democracy and independence of the judiciary.
On December 1, Justice Swaminathan held that the Arulmighu Subramania Swamy Temple was duty-bound to light the lamp at the Deepathoon, in addition to the customary lighting near the Uchi Pillaiyar Mandapam.
The single-judge bench said that doing so would not encroach upon the rights of the adjacent dargah or the Muslim community.
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The order sparked a row, and on December 9, several opposition MPs, led by the DMK, submitted a notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to move a motion for the removal of the judge.
Taking serious exception to the move, the former judges in a joint statement said this is a "brazen attempt to browbeat judges who do not fall in line with the ideological and political expectations of a particular section of society".
"If such an attempt is permitted to proceed, it would cut at the very roots of our democracy and the independence of the judiciary," they said.
"We therefore call upon all stakeholders -- Members of Parliament across party lines, members of the Bar, civil society, and citizens at large -- to unequivocally denounce this move and ensure that it is nipped in the bud at the very inception," they added.
The statement emphasised that the judges must remain answerable to their oath and to the Constitution of India, not to "partisan political pressures or ideological intimidation".
"The message from all constitutional stakeholders must be clear and firm: in a republic governed by the rule of law, judgments are tested by appeals and legal critique, and not by threats of impeachment for political nonconformity," it said.
The statement was signed by former Supreme Court judge Krishn Murari J as well as ex-chief justices and former judges of different high courts.
The statement said the opposition party's move is not an "isolated aberration". It fits into a "clear and deeply troubling pattern" in India's recent constitutional history, where sections of the political class have sought to discredit and intimidate the higher judiciary whenever outcomes do not align with their interests, it added.
"The unprecedented bid in 2018 to initiate impeachment proceedings against then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the sustained campaigns of vilification directed at Chief Justices Ranjan Gogoi, S A Bobde and D Y Chandrachud while they were in office," the statement noted.
"The targeted attacks now being mounted against the incumbent CJI, Justice Surya Kant, whenever a judgment/remark displeases a political constituency, are all manifestations of the same trend," it said.
"This is not principled, reasoned criticism of judicial decisions; it is an attempt to weaponise impeachment and public calumny as instruments of pressure -- a practice that strikes at the heart of judicial independence and the basic norms of constitutional democracy," the statement added.
