Heavy rain in Mumbai; local train services, road traffic hit
Mumbai: Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and neighbouring Thane district overnight, causing water-logging at several places and affecting local train services and road traffic movement on Tuesday morning, officials said.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has appealed to residents to stay at home and urged commercial establishments, except those providing essential services, to remain closed on Tuesday as heavy rains are likely to continue for next 48 hours.
Suburban train services on the harbour line were stopped in the morning due to water-logging on rail tracks while services on the western and central lines were also affected, a civic official said.
Local trains in Mumbai and suburbs are currently being operated only for those involved in essential services in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
A landslide near suburban Kandivali disrupted vehicular movement from western suburbs towards south Mumbai, the official said. Traffic movement from Byculla to south Mumbai was also affected due to inundation at some places, he said.
The Santacruz observatory in western suburbs recorded 254 mm rainfall since Monday night while the Colaba observatory in south Mumbai recorded 220 mm rain during the same period, India Meteorological Department (IMD), Mumbai, Deputy Director General K S Hosalikar said.
The weather station at Mahalaxmi recorded 172 mm rain, while that at Vidyavihar reported 159 mm rain. Besides, the weather stations at Ram Mandir (near Goregaon in western suburbs) and Mira Road recorded a rainfall of 152 mm each.
The other weather stations in north Mumbai and Thane also recorded over 150 mm rainfall. The trend would continue for next 48 hours, the official said.
The BMC has deployed high capacity water pumps to discharge water from streets in Byculla, Bhandup and some other areas, a civic official said.
The civic body appealed to commercial and business establishments, except those involved in essential services, to remain shut in view of the heavy downpour.
"Residents should also stay at home and avoid venturing out, the BMC said in a statement.
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SC refuses review of decision against confiscating funds received via electoral bonds
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea seeking the review of its decision rejecting the petitions for confiscating Rs 16,518 crore received by political parties under the 2018 electoral bond scheme.
A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra dismissed the review plea filed by one Khem Singh Bhati against the top court's decision of August 2, 2024.
The apex court had then rejected the petition seeking confiscation of money received under the scheme.
The bench on March 26 held, "The review petition is dismissed in terms of the signed order. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of."
The top court's order, made available recently, also refused to accept Bhati's prayer for an open-court hearing in the matter.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by former CJI D Y Chandrachud on February 15 last year scrapped the electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding introduced by the BJP government.
Following the top court's judgement, the State Bank of India, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, shared the data with the election commission which made it public.
The electoral bonds scheme, which was notified by the government on January 2, 2018, was pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of its efforts to bring in transparency in political funding.
The top court, on August 2 last year, rejected a batch of pleas including the one filed by Bhati for a court-monitored probe into the electoral bonds scheme and observed it couldn't order a roving inquiry.
The review plea, filed through advocate Jayesh K Unnikrishnan and settled by senior advocate Vijay Hansaria, said on February 15, 2024 the apex court in Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) v. Union of India held the scheme unconstitutional for violating Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
"The effect of declaring the electoral bond scheme and the various statutory provisions as unconstitutional is that the said scheme never existed and is void ab-initio and it is a settled position of law that the court only finds law and it does not make law," it argued.
The verdict in the ADR case, the plea said, rendered the EBS void since inception, and therefore, the subsequent pleas seeking confiscation of the amount collected by political parties could not have been dismissed.
"In the absence of any declaration by this court in the ADR case that the judgement would apply prospectively, the existence of the electoral bond scheme on the date of purchase could not have been the basis for dismissal of the present writ petition. The scheme stood wiped out for all purposes from the date of inception and the necessary consequences must follow,” it added.
The plea said the previous bench's reliance on the existence of parliamentary legislation permitting electoral bonds to dismiss the writ petition constituted an "apparent error on the face of the record".
The ADR judgment did not declare its findings to be prospective, which means the statutory framework supporting electoral bonds should have been treated as invalid from the outset, it contended.
The applicant claimed the verdict had a retrospective effect, rendering the scheme null and void since its inception.
The review plea claimed the August 2, 2024 verdict "indirectly modified the ADR judgment".
The plea said evidence disclosed under court directions indicated a quid pro quo between donations made through the scheme and the benefits received by corporate donors, contradicting the bench's conclusion on the claims being speculative.
"Disclosure of information regarding electoral bonds in terms of the direction of this court clearly establish that there was quid pro quo between the donations made to the political parties and benefits received by the corporate houses and the observation...that the writ petition is based on assumption about quid pro quo between the donor and donee and the petitioner is seeking a roving inquiry, suffers from apparent error," it added.
