Linkman of carcass meat racket arrested, raids continue
Kolkata, May 4: A day after police arrested the kingpin of a carcass meat selling racket in the city, another linkman of the racket was arrested from the Kolkata airport area, police said on Friday.
Following the arrest of the kingpin of a carcass meat selling racket in the city, police apprehended another person from the city airport area for allegedly working as a linkman between the racket and buyers, a senior official said on Friday.
"A person named Sikandar Ali was arrested from the airport area in Dumdum on Thursday night. The prima facie evidence shows that he worked as a linkman in this case," Diamond Harbour Superintendent of Police Koteshwar Rao told IANS.
"The arrested persons are being interrogated to determine their involvements in the racket. The raids by the Special Investigating Team are going on in Kolkata and the adjoining districts," he said.
The police had last week busted a racket involved in processing the flesh of carcasses collected from dumping grounds in and adjoining suburbs and selling it to local restaurants and departmental stores and seized huge quantity of rotten meat from a city cold storage.
Police has arrested 12 people so far including the kingpin Biswanath Garai (52), who also owned the cold storage in north Kolkata's Narkeldanga.
Meanwhile, officials of Kolkata Municipal Corporations and district municipalities conducted fresh raids in local restaurants and eateries and sent food samples for testing.
Two restaurants in Dunlop in city's northern fringes were sealed after large quantity of rotten chicken, fish items were seized from there.
Political parties including a local committee of Congress staged demonstrations in front of Kolkata Corporation demanding measures to ensure food safety.
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Bombay High Court strikes down Centre's plan to set up Fact-Check Unit
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has struck down the central government's plan to establish a fact-checking unit (FCU) under the Information Technology Amendment Rules, 2023. The decision comes in response to a petition filed by standup comedian Kunal Kamra, challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre's move.
Justice A.S. Chandurkar, delivering the final verdict, declared that the proposed IT Amendment Rules violated key provisions of the Indian Constitution, namely Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (freedom of speech and expression), and 19(1)(g) (right to profession).
“I have considered the matter extensively. The impugned rules are violative of Articles 14, 19, and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India,” Justice Chandurkar said in his judgment. He further remarked that terms like "fake, false, and misleading" in the IT Rules were "vague" and lacked a clear definition, making them unconstitutional.
This judgment followed a split verdict issued by a division bench of the Bombay High Court in January. The bench, consisting of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale, was divided in their opinions. While Justice Patel ruled that the IT Rules amounted to censorship and struck them down, Justice Gokhale upheld the rules, arguing that they did not pose a "chilling effect" on free speech, as the petitioners had claimed.
The matter was then referred to a third judge, leading to today's decision. The Supreme Court had previously stayed the Centre's notification that would have made the fact-checking unit operational, stating that the government could not proceed until the Bombay High Court ruled on the case.
Kunal Kamra and other petitioners had argued that the amendments posed unreasonable restrictions on freedom of speech and expression. They contended that the provisions would lead to government-led censorship, effectively granting the government unchecked powers to determine what constitutes 'truth' online. The petitioners further claimed that such powers would turn the government into "prosecutor, judge, and executioner" in matters of online content.
With the Bombay High Court’s ruling, the Centre's move to create fact-checking units has been effectively halted, reaffirming the importance of protecting freedom of speech and expression in the digital space.
