Polali Candle Santhu murder case: Life term for two accused
Mangaluru, July 20: The fourth additional principal district and sessions court on Friday convicted two accused for life imprisonment and slapped a penalty of Rs 1 lakh each on charges of murdering Candle Santu alias Santosh of Polali Badakabailu.
The convicted are identified as Iqbal (39) of Bandaru and Farooq (30) of Kukkundoor Bangle Gudde in Karkala taluk. Out of Rs 2 lakh penalty, Rs 1.8 lakh should be given to the family of Santhosh and Rs 20,000 should be remitted to the government, the court said.
There were total 22 accused in the case and 13 accused were acquitted from the case, while three accused were absconding and four were died. Convicted Iqbal was the prime accused in the case and Farooq was the sixth accused.
Incident
When Santosh was sitting on a gutter at Badakabailu in Bantwala taluk on February 18 2009 at 9.30 am, the miscreants who came in a car and motorbike attacked him with lethal weapons. Sensing the danger, Santosh started running to escape from them. But as he had a leg injury in an incident earlier, he could not run fast. He was chased and attacked him brutally. Though the local people rushed him to the hospital, he died in the hospital.
Murder plan prepared in abroad
Being in abroad, Madoor Isubu had planned for the murder of Santosh and given a contract to the accused to kill him. He was killed in the jail at the city in 2015. During the arrest of the accused, Rs 2 lakh supari money was confiscated from them. Another accused Madoor Ismail died of heart attack,while Kukkundoor Sulaiman alias Khader was murdered at Karkala.
Reason for murder?
Santosh was an accused in the murder of Mallur Hamid of Kairangala village in Bantwala taluk on April 9, 2006 and Rafeeq of Gurupura Kaikamba on December 23, 2000. To take revenge against these murders, Madoor Isubu had planned to kill Santosh.
Taking it for hearing, judge Nerale Veerabhadraiah Bhavani got the statements of 25 witnesses heard the arguments and delivered the judgement. Then Bantwala rural inspector Nanjunde Gowda filed the charge sheet to the court. Public prosecutor Harishchandra Udyavara argued against the accused.
Meanwhile, SP Ravikanthe Gowda had appreciated the efforts of the Bantwala rural inspector Nanjunde Gowda and police personnel and announced a prize.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
