Attempts being made to hush up Haveri gangrape case by offering money, alleges Bommai
Hubballi, Jan 14: Former Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday said that attempts have been made to hush up the moral policing incident of Haveri in which the police have charged the accused with gangrape, by offering money to the victim.
According to a video that has gone viral, six people barged into a hotel room and assaulted an interfaith couple during their stay in Hangal Taluk of Haveri district on January 8, following which two of the accused were arrested.
In a statement, Bommai claimed that Haveri police have offered money to the victim to close the Hangal incident.
"The government must constitute a Special Investigation Team to probe this incident. As Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would visit Haveri on Monday, the BJP expects him to make an announcement in this regard," he said.
Bommai said that under the garb of investigation, the victim was taken to Sirsi after the local police got information about the visit of the BJP women's delegation to Haveri.
ALSO READ: Men who assaulted interfaith couple in Haveri charged with gangrape
"The Congress party had been doing this kind of politics. What more can be expected from them," he remarked.
According to the survivor, a 26-year-old married woman who belongs to a minority community, the incident took place on January 8.
She checked into a hotel room at 1 pm with a KSRTC driver aged 40, with whom she has been in a relationship for the past three years, police said.
The police added gang rape charges on the basis of a complaint by the woman. She had also deposed before the magistrate.
The woman has also said that people close to the accused are pressuring her to withdraw the case, offering her lakhs of rupees.
The entire incident of assault inside the hotel room was filmed by the gang.
The videos later became viral after they got circulated on social media platforms, police said.
In one of the purported videos, six men are seen knocking on the door of a room. When a man opens the door, the assailants are seen barging in and heading towards the woman. The gang verbally abuses the couple, assaults them and films the woman while she tries to cover her face with a burqa.
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)
