China says won't interfere in Nirav Modi's arrest
Beijing, April 9: China on Monday hinted it won't push for fugitive Indian jeweller Nirav Modi's arrest, who is suspected to be in Hong Kong, saying the Chinese autonomous region has its own set of judicial rules and India can deal with the authorities directly.
India has reportedly asked Hong Kong to arrest the main accused in the $2billion fraud bank fraud who is believed to be in Chinese territory, a former British colony which enjoys a high degree of autonomy.
"According to the one country two system and basic laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the assistance and authorization of the central government, the Hong Kong SAR can make a proper arrangement on judicial mutual assistance with other countries," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said.
"If India has made a relevant request to the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region), we leave the matter to the Hong Kong SAR and hope that it will follow the basic laws and relevant judicial system agreement with India to deal with the relevant issue," Geng said.
Hong Kong has its own independent system where China has its say only in defence and external affairs. While India has an extradition treaty with Hong Kong, there is no such agreement with China.
Modi, a regular on the lists of rich and famous Indians since 2013, along with his group companies -- Diamond R US, Stellar Diamond and Solar Exports, and an uncle and business partner and others have been named in the huge scam, admitted by the PNB in February and leading to a massive upheaval in the country's banking system.
Modi owned a chain of boutiques in Hong Kong.
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Six ex-Cong MLAs withdraw plea from Supreme Court against disqualification from HP Assembly
New Delhi, May 10: Six former Congress MLAs Friday withdrew their plea from the Supreme Court against the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker's decision to disqualify them from the House.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was told by senior advocate Abhinav Mukherjee, appearing for the former MLAs, that they want to withdraw the petition.
"We knew this was going to happen due to the elections," the bench observed while allowing them to withdraw their plea.
The six former MLAs are now contesting as the BJP candidates the assembly bypolls which were necessitated after their disqualification.
The six former Congress MLAs -- Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto -- were disqualified on February 29, for defying a Congress whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh government during the cut motion and budget.
According to the notification issued on March 16 by the poll panel, assembly byelections are scheduled to be held in the Dharamshala, Sujanpur, Lahaul and Spiti, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar constituencies that fell vacant after the disqualification of the six lawmakers on June 1 alongwith with polling for the four Lok Sabha seats in the state.
On March 18, the top court had refused to stay the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker's order disqualifying the former MLAs who had cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls in the state.
It had issued notice to the office of Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania and sought its response within four weeks on a plea by the former MLAs.
The top court had said pending adjudication of their plea, these disqualified MLAs will not be allowed to vote or participate in the proceedings of the assembly.
Following the disqualification of the rebels, the effective strength of the House has gone down to 62 from 68, while the number of Congress MLAs has shrunk to 34 from 40.
