DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2022, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES `5.00, WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 HC SAYS NO RELIGIOUS DRESS PROPERTY DAMAGE ` 128 per kilo ` 158 per kilo EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE Hijab:SCsays willstepinat appropriatetime SC pulls up UP, warns it will quash recovery notices in CAA protests ` 100 per kilo ` 62 per Dozen WORLD U.S. TO SPLIT FROZEN AFGHAN FUNDS BETWEEN 9/11 VICTIMS, RELIEF P14 NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 11 THE SUPREME Court Friday pulled up the UP government over recovery notices to pay damages for destruction caused to public property during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019,beforeithadbroughtalaw onthisin2021,andsaidthatthey were in contravention of guidelines laid down by the court. A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant took exception to the fact that Additional District Magistrates (ADMs) and not judicial officers, as mandated by the apex court, had adjudicated these notices. “You have become complainant, you have become adjudicator, and then you are attaching property of the accused,” Justice Surya Kant told UP Additional Advocate General Garima Prashad. “When we had directed that adjudication has to bedonebyajudicialofficer,howis ADM conducting proceedings?” asked Justice Chandrachud. The court’s reference was to its 2009 ruling that the claims commissioner who will estimate damages in such cases and investigate liability will be a judge. The apex court had reiterated this in a decision in 2018. On Friday, the court said that CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Industrial growth fell to 10-month low at 0.4 per cent in December NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 11 INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT slumped toa10-monthlowof 0.4percent in December, dragged down by manufacturing, capital goods and consumer durables output alongwithanunfavourablebase, accordingtodatareleasedFriday by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Inabsoluteterms,thegeneral index level of the Index of E E X P L A I NE D AANCHAL MAGAZINE Wait until ● March IIP GROWTH in Dec 2021 is the lowest in 10 months, with manufacturing continuing to be a major drag. The full impact of the recent curbs may get reflected only in the industrial output data next month. Industrial Production (IIP) was higher than pre-pandemic levels seen in December 2019, but experts cautioned that the full impactof therestrictionsinview of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 pandemic may get reflected in the industrial output data next month. The IIP had registered a growth of 1.3 per cent a month ago and 2.2 per cent in December 2020. The biggest drag for the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PetitionerssayHCinterimordersuspends Art25;don’tspreadittolargerlevels:CJI Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison with (from left) Antony Blinken (US), Marise Payne (Australia), S Jaishankar (India) and Yoshimasa Hayashi (Japan) at the Quad meeting of foreign ministers in Melbourne on Friday. AP Quad: India tough on China, silent on Ukraine, cautious on Myanmar SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 11 EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Minister S Jaishankar joined counterparts from US, Japan and host Australia at the meeting of Quad Foreign Ministers in Melbourne Friday to send a clear signal to Beijing,underliningtheirpursuit EXPRESS NETWORK KASGANJ CUSTODY DEATH: HCORDERS EXHUMATION OF BODY, AUTOPSY AT AIIMS-DELHI PAGE 7 In run-up to Punjab elections, sons become poster boys for candidates across party lines MANRAJ GREWAL SHARMA CHANDIGARH, FEBRUARY 11 WHILE PRIME Minister Narendra Modi may call dynasties the biggest enemies of democracy, some candidates, cuttingacrosspartylines, areusing the Punjab Assembly polls to not-so-subtly introduce voters to their political heirs. Enter the industrial town of Bihar eyes ‘scan tunnels’ at border to check liquor smuggling SANTOSH SINGH PATNA, FEBRUARY 11 WITH AT least 60 people losing their lives after consuming illicit liquor over the last four months and over 1.93 crore litres of alcoholseizedinoverfiveyearssince prohibition was enforced in the state, the Bihar government is consideringtheuseof “scantunnels” to prevent liquor smugglingfromadjoiningstatesof UP, JharkhandandWest Bengal,and from Nepal. “We will soon put forward a Request for Proposal (RFP) to build a scan tunnel each at border points in Dobhi and Rajauli (Jharkhand to Bihar), Gopalganj and Bhabhua (UP to Bihar) and Dalkhola(BihartoWestBengal),” a senior Excise department official told The Indian Express. The installation of five scan tunnels is estimated to cost over Rs 100 crore, he said. “Since the UP and Jharkhand routes are usedmostoftenforliquorsmuggling, the scan tunnels can be of bighelp.If anyvehicletakesadetour to avoid the tunnel, those routes too will have police presence,” said the official. The official said that Excise and prohibition enforcement teams are already using drones to track illegal liquor manufacturers in the state. “A scan tunnel would be like alargeartificialcorridorthrough which a truck or any other vehicle carrying goods will be asked topass.Itwillworklikethescanning system installed at airports but on a much larger scale since CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Posters of Cong and BJP candidates with their sons. Express Batala,hometothelatepoetShiv Kumar Batalvi, and you will be greeted by big hoardings of Congress candidate Ashwani Sekhri and his arch opponent, BJP’s Fateh Jung Bajwa. One fea- ture common to both is the picture of their progenies on the posters. While Sekhri’s DECISION posters have 2022 photos of his son Abhinav, Bajwa is joined by his two sons, KanwarPratapandArjunPratap. In the neighbouring constituency of Fatehgarh Churian, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 of a “shared vision” to uphold “a rules-based international order, free from coercion — one based onrespectforterritorialintegrity and sovereignty”. But after the meeting, Jaishankar took a slightly nuancedpositioninpublicthanthe three other Foreign Ministers — US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi — on at least two important issues: the Russia-Ukraine row and the Myanmar issue. On Myanmar, Jaishankar pointedtothechallengeof insurgency along the Indo-Myanmar border, and recalled the recent ANANTHAKRISHNAN G & JOHNSON T A NEW DELHI, BENGALURU, FEBRUARY 11 ON THE day the Karnataka High Courtputitsobservations onthe hijab issue in its interim order, reiterating its call for classes to reopen and students to attend without wearing any religious dress, the Supreme Court declined to grant urgent listing for anappealagainstthe interimorderandaskedthepetitionersnot to “spread” the controversy to “larger levels”. On Friday, responding to Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat, who requested that a Special Leave Petition filed MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 11 THECHAIRPERSON andSpeaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly met with President Ram Nath Kovid requesting him to referthe SupremeCourt judgment, which had set aside the KARNATAKA TO DELAY OPENING OF COLLEGES PAGE 7 against the High Court's interim orderbetakenupurgently,Chief Justice of IndiaNV Ramanasaid: “I don't want to express anything. Don't spread these things to larger levels...We also know what is happening there in the state as well as in the hearings also. And you also have to think over whether it’s proper to bring those things to Delhi, national level issues and all that.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Nimbalkar meets Kovind, seeks judicial review of SC order on suspended MLAs EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE EXPRESS NETWORK suspension of 12 BJP MLAs from the Maharashtra Assembly, to the constitution bench of SC for “a judicial review”. The presiding officers of the two Houses of Maharashtra’s legislature, in their submission before the President, said that the top court judgment had “overstepped” confines marked by the Constitution between the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature. On January 29, the SC had ruled that the Maharashtra Assembly’s July 5, 2021 resolution suspending 12 BJP MLAs for one year following alleged misbehaviourintheHousewas“unconstitutional, substantively illegal and irrational”. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY