Why sleep over repatriation of foreign prisoners, asks court

All prisoners in jail should be sent back within a month

The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed serious concern over the inordinate delay in the release and repatriation of foreigners languishing in Indian jails even after completing their sentences.

A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and H.L. Gokhale, hearing petitions, directed the Centre to deport all foreigners in prison within a month to their countries, mostly Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Iran. It directed the Union Home Ministry to submit a compliance report by February 28.

Ad hoc steps

The Bench pointed out that the government had been taking only ad hoc steps, that too at the instance of the court for deporting those who had completed their sentences and whose nationalities had been established through diplomatic channels.

Violation of Article 21

Justice Lodha said: “This amounted to a gross violation of Article 21 of the Constitution relating to personal freedom. We are constrained to observe that the government has failed to appreciate the urgency and allowed the matter relating to repatriation of a large number of prisoners to linger, ignoring their right to liberty.”

Referring to the Home Ministry's affidavit filed in November last, the Bench said, “It showed that the deportation of some of the foreign nationals was withheld because of the delay in providing special consular access.” Having a dig at bureaucratic delay, Justice Lodha said, “We don't want bureaucrats to sleep over the files.”

The court said that under Clause 4 of the May 21, 2008 Indo-Pak agreement, the two governments should provide nationals of either country consular access within three months of their detention or arrest. But in several cases, consular access was being provided only upon completion of sentence by the convicts. This resulted in delays in the verification of their nationalities and subsequent repatriation.

Sale of spurious foreign liquor on the rise

  Chennai and Mumbai are fast becoming ‘hubs' for spurious foreign liquor, going by the arrest of seven gangs involved in smuggling liquor from these cities into the State capital.

With the help of agents from the two cities, the gangs are smuggling spurious foreign liquor through buses or trains. They stuff sealed bottles in carton boxes used for packing electronic goods or surgical equipment and transport them in the name of parcel services.

After receiving the load, they hide it in safe places and fix the price depending upon the brand, ranging from Rs.1,500 to Rs.15,000, say officials.

“The gang members sell liquor to known customers. The bottles are delivered to customers only after verifying their details,” says Excise Assistant Commissioner (Enforcement) A.V.V. Satyanarayana Murthy.

For the past 18 months, Prohibition and Excise officials have busted seven such rackets, arresting 18 people. Over 935 spurious liquor bottles of 80 brands - from 60 ml to five litre bottles, were seized till now. Three cars, a bus and nine two-wheelers were also confiscated. Officials explain it's difficult to detect whether the bottle is original or duplicate as the lid, label and packaging would be similar to the original one.

In a recent raid, Excise officials nabbed four persons for allegedly selling spurious foreign liquor.

Surya Prakash Jaiswal, Narayan Vadwani, M. Narayana Reddy and Ch. Subash were getting bottles from an agent Ramaswamy at Burma Bazaar in Chennai.

The gang transported 150 liquor bottles through bus and hide them in a house at Mothinagar and sold them for Rs.8,800 each.

The kingpin, Jai Kishan of Ameerpet, is still at large. Some gangs were also smuggling liquor from Mumbai in a similar fashion, officials confirm.

Mr. Murthy cautions people against consuming spurious liquor, as it would cause health complications. They should buy genuine foreign liquor from custom notified shops or licensed outlets, which procure stock from the Andhra Pradesh Beverages Corporation Limited, he adds.

Sensex, Nifty crash to near 2-year lows amid foreign funds exodus

Indian markets crashed Wednesday as the benchmark indices broke major support levels plunging to near two-year lows. The Sensex and Nifty were the worst performers among all Asian indices, falling nearly 3 per cent.

A slowdown in economic growth in the US, which is the world's biggest economy, led to risk aversion across the globe. Weakness in Chinese manufacturing data further raised concerns of another global recession.

At 1304 hours, the Sensex was down nearly 450 points to 15,614 while the broader Nifty index declined 130 points to 4,682. The Nifty has fallen below the 4,700 mark for the first time in over 18 months. The Nifty last traded below 4,700 levels on 8 February, 2010.

Analysts said the selloff was driven by foreign institutional investors (FII), who fear a slowdown in the country's economy and a possible downgrade by major rating agencies soon.

"The underlying retail investors in the western world are pulling out money from the risk assets, whether in the emerging markets or developed markets... FII fund managers have to find cash for which they have to sell," Saurav Mukherjea of Ambit Capital said.

"The currency factor is clearly not helping. It has really hurt investor returns. What is causing the sellout is that they (FIIs) don't see any reason for the rupee to pullback to 45," he added. The rupee has fallen nearly 14 per cent in the last quarter alone. However, the currency was trading higher today, possibly on the back of intervention by the central bank.

Technical analysts anticipate further weakness because key levels have been broken. "4,720 was a strong support and once it was taken off the markets are witnessing a cascading effect. The Nifty can fall 200 points now as supply will overpower demand," Kiran Jadhav of Precision Technicals said.

The volatility has increased ahead of the derivatives expiry on Thursday. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) volatility index was up nearly 14 per cent. "Intraday you might get some scare but you might want to test it further," Independent analyst Sarvendra Srivsatava said.

Banking stocks saw the steepest cuts, falling over 3 per cent. HDFC Bank plunged 5 per cent. ICICI Bank was down 3.5 per cent.

Energy and IT stocks also slumped nearly 3 per cent. Most other sectoral indices were trading with over 2 per cent cut.

Barring Cipla, all other stocks were down on the Sensex. Jaiprakash Associates, Bharti, JSPL, BHEL and Reliance were trading with over 3.5 per cent cuts. RCom was the only stock trading higher on the 50-stock Nifty index. It rose after three officials of Reliance ADAG were granted bail by the Supreme Court earlier today.

The market breadth had collapsed with an overwhelming 90 per cent stocks falling on the broader BSE 500 points.

Among large cap stocks, government owned oil major ONGC, India's largest PSU bank SBI, private sector lender ICICI Bank and Axis Bank made new lows today.