DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2024, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES `6.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 CM TO REMAIN IN JAIL AS DELHI COURT EXTENDS HIS CUSTODY IN CBI CASE SC grants interim bail to CM Kejriwal, refers questions on PMLA arrests to larger Bench NEW DELHI, JULY 12 THE SUPREME Court on Friday grantedinterimbailtoDelhiChief MinisterArvindKejriwalinthealleged money laundering case linkedtothenowscrappedexcise policy, while referring questions relatedtothe“needandnecessity to arrest” in cases under the PreventionofMoneyLaundering Act, 2002, to a larger Bench. Kejriwal, however, will remain in jail, as a Delhi court on Friday extended his judicial cus- tody till July 25 in a related matter being probed by the CBI. While granting him interim relief intheEDcase,theSupreme Court Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said it was up to Kejriwal to decide if he should continue as Chief Minister.Itnotedthat“righttolife and liberty is sacrosanct”, and Kejriwal has “suffered incarceration of over 90 days”. In bail conditions similar to its May 10 order, when the SC grantedhiminterimbailtocampaign in the Lok Sabha elections, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Burger King killing: Shooters among 3 gunned down in encounter, say cops Himanshu Bhau; (left) the site of the encounter ARNABJIT SUR NEW DELHI, JULY 12 THREE MEN, including two who wereallegedlybehindtheshooting at a Burger King outlet in the Capitallastmonth,weregunned down in a joint operation by the Haryana Police Special Task Force and the Delhi Police Crime Branch in Kharkhoda, in Haryana's Sonipat district, on Friday, police officers said. Police said a sub-inspector was also injured in the incident. Police said all three men — identified as Ashish alias Lalu (24), Sunny Kharar (23) and Vicky Ridhana (23) — were membersof theHimanshuBhau gang, and were wanted by the Delhi and Haryana police with rewards of Rs 1 lakh each. According to a police officer, GOVT & POLITICS Ashish and Vicky were involved intheshootoutattheBurgerKing outlet in Delhi’s Rajouri Garden area on June 18, in which Aman Joon, 26, from Chhochhi village in Haryana’s Jhajjar, was killed. In an Instagram post uploaded a few hours after Joon's killing, Himanshu Bhau, a 21year-old gangster operating from Portugal, had claimed responsibility, saying the murder was revenge for the victim’s “role” in the killing of one of his associates. Bhau is on the mostwanted gangster list; his syndicate allegedly operates in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. Friday’sencountertookplace six days after Bhau, in a post on socialmedia,allegedthatthepolice had not revealed the arrest of three of his associates. He had later deleted the post. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, JULY 12 PAGE 1 ANCHOR Hailing the SC order as “historic”, AAP said it was a matter of time before Arvind Kejriwal “returns to the service of the people”. Accusing the BJP of conspiring against other parties, it said “truth can be troubled but not defeated”. BJP Countering the AAP, the BJP said “being granted bail is not acquittal”. “Kejriwal is an accused in the excise policy scam... Until investigation is complete, there is no scope to discuss his innocence...,” said Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva. SC: BAIL SHOULD BE STAYED ONLY IN RARE AND EXCEPTIONAL CASES PAGE 13 APURVA VISHWANATH NEW DELHI, JULY 12 TWO KEY ministries, Information Technology and Home Affairs, are making a strong pitch for the ownership of Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In), the country’s nodal cybersecurity watchdog. At present, Cert-In comes under the administrative control of the IT Ministry. made arbitrarily and on the whimsandfanciesof theauthorities. It is to be made on the basis of the valid 'reasons to believe', meeting the parameters prescribed by the law,” the SC said. After the 2022 landmark ruling in the Vijay ● Madanlal Chaudhary vs Unionof Indiacase,wheretheSC upheld almost all of the ED's powers, this is the first major instance where the court has E IN GRANTING interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the excise policy case, the Supreme Court on Friday raised the bar for arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. “Arrest, after all, cannot be MAHARASHTRA: CONG, SENA (UBT) WIN ONE SEAT EACH CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Assaulted by Governor son: Odisha Raj Bhavan staffer DELHI TREE FELLING CASE What happened during L-G visit... there is cover-up, says top court We should have been told that L-G visited and said expedite work: SC ANANTHAKRISHNAN G NEW DELHI, JULY 12 Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and other ruling alliance leaders celebrate their victory, in Mumbai on Friday. Ganesh Shirsekar Amid MVA cross-voting, ruling alliance gets 9 of 11 MLC seats ALOK DESHPANDE MUMBAI, JULY 12 IN THE last battle ahead of the Assemblypollslaterthisyear,the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra on Friday not only managed to keep its flock together but also comfortably secured at least 5 additional votes from the Opposition MVA, thereby winning all the 9 seats it contested in the biennial elections to 11 seats for the state Legislative Council. The Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) won one seat each. While the results dealt a BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY blowtotheMVA,whichwasriding high after its performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls in which it won 31 of the 48 seats in the state, they also put to rest for now rumours of possible cracks in the ruling alliance. There had been speculation that certain MLAs of Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena were in touch with Opposition parties for crossing overaheadof theAssemblyelections slated for OctoberNovember this year. HopingtoattractsomeMLAs from the ruling alliance, the Opposition had fielded three candidates. However, according topreliminaryestimates,atleast CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Both Home and IT ministries pitch for control of nodal cyber security watchdog Cert-In SOUMYARENDRA BARIK SHAH: ‘SAMVIDHAAN HATYA DIWAS’ ON JUNE 25 TO MARK EMERGENCY MURDER BID CASE AGAINST JAGAN MOHAN REDDY PAGE 13 AAP Court draws line on ED power to arrest: Must be ‘rigid, restrictive’ Accordingtosources,thetwo ministries have been engaged in discussions for at least a year now after MHA first elaborated on how bringing Cert-in under its ambit would help law enforcement. Cert-In’s technical expertise, the MHA believes will streamline its investigative abilities in cyberspace, particularly because it has enforcement powers. The IT Ministry, however, believes the CERT-In’s job, which includes incident reporting and alsoalertingorganisationsabout malware,isquitetechnicalinnature, and that its remit goes far beyond law enforcement purposes. The back and forth exemplifies the evolving complexity of the online world, especially whenharmsareinvolved,where multiple stakeholders have to work together and often with different approaches and mandates. “Cert-In’smainjobistoshare inputs with the government on how the security infrastructure can be better, which is a very technical function. They have very limited powers in terms of actually carrying out investigations. For instance, unlike law enforcement agencies, Cert-In does not have any search and seizure powers, which limits its abilities to conduct full-blown investigations on its own,” a CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Sayoj, wife of Raj Bhavan official Baikuntha Pradhan, shows his complaint Friday SUJIT BISOYI BHUBANESWAR, JULY 12 AN OFFICIAL posted in Odisha’s Raj Bhavan has accused Governor Raghubar Das’s son of assault for not sending luxury cars to pick him up from the Puri railway station. The official, Baikuntha Pradhan (47), is posted as the Assistant Section Officer, Household Section, Governor’s Secretariat, Raj Bhavan. He has alleged that Das’s son Lalit Kumar and five others slapped, punched, and kicked him on the night of July 7 on the Raj Bhavan premises in Puri, where he was posted to supervise the preparation for President Droupadi Murmu’s visit. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BIG PICTURE PAGE 15 THE REPUBLIC OF ACs Intense heatwaves followed by extreme humidity are driving AC sales across the country THE SUPREME COURT Friday reiteratedtherewasa“cover-up”of what happened during the visit of Delhi Lieutenant-Governor V K Saxena to the CAPFIMS (Central Armed Police Forces Institute of Medical Sciences) construction site in South West Delhi on February 3, 2024. “Thefirstday,weshouldhave been told — yes, LieutenantGovernor came and said, expedite the work. Cover-up went on for three days, four days… Why was it not brought to our notice immediately? You should have accepted it — yes, L-G visited, he wasworriedtheprojectwasgetting delayed and the road has to be constructed for the benefit of some colony also, and he said do The Indian Express report on Friday it immediately,” said Justice A S Oka presiding over a two-judge bench including Justice Augustine George Masih. The bench sought to know if anyof theofficialspresentonthe day of the L-G’s visit had informed him that the court’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Inflation jumps to over 5% in June, factory output at seven-month high AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, JULY 12 THE RETAIL inflation rate rose to a four-month high of 5.08 per cent in June as food inflation jumped to over 9 per cent, the highest level in six months, data released by National Statistical Office (NSO) on Friday showed. Datareleasedseparatelyshowed the country's factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), rose to a seven-month high of 5.9 per cent in May with a pickup in manufacturing along with higher electricity output reflecting the surge in power demand amid heatwave conditions. Friday's data release is the last official print before the presentation of the Union Budget on July 23 and the next Monetary E EXPLAINED ANANTHAKRISHNAN G AAP HAILS ORDER, BJP SAYS NOT ACQUITTAL EXPLAINED Right to life and liberty sacrosanct... we leave it to Kejriwal to take call on continuing as CM: 2-Judge Bench Why high inflation ● hurts THE HEADLINE or total CPI-based inflation in June is above 4 per cent for the 57th month in a row. The high 5 per cent rate in June is because of a vegetable price spike, but there is a risk that high food inflation becomes more generalised, and this can put a spoke in the recovery of consumption demand. Policy Committee (MPC) meeting to be held in August. The rise in inflation rate in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘13 of 15 non-Russians in military unit dead’: Indians seek return RAVIK BHATTACHARYA & KAMALDEEP SINGH BRAR KOLKATA, AMRITSAR, JULY 12 TWO INDIAN men fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine have appealed to Indian authorities to help them get back home as they described the “horrific” situation on the frontlines, with one of them saying 13 of 15 nonRussians in his unit had been killed. The meeting earlier this week between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, during which the re- turn of Indians fighting in the war was discussed, had raised the men’s hopes of getting back home. However, Gagandeep Singh from Gurdaspur in Punjab said that while he had been away from the fighting with a knee injuryduringthetimeof theModiPutin meeting, his hopes of returning home were dented whenhewaslatertoldtogoback to the frontlines. “Mycommanderhastoldme that he didn’t receive any order to release us. Now, the whole unit is going to the frontline, and I have also been told to join the unit,” he told The Indian Express. Urgen Tamang in his video message; (left) file photo of troops fighting for Russia Urgen Tamang (47), from Kalimpong in West Bengal, is already on the frontlines and has said in a video message that he and a Sri Lankan man are the only two non-Russians alive in his contingent that originally had 15 such people. While he expressed hope that the Modi-Putin meeting would lead to his and other Indians’ return, he told Kalimpong Municipality official Rabi Pradhan, who has been been reaching out to Indian authorities on his behalf, that he was apprehensive about whether the Russian governmentwouldallowthemtoleave. Neither man joined the Russianmilitaryof theirownvolition. Gagandeep said he had gone to Russia on a tourist visa on the advice of someone who said an increased travel history would help him get work in England.InRussia,hesaidheand some of his friends took a taxi to Belarus, where they had an argumentwiththetaxidriverwho ultimatelyleftthemstrandedon aroadandleft.Hesaidtheywere picked up from there by police, whotoldthemtheydidnothave the requisite visas to be in Belarus, and eventually handed them over to the Russian military. The story of Urgen is a bit different. The Indian Express had earlier reported that he was duped by agents who promised himthejobof asecurityguardin Russia, but took him instead to the frontlines of the battle with Ukraine. Desperate to bring him back, his family approached Rabi Pradhan, the chairperson of the board of administrators of Kalimpong Municipality for help. Subsequently, Pradhan reached out to the Ministry of External Affairs and got a reply that the matter had been taken up with the Indian Embassy CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad