Weekly Current Affairs (1st to 7th March 2023) Part - 1 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Right against Self Incrimination and Constitutional Remedies

Context: The Supreme Court refused to hear a bail plea by the Deputy CM of Delhi in the excise policy case, as he had approached the court directly under Article 32 of the Constitution instead of first seeking remedy in the High Court under Section 482 of the CrPC.

• SC argued that though in previous cases petitions were entertained directly under Article 32, those cases involved free speech issues while this case is about Prevention of Corruption act.

What is the Background?

• Previously, Special CBI Judge had granted Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) custody of Deputy CM on the ground that he ‘failed to provide satisfactory answers.’
  • The court had rejected the argument that it was a violation of right against self-incrimination.

What is an Individual’s Right against Self-incrimination?

Constitutional Provisions:

• Article 20 grants protection against arbitrary and excessive punishment to an accused person, whether citizen or foreigner or legal person like a company or a corporation. It contains three provisions in that direction:
• It contains provisions related to No ex-post-facto law, No double jeopardy, No self-incrimination.
  • No self-incrimination: No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.
  • The protection against self-incrimination extends to both oral evidence and documentary evidence.
  • However, it does not extend to
  • compulsory production of material objects,
  • compulsion to give thumb impression, specimen signature, blood specimens, and
  • compulsory exhibition of the body.
  • Further, it extends only to criminal proceedings and not to civil proceedings or proceedings which are not of criminal nature.

Note

No ex-post-facto law: No person shall be

• convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of the act, nor
• subjected to a penalty greater than that prescribed by the law in force at the time of the commission of the act.
  • However, this limitation is imposed only on criminal laws and not on civil laws or tax laws.
  • Also, this provision cannot be claimed in case of preventive detention or demanding security from a person.
  • No double jeopardy: No person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once.

Judicial Rulings:

• In 2019, the SC in its ruling in Ritesh Sinha versus State of Uttar Pradesh broadened the parameters of handwriting samples to include voice samples, adding that this would not violate the right against self-incrimination.
• Earlier in 2010, in Selvi v State of Karnataka, the SC held that a narcoanalysis test without the consent of the accused would amount to violation of the right against self-incrimination.
• However, obtaining a DNA sample from the accused is permitted. If an accused refuses to give a sample, the court can draw adverse inferences against him under Section 114 of the Evidence Act.

What is Right to approach SC under Article 32?

• Article 32 confers the right to approach SC for remedies for the enforcement of the fundamental rights of an aggrieved citizen. It is a basic feature of the Constitution.
• In this regard the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is original but not exclusive. It is concurrent with the jurisdiction of the high court under Article 226.
• Rights other than Fundamental rights are not entertained under article 32 but are within the scope of HC under Article 226.
• Since the right guaranteed by Article 32 is in itself a fundamental right, the availability of alternate remedy is no bar to relief under Article 32.
  • However, the Supreme Court has ruled that where relief through high court is available under Article 226, the aggrieved party should first move the high court.

Cow Vigilantism and Mob Lynching

Context: Recent incident of killing and burning of two men in Haryana on suspicion of illegal transportation, smuggling or slaughtering of cows by cow vigilantes highlight the issue of Mob Lynching.

What is Mob Lynching?

• Mob lynching refers to targeted violence by a large group of people which includes offenses against the human body or property, whether public or private.
• The mob believes they are punishing the victim for some perceived wrongdoing, even if it's not necessarily illegal and take the law into their own hands disregarding legal rules and procedures.
• Cow Vigilantism: Cow vigilantism or lynching in the name of Cow Protection poses a serious threat to the secular fabric of the nation. Killing of people just on the suspicion of beef depicts the intolerance among the vigilantes.

What are the Causes of Mob Lynching?

• Biases:
  • Mob lynching is a hate crime that is rising due to the biases or prejudices among various castes, classes of people, and religions.
• Rise of Cow Vigilante:
  • In Hindu religion, cows are revered and worshipped. This sometimes leads to Cow vigilantism.
  • It is perpetrated by the majority towards the minority on the presumption that the minorities are in regular consumption of bovine meat.
• Lack of Speedy Justice:
  • Inefficient working of justice rendering authorities is the primary reason why people take law into their own hands and have no fear of the consequences.
• The Inefficiency of Police Administration:
  • Ineffective investigation and lack of trust in the legal process is one reason that promotes people to take matters in their own hands.

What are the Issues related to Mob Lynching?

• Mob lynching is a violation of human dignity, Article 21 of the Constitution, and a gross infringement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Such incidents violate the Right to Equality and Prohibition of discrimination, which are enshrined in Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of India.
• However, it is nowhere mentioned in the law of the land and is hence simply put as murder since it has not been yet incorporated under the Indian Penal Code.

What are the Government Steps on the Issue?

Preventive Measures:

• In July 2017, the Supreme Court in the case of Tahseen s. Poonawala v. UOI had laid down several preventives, remedial and punitive measures to deal with lynching and mob violence.
• The Supreme Court in this case aptly referred to mob lynching as a ‘horrendous act of mobocracy.’

Designated Fast Track Courts:

• States were directed to set up designated fast track courts in every district to exclusively deal with cases involving mob lynchings.

Special Task Force:

• The court had also mooted the setting up of a special task force with the objective of procuring intelligence reports about the people involved in spreading hate speeches, provocative statements and fake news which could lead to mob lynchings.

Victim Compensation Schemes:

• Directions were also issued to set up Victim compensation schemes for relief and rehabilitation of victims.
• A year later in July 2019 the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and several states asking them to submit the steps taken by them towards implementing the measures and file compliance reports.
• As of now only three states Manipur, West Bengal and Rajasthan have enacted laws against mob lynching.
  • The Jharkhand Assembly has passed Prevention of Mob Violence and Mob Lynching Bill, 2021 which has been returned by governor recently for reconsideration of a few provisions.

Way Forward

• Lynchings have no place in a democratic society like India. As a country that prides itself on being democratic, it is crucial that mob violence is eradicated.
• In a disturbing trend, police inaction in cases of mob violence is often reciprocated by public sanction of extrajudicial punishments by the police. Thus, it is important to gain public trust on legal proceedings.
• All the states and centre should look forward to bringing comprehensive legislation on the matter as brought by states like Manipur, West Bengal and Rajasthan.
• Measures need to be taken to curb the spread of fake news and hate speech.

The Case for Open, Verifiable Forest Cover Data

Context: India ranked third globally in average net forest gain during 2010-2020, but questions are being raised on reliability of its forest data by independent experts, and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), for mixing plantations with natural forests.

• India's forest cover has increased from 19.53% in the 1980s to 21.71% in 2021, and its total green cover, including tree cover, now stands at 24.62%.

How is Green Cover Calculated?

About:

• Forest Survey of India (FSI) in its biennial India State of Forest Report (ISFR) presents the latest status of the ‘Forest cover’ and ‘Tree cover' of the country.
  • FSI is an organisation under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
• India counts all plots of 1 hectare or above, with at least 10% tree canopy density irrespective of land use or ownership, within forest cover.
  • This disregards the United Nation’s benchmark that does not include areas predominantly under agricultural and urban land use in forests.

Classification:

• Very Dense Forest: Land with 70% or more canopy density.
• Dense Forests: All land areas with tree canopy density of 40% and above
• Open Forests: All land areas with tree canopy density between 10-40%
• Tree Cover: Isolated or small patches of trees less than 1 hectare and not counted as forest are counted as tree cover by putting together the crowns of individual patches and trees.

Global Standard:

• The global standard for “forest” is provided by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations: at least 1 hectare of land with a minimum of 10% per cent tree canopy cover.
• It does not include areas “predominantly under agriculture or urban land use” in a forest.

What is the Status of India’s Forests?

National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) vs FSI:

• The NRSA used satellite imagery to estimate India's forest cover in 1971-1975 and 1980-1982 and found a loss of 2.79% in just seven years, from 16.89% to 14.10%.
• Government records show that 42,380 sq km of forest land was diverted for non-forest use between 1951 and 1980, although reliable data on encroachment is unavailable.
• The government was initially reluctant to accept the NRSA's findings, but after negotiations, the NRSA and the newly established FSI "reconciled" India's forest cover at 19.53% in 1987.

Old Forests Lost:

• Recorded Forest Areas, divided into Reserved, Protected and Unclassed forests, accounted for 23.58% of India.
  • These are areas recorded as forest in revenue records or proclaimed as forest under a forest law.
• In 2011, FSI reported that nearly one-third (over 2.44 lakh sq km ,larger than Uttar Pradesh or 7.43% of India ) of Recorded Forest Areas had no forest at all and were lost due to encroachment, diversion, forest fire etc.

Natural Forests Shrink:

• Dense forests within Recorded Forest Areas reduced from 10.88% in 1987 to 9.96% in 2021, a one-tenth slide.
• According to Global Forest Watch, India lost 1,270 sq km of natural forest between 2010 and 2021.
  • However, the FSI reported a gain of 2,462 sq km in dense forest and 21,762 sq km in overall forest cover for the same period.

What are the Issues With current Forest cover Data?

Inclusion of Plantations in Forest Data:

• Loss of natural forests remains invisible due to inclusion of plantations, orchards, urban housings as dense forests.
  • The SFR 2021, for example, reports 12.37% dense forest by including random green patches.
• Plantation forests have trees of the same age, are more susceptible to fire, pests and epidemics, and often act as a barrier to natural forest regeneration.
• Natural forests are old and therefore stock a lot more carbon in their body and in the soil and support more biodiversity.
• Plantations can grow a lot more and faster than old natural forests which means plantations can achieve additional carbon targets faster.
• But compared to natural forests, plantations are often harvested more readily, defeating carbon goals in the long term.

Lack of Open and Participatory Data:

• FSI never made its data freely available for public scrutiny. Inexplicably, it also bars the media from accessing its geo-referenced maps.
• In 2021, it claimed to have established an overall accuracy of 95.79% in identifying forests from non-forests. However, given the limited resources, the exercise was limited to less than 6,000 sample points.

Diversion of Forest land:

• Since the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980, at least 10,000 sq km of forests have been lost to diversion for development projects.
• Recent, Forest (Conservation) rules,2022 seek to limit the scope of application of the Act, exempt certain activities from requiring permission for clearing forests and allow raising and harvesting private plantations on forest land etc.
• On paper, the carbon stock keeps growing – annually by 145.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since 2019 – even as the country diverted over 700 sq km of forest land during 2017-2021.
  • FSI projected that India will comfortably surpass its carbon commitment to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030 without implementing additional measures per se for increasing forest carbon sink.

Inclusion of Residential and Urban Areas:

• According to a few independent Investigations, the bungalows of ministers and senior officers, even the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building on Sansad Marg, Parts of the campuses of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and residential neighborhoods across Delhi are “forest” in the official forest cover map.

Way Forward

• Data transparency: It is important that maps are made available in public domain for scrutiny. We can take a clue from Brazil, which makes their forest data available on open web.
• Comprehensive Assessment: As the forest survey report is published biennially, it may be carried hurriedly. Thus, this report should be complemented with a comprehensive assessment every 5 years.

Social Stock Exchange

Context: National Stock Exchange of India received final approval from SEBI to set up the Social Stock Exchange (SSE).

What is a Social Stock Exchange?

About:

• The SSE would function as a separate segment within the existing stock exchange and help social enterprises raise funds from the public through its mechanism.
• It would serve as a medium for enterprises to seek finance for their social initiatives, acquire visibility and provide increased transparency about fund mobilisation and utilisation.
• Retail investors can only invest in securities offered by for-profit social enterprises (SEs) under the Main Board.
• In all other cases, only institutional investors and non-institutional investors can invest in securities issued by SEs.

Eligibility:

• Any non-profit organisation (NPO) or for-profit social enterprise (FPSEs) that establishes the primacy of social intent would be recognised as a SE, which will make it eligible to be registered or listed on the SSE.
• 17 plausible criteria under SEBI’s ICDR Regulations, 2018 include serving to eradicate hunger, poverty, malnutrition, promoting education, employability, equality, and environmental sustainability among others

Ineligibility:

• Corporate foundations, political or religious organisations, professional or trade associations, infrastructure and housing companies (except affordable housing) would not be identified as SE
• NPOs would be deemed ineligible if dependent on corporates for more than 50% of its funding.

NPO Money Raising:

• NPOs can raise money either through issuance of Zero Coupon Zero Principal (ZCZP) Instruments from private placement or public issue, or donations from mutual funds.
• ZCZP bonds differ from conventional bonds in the sense that it entails zero coupon and no principal payment at maturity.
• For ZCZP issuance, the minimum issue size is presently prescribed as Rs 1 crore and minimum application size for subscription at Rs 2 lakhs.
• Also, Development Impact Bonds are available upon completion of a project and delivered on pre-agreed social metrics at pre-agreed costs/rates.

FPSE Money Raising:

• FPEs need not register with SSE before raising funds through SSE.
• It can raise money through issue of equity shares or issuing equity shares to an Alternative Investment Fund including Social Impact Fund or issue of debt instruments.