Online US visa racket busted

Mohali, October 7
An Amritsar-based couple, Sukhdev Singh (44) and Gurmeet Kaur (35), have been arrested by the crime branch of the Punjab Police for cheating a woman on the pretext of arranging work permit for her in the USA. To dupe the unsuspecting woman, Harjeet Kaur of Kot Khasla village, Amritsar, the couple created a fake email ID of a non-existing person George Fernandis (claming him to be an American citizen) and sent work permit visa from the same fake email ID. The couple was arrested and a case was registered under Sections 66A, 66D of the Information Technology Act and Section 420, 465, 468, 471 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code. SSP Crime Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh said the online visa racket came to light when the couple duped the woman from Amritsar. They took Rs 20 lakh from her and sent the fake visa of the USA through e-mail georgefernandis.2011@rediffmail.com.
The accused were remanded in police custody after being produced before a Mohali court today. The couple has duped many other innocent people. The SSP said the couple used to collect huge money in the name of George Fernandis. They themselves sent e-mails on behalf of the said George Fernandis to deceive the people.

MODUS OPERANDIn The arrested couple would send US work permit from a fictitious email IDn They would collect huge money in the name of George Fernandis, a non-existent US citizen, for the work permitn One of the accused owns a cyber café in Amritsar from where the racket was being operated

Consumer Matters

LIC told to pay Rs 1.65 lakh 

Chandigarh, October 7
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has slapped a fine of Rs 30,000 on Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) for causing mental agony and harassment to a Sector 52 resident.
In his complaint, Amit Kumar, a resident of Kajehri village in Sector 52, had averred that his wife took a policy for a sum of Rs 1.25 lakh on October 19, 2009, valid for one year from November 3, 2009, and was required to pay Rs 510 per month as premium.
He said on the same evening, his wife fell ill and got treated at the PGI where it came to light that she was four-month pregnancy. On December 21, 2009, the Amit got her wife admitted to the PGI with the complaint of shortness of breath and irregular respiration. It was diagnosed that she was a case of swine flu which ultimately led to her death after three days along with the foetus in the womb. Thereafter, he submitted the claim form along with requisite documents, but the opposite party rejected the claim on the ground of suppression of material facts regarding her health at the time of proposing for the insurance policy.
The counsel for the LIC pleaded that the claim of the complainant had been repudiated as the insured did not act in good faith and suppressed the true and correct facts from the opposite party at the time of taking the policy. The opposite party further pleaded that the life insured became aware about her pregnancy on December 19, 2009, but she deliberately did not disclose it to the opposite party while filling up the proposal form.

Online visa racket busted

Reprieve for PPP chief’s kin; not to be arrested sans notice

Chandigarh, October 7
Another relative of People's Party of Punjab president Manpreet Singh Badal has expressed apprehension of being implicated in a false case by the Punjab Police.
Taking cognisance of petitioner Amardeep Singh Brar’s apprehensions, the vacation Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued directions, which will ensure he is not caught unawares.
Issuing notice of motion on his petition filed through counsel Pankaj Bhardwaj, Justice Jitendra Chauhan directed the issuance of a two-day prior notice in case he is wanted by any branch of the Punjab Police, including the Vigilance Bureau.
Justice Chauhan also directed the State of Punjab and other respondents to ensure the copy of the FIR, in case of its registration, is handed over to the applicant. The directions are significant, as in the event of an FIR being registered against the petitioner, he will be in a better position to defend his liberty after going through the contents of the FIR.
The petitioner, putting up in Sector 11 here, had earlier claimed he was the nephew of estranged SAD leader Manpreet Singh Badal; and was apprehensive of being targeted due to political vendetta. He had added that those considered close to Manpreet were finding themselves at the receiving end.
The petitioner contended he too had participated in Manpreet’s Jago Punjab Yatra. The case will now come up on October 12 for further hearing.

Backbench MP aims to abolish sex trade

Joy Smith has already had one private bill become law. She is aiming to do it again with a bill to make criminals out of those who pay for sex

Joy Smith is that rare, backbench member of Parliament whose private bill was not only debated, but became law.
Rarer still is the fact that Smith, a Conservative from Winnipeg, is on track to do it again.
Because of her efforts and her first bill, Canada has mandatory minimum sentences for human traffickers whose victims are children.
Her new bill, which will be on the order paper for the fall session, proposes to rewrite Canada's prostitution laws. It would make criminals out of people who buy sex, but prostitutes would not be criminalized. "It [the bill] will target the market, plain and simple," she said in a telephone interview from Winnipeg. "We need laws that make people responsible for buying and selling children."
However, Smith quickly noted that the bill is not directed only at those who buy and sell children for sex, but will target all buyers and pimps.
(Currently, prostitution is legal but it is illegal to communicate for the purposes of buying or selling sex, running a brothel or live off the avails of prostitution.)
If it weren't for the fact that a lottery determines which of the hundreds of private members' are debated, one might conclude Smith's bill is the government's stalking horse -a draft of the law it will introduce if the Ontario Court of Appeal agrees that three key sections of the prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
But it's fair to say that the Conservative government got lucky when Smith pulled number four in the lottery because reforming the prostitution laws is difficult, as a parliamentary committee found out in 2005.
Among the few things its members agreed on is that the status quo isn't working.
Since then, the decriminalization/legalization lobby has strengthened, hardening its position that prostitution is both a career choice and a legitimate business.
Among the lobbyists are: Vancouver East MP Libby Davies; the dominatrix and two sex-trade workers who went to court in Ontario; and the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society and Pivot Legal Society, which have a similar case set to be heard in B.C. Supreme Court.
They argue that decriminalization/legalization is a form of harm reduction that won't lead to an expansion of the country's sex industry even though that contradicts the experience of countries and states where more brothels, more prostitution and more human trafficking have resulted following legalization.
"Libby Davies considers it [prostitution] an industry. I consider it a crime," said Smith, noting that Davies also voted against the child trafficking bill even though the majority of New Democrats, including leader Jack Layton, voted for it.
Smith sees her bill as a first step toward abolishing the sex trade and an incentive to work with the provinces to establish a version of the so-called "Nordic model." The Nordic model involves a public education program aimed at making it socially unacceptable to buy any sexual services and provision of a wide range of social services including housing, education, detox and income support to address the reality that poverty and desperation often drives women and children into the sex trade.

Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill. But she's going to be doing the heavy lifting in the House of Commons, not the ministers and not the government.
Smith's and Harper's government will likely to be accused of bowing to pressure from religious groups, groups such as the Canadian Federation of University Women and organizations such as Resist Exploitation Embrace Dignity, which Simon Fraser University criminologist and legalizer John Lowman has derisively called "liberal feminists."
A coalition of seven women's groups argued before the Ontario Court of Appeal argued that criminalization of prostitution is justified on the grounds of civil liberties and human rights.
The coalition - which includes the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres - argued that under international human rights laws, Canada is obliged to assist and protect prostituted persons. Further, it said the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees liberty and security of person to everyone, but what it does not do is "guarantee men a right to the prostitution of women or a right to profit from the prostitution of others."
It went on to say, "The danger to women's security is a function not of the laws constraining prostitution, but of the actions of men who demand the sale of women's bodies ... It would be illogical and contrary to the principles of fundamental justice to decriminalize men's prostitution of women in order to protect women from those same men."
Smith's bill is still being written with the help of both government and private-sector lawyers. But she's adamant that it will stand any constitutional challenge: "We are taking meticulous care," she said.
Still, Smith will need all of that, a broad spectrum of support and maybe even more in order to get this bill enacted into law.

Insite ruling could set stagefor decision on prostitution

With the Supreme Court recently ruling as unconstitutional attempts by the federal government to shut down a supervised drug-injection site, at least one expert says it wouldn't be surprising if a separate case finds prostitution laws are also unconstitutional.

At some point in the near future, the Ontario Court of Appeal is expected to issue a decision on whether to uphold a 2010 decision from Ontario's Superior Court that provisions prohibiting operating or working in a brothel, communicating for the purpose of prostitution and living off the avails of prostitution contravene a person's right to safety and liberty and endanger sex workers by forcing them to ply their trade underground.

The act of prostitution — accepting money for sexual favours — is not in itself illegal.

Errol Mendes, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said there's a particular aspect on last week's decision on the Insite injection site in Vancouver that could conceivably be applied to the prostitution ruling.

He notes that at issue is Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees "the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

While the government has the right to set laws if it finds preserving order is more important than the limiting certain freedoms in some cases, Mendes said the government's decisions "cannot be arbitrary, and it cannot be grossly disproportionate, given the facts on the ground," referring to the Insite decision.

As harm-reduction aspects, such as reducing cases of HIV and preventing overdoses, were found to take priority over the government's concerns such as enabling illegal activity, so too might concerns of prostitutes' safety take precedence over other worries the government has about the sex trade, Mendes said.

Mendes's "hunch" is that the appeal court will uphold the previous ruling on prostitution.

He added, however, that a "suspended declaration of invalidity" is likely, meaning the government would have a period of time — maybe six to 18 months — to determine how it should respond before laws are struck down.