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.

PGI admission scam

Bangalore-based doc held

Chandigarh, October 6
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today arrested a Bangalore-based doctor in connection with doctors’ admission scam that rocked the PGI last year. The CBI arrested Dr Rajnikant, who is a doctor in Bangalore Medical College, for impersonating in the exam in place of Dr Amit Musle. The accused was arrested last night.
Amit Musle, along with another student, had procured admission to the PGIMER on the basis of impersonation and manipulation.
The accused doctor was produced in court and sent to judicial custody. A case under Sections 120B, 419, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against the accused.
The scam came to light in September last year when the CBI had arrested Dr Amit Musale, a resident of Nagpur, and Dr Sujay Sonawane, a resident of Maharashtra, for procuring admission in the PGI on the basis of impersonation. The two had cleared the exam with the help of mastermind Mumbai-based agent Gaurav Shaleen, who had arranged imperosnators for them. Gaurav Shaleen has been arrested by the CBI.
Dr Amit was pursuing post graduation in pharmacology, while Dr Sujay had secured admission in paediatrics when the CBI arested them. The investigating agency managed to arrest the impersonator doctor today following disclosures by the prime accused Gaurav Shaleen.

PPSC Recruitment Scam

Judges divided over referring matter to a larger Bench

Chandigarh, October 6
The controversy shrouding the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) recruitment scam refuses to die down.
Eight years after the dismissal of more than 90 petitions filed by PCS officers whose services were terminated, a three-Judge Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court is divided over the issue of referring the matter to a larger Bench of five Judges.
On the one side is Justice Mutacci Jayapaul and on the other Justice Alok Singh and Justice Ritu Bahri.
Apparently, Justice Jayapaul is not in favour of remanding the case to a larger Bench after the matter has been heard at length. Available information suggests Justice Jayapaul has written a dissenting note of two pages, giving in detail the reasons behind his refusal to agree with the other two Judges.
The matter will now be heard by a larger Bench of the High Court, as in cases of dissent the majority view prevails.
The officers were recruited in the executive, judicial and allied services when Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu was PPSC Chairman. Challenging the orders passed against them, the petitioners had then claimed that they were not related to the alleged scam.
The Bench, comprising the then Chief Justice BK Roy, Justice GS Singhvi and Justice NK Sodhi had on July 7, 2003, ruled that the state government had inherent powers to nullify the action in case of tainted selection. But the apex court, vide its judgment dated May 3, 2006, remanded the matter to the High Court, with a direction to constitute a committee to segregate tainted candidates from the non-tainted.
Pursuant to the SC directions, a three-judge committee of Justice JS Khehar, Justice Viney Mittal and Justice Surya Kant was constituted for looking into the executive branch selections. Taking up the case, the three-judge Bench headed by Justice Alok Singh asserted: “The committee of three judges, vide report dated February 8, 2007, found 40 candidates tainted on the basis of material available before the committee.
“After the report of the three-Judge committee, a supplementary challan was filed in the criminal case against Rubinderjit Singh Brar, Bikramjit Singh Shergill and Sukhpreet Singh Sidhu, although they were not found tainted by the committee.
“It shows that there are more tainted candidates over and above the 40 candidates as found by the committee”.
Speaking for the Bench, Justice Alok Singh asserted: “In my opinion, since the earlier judgment passed by the Bench of three Judges of this court was doubted by the apex court, and the matter was remanded and thereafter the committee consisting of three judges has given a report, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, the matter should be heard by a larger Bench”. The view has been endorsed by Justice Bahri.

Wikipedia blocks access to protest Italian media law

ROME - Online encylopedia Wikipedia has blocked access to its Italian version to protest a draft law to make websites amend content on even a single complaint of prejudice without independent verification.

"The obligation ...without the possibility of any verification whatsoever constitutes for Wikipedia an unacceptable limitation on its freedom," a statement on its Italian site said on Wednesday.

Scandal-tainted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government has approved the law requiring websites to amend content within 48 hours and without any commentary or explanation in case of complaints of prejudice or bias.

"Sadly, there is no third party to judge whether a content is damaging and it is solely based an opinion," Wikipedia said.

The aim of this law was to prevent details of phone taps ordered by legal authorities from appearing in the press. Offending journalists risk one month in jail or a 10,000-euro ($14,000) fine while publishers face paying up to 300,000 euros.

Those passing on court secrets to journalists can be imprisoned up to six years, under the legislation, which also limits the use of wiretaps to cases where the minimum sentence is five years in jail.

Berlusconi is embroiled in several court cases, accused notably of having bought sex from Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, nicknamed "Ruby the Heart Stealer", when she was 17 - a crime punishable by three years in jail.

He also faces separate trials for fraud and bribery.