Halwa ceremony an insulting tradition

The pre-budget Halwa ceremony conducted every year at the Union Finance Ministry marks the successful marathon exercise of budget making. The tradition involves cooking of Halwa, a sweet dish in a big Kadai and the dish is enjoyed by the ministry staff including the minister and top officials. It is a British legacy to celebrate the budget making which during the Raj times was nothing but milching the cow that is, the people by way of devising ways and means to garner more revenue for the government.

In other words, the occasion marked the finalisation of budget proposals which apparently during British rule was nothing but taxing the slaves! The foreign rulers obviously had a reason to rejoice and the Halwa ceremony was ritually conducted as a mark of happiness.

But now that we are a sovereign nation the budget proposals include not only direct and indirect taxes but also monetary concessions for the citizens. Therefore, the insult heaped out by way of symbolic Halwa ceremony ought to have been discontinued after Independence. However, it augurs well that the present day central government has been seriously concerned about wiping out the relics of colonial wrongs and glorification of aggressors. In a bid to rectify the historical insults it has changed the names of a few cities and monuments. The changing of names has reached to the Rashtrapati Bhavan's Mogul Garden. Now it's named as Amrit Garden. A few misguided or die hard agenda agents wrongly find faults with such changes, but they forget that in many countries not only the insulting names are changed after the change of a government having nationalistic ideology but even the historical buildings causing insult to the nation are demolished. The list of such countries is long which includes small and big nations from all continents.

The people are now anxiously waiting for the Budget session of the parliament. Their interest in the budget proposals notwithstanding has been more to see whether our elected representatives have improved further their skills as parliamentarians to provide healthy deliberations on issues of public importance.

The democratic nations world over are keenly watching conduct of the Members of the Parliament. Their behaviour in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha sends out a message to the world about level of maturity of our democracy. The people within the country too, assess the moral and ethical values of the MPs, thanks to the live streaming of proceedings.

MADRAS HC ON PRE- INSTITUTION MEDIATION

Holding that just because there are penal provisions for the infringement of Trademarks and Copyrights, nothing prevents the plaintiff to justify non-compliance with Sec 12A which has been held to be mandatory by the Supreme Court.

A single-judge bench of Justice M Sundar, while hearing Aachi Spices and Foods held that when there was a provision for seeking penal remedy for an alleged offence, the parties were not prevented from proceeding for the same. The court held that pre institution mediation was a pre-suit legal drill and cannot be a post suit exercise. These observations came in a case titled, A D Padama Singh Issac and others v/s Karaikudi Aachi M/s and another.

KERALA HC ON CANCELLATION OF BAIL

The Kerala HC single-judge bench of Justice A Badharudeen while dismissing a petition seeking the bail cancellation order passed by the court below to be set aside, reiterated that the law is settled that indulging in similar or other criminal activities after a conditional bail is grated to an accused is a good reason for the cancellation of the bail.

The petitioner in this case was charged with several sections of NDPS Act. Subsequently he was released on statutory bail as the prosecution has failed to file the final report within the stipulated period. The bail order contained a condition that the accused shall not indulge in any criminal activity while on bail. Subsequently, the petitioner was allegedly involved in the possession of 9.1 kg 'dried ganja' along with two other persons in the case titled, Jeby James v/s State of Kerala.

EACH PENDING CASE IS A DEBT ON JUDICIARY: CJ, MP HC

Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court, Ravi Malimath while addressing a gathering on the Republic Day said that the scheme titled '25 debt' to tackle the issue of old cases was a tremendous success.

Under this scheme, directions were given to every judge of the district of the judiciary to dispose of 25 oldest cases in each court on a regular basis. He disclosed that the oldest case disposed of dated back to the year 1969.

TWO NEW JUDGES FOR AP HC

Andhra Pradesh High Court is set to get two new judges, P Venkata Jyothirmai and V Gopalakrishna Rao. With their induction the total strength of judges will increase to 32 against the sanctioned strength of 37. Prior to their appointment as judges of High Court, Jyothirmai was serving as a Principal District Judge of East Godavari District while Gopalakrishna was the Ist Additional District & Sessions Judge of Guntur.