Number of Voters in Maharashtra More Than State’s Population says Rahul Gandhi; Modi Govt.’s Tepid Statements About US Treatment of Indians; When Supreme Court Upheld Provisions of PMLA
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Over to Sidharth Bhatia for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
February 7, 2025
Sidharth Bhatia
More than 48 hours after the Trump administration sent back deported Indian citizens aboard a US military flight, the Narendra Modi government continues to issue tepid statements about the maltreatment of Indian deportees, with foreign secretary Vikram Misri insisting that New Delhi has constantly emphasised to US officials the need for fair treatment to Indian deportees at a press briefing today. He added that the Indian government has always raised and will continue to raise with US officials any instances of the maltreatment of Indian deportees that it is made aware of.
Misri went on to say that the “real cancer” in this context are the “gangs” that charge innocent people large sums of money and lure them into going abroad and put them in a position where they must return to India as deportees. Action is needed against such elements, he said. Whether “gangs” are misleading Indians into attempting to enter the US without documentation or whether the latter have their own motivations is a topic for another time.
But for all the diplomatic posturing, the reality is clear: Indian citizens are being forcibly sent back under humiliating and “inhumane” conditions, while the Indian government scrambles to save face. And in this regard, Misri’ statement that New Delhi will “continue to raise” concerns with Washington is little more than bureaucratic lip service.
But here is Sanitary Panels’ take:
(Credit: X/@sanitarypanels.)
But also…
(Credit: @PenPencilDraw)
As opposed to the roughly $1,000 that a two-way trip from San Francisco to Delhi aboard an American airline would cost, AFP estimates that Washington’s deportation of the Indian citizens aboard a C-17A Globemaster military flight probably cost more than $1 million accounting for the aircraft’s return journey – or about $10,000 for each of the 104 deportees. The news agency writes that military flights are more expensive to operate than charter ones and must take different paths due to the “sensitivity” of flying in other countries’ airspace. The Globemaster that arrived in Amritsar earlier this week started its journey in San Diego, flew to Hawaii, and onward to Southeast Asia and Diego Garcia before heading to India, as per data from FlightRadar24.
Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging that there are more voters in Maharashtra than the state’s total population. In reply, the poll panel said it will respond with full facts in writing to the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha’s claim. Gandhi, along with Congress’ Maharashtra allies - Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) - claimed that a total of 39 lakh voters were added between Lok Sabha and state assembly elections to boost the BJP's tally. Citing government data, Gandhi said the adult population of Maharashtra is 9.54 crore while there are 9.7 crore voters in the state. “Who are these additional voters? Where were they and where have they come from? According to government data, Maharashtra’s adult population is 9.54 crores. According to the ECI, there are 9.7 crores voters in Maharashtra. This means the EC is saying that there are more voters than the adult population in Maharashtra. How can this happen?” Gandhi asked. Referring to the Kamthi constituency in Maharashtra, Gandhi said that while the Congress got approximately the same number of votes in the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly elections, 35,000 new voters were added, all of whom voted for the BJP.
Meanwhile, adding to the legacy of Vishwaguru, India’s central bank has cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in almost five years in an effort to shore up economic growth and reverse a broad downturn in the country. The decision to cut the headline repo rate by 0.25% points to 6.25% was unanimous and widely anticipated by a consensus of economists. “We felt the time has come that we can be more supportive of growth, because inflation is coming down,” said Reserve Bank of India governor Sanjay Malhotra, a former revenue secretary who took office in December. He said inflation was expected to continue easing from the 5.2% headline rate in December. However, he noted that “divergent trajectories of monetary policy across advanced economies, lingering geopolitical tensions and elevated trade and policy uncertainties have exacerbated financial market volatility”.
The Indian rupee’s slump is squeezing small retailers in sectors such as electronics and consumer goods already reeling from the effects of inflation and slowing demand. Nikkei Asia has a solid report. Read here.
India on Thursday condemned the demolition of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s residence in Dhaka, calling it an act of vandalism that must be “strongly condemned”. “It is regrettable that the historic residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, a symbol of the heroic resistance of the people of Bangladesh against the forces of occupation and oppression, was destroyed on February 5, 2025,” the Ministry of External Affairs said. “All those who value the freedom struggle that nurtured Bangla identity and pride are aware of the importance of this residence for the national consciousness of Bangladesh.” This came hours after Dhaka summoned India’s acting high commissioner and lodged a strong protest against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s remarks from India, calling them “false, fabricated, and instigating instability” in Bangladesh.
The stars of the Mahakumbh Mela are not Narendra Modi or Yogi Adityanath, but the many actresses, models and influencers who are attracting crowds. Diza Sharma, an air-hostess, Mamta Kulkarni, a one-time Bollywood actress who had once got was accused of links with the underworld and Monalisa Bhosle, who attracted media-attention as the “brown-eyed girl selling beads” are all the focus of a lot of attention. Bhosle has even been signed up for a movie. They are all over the media and television channels.
The Chinese research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 01 was seen entering the Indian Ocean recently, an open-source intelligence enthusiast posted on X. A map they attached with the post suggested that the ship had travelled to just south of the Nicobar Islands from off of Thailand’s coast. The last time the same vessel was reported to have been off India’s east coast, in March last year, there were concerns in New Delhi over “possible military intelligence-gathering in its backyard”, Krishn Kaushik had reported.
The Supreme Court on Thursday set about defining the constitutional contours of a governor’s authority regarding assent to bills, framing eight key questions while expressing strong disapproval of Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi’s prolonged delay in acting upon bills passed by the state legislature. A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan observed that the Tamil Nadu governor seems to have devised his “own procedure” in withholding assent to bills referred by the state government, and sought the reasons behind Ravi keeping the bills pending for three years and then referring it to the President. “It also does not make sense to keep withholding assent and not send to the legislature, thereby frustrating the last proviso of Article 200 (which deals with the Governor’s assent to state bills)…He seems to have adopted his own procedure. He rendered the second part of the proviso redundant by his actions,” the bench told attorney general R Venkataramani, who appeared for Ravi’s office.
After officials of the Discovery Channel’s India division alleged that they received threats from followers of Asaram Bapu following the release of their documentary Cult of Fear: Asaram Bapu, the Supreme Court has granted them and the channel’s offices police protection. PTI reports that petitioners in the case alleged that a mob also tried to break into Discovery’s Mumbai office last month.
The trucker who was killed in army firing in Kashmir yesterday – the army said he did not stop at a checkpoint and after being subsequently pursued – was buried yesterday. Witnesses who were present at his family home said that mourners were unhappy about a delay in his body being handed over to his kin.
Deepika Padukone, Mary Kom and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev will be among those who will feature in the Pariksha Pe Charcha series starting next week. They will address students on the topics of mental health, sports and discipline, and mindfulness respectively, reports PTI.
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav released five more cheetahs – two adults Dheera and Asha, and three cubs – into the Kuno national park on Wednesday. A day earlier two cubs were born in the park. These developments bring the cheetah count at the park to 26.
The UPSC’s website for civil service exam applicants to register themselves is glitchy, aspirants have said. A page where they are to upload their pictures and signatures has glitches, OTPs are sometimes delayed and there are spelling mistakes in some places, Vijaita Singh and Maitri Porecha cite applicants as saying. The UPSC has made changes to its application process after it came to light that IAS probationer Puja Khedkar had lied about her identity and disabilities when taking the test.
In April, tax authorities accused Kia of avoiding import duties worth $155 million by misclassifying component imports for its luxury SUV model Carnival. Kia – which stands to lose up to $310 million if it loses the case – has denied wrongdoing, report Nikunj Ohri, Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah.
In a surprising departure from the lavish spectacle that typically defines Indian billionaire weddings, Jeet Adani, the younger son of controversial tycoon Gautam Adani, is set to tie the knot with Diva Shah in what is being described as a “small and intimate” ceremony on Friday. Unlike the over-the-top extravaganzas hosted by the Ambanis – India’s other wealthiest family – the Adanis are opting for a muted affair, with a guest list capped at around 400. The wedding invitation, as reported by Bloomberg, states that the low-key event aims to “set a trend of redirecting wasteful expenditure toward more meaningful contributions to society.” The decision to keep things low-profile raises eyebrows, especially in light of the ongoing scrutiny faced by Gautam Adani following the US Department of Justice’s (DoJ) indictment related to alleged financial irregularities. It does appear that the “intimate” wedding is more about damage control than personal preference.
Thali prices increase
As compared to a year prior, the average price of a vegetarian thali increased 2% from Rs 28 per plate to Rs 28.7 in January, while the price of a non-vegetarian thali went up 17% from Rs 52 to Rs 60.2. The rise in the price of a non-veg thali was driven by broiler chicken becoming 33% more expensive year-on-year, whose price at the same time in 2024 was low due to oversupply, Falaknaaz Syed cites the CRISIL ratings agency as reporting. Higher feed costs due to rising maize prices will likely keep non-veg thalis more expensive, CRISIL’s research director said. As for the veg thali, a dip in fuel costs has helped soften the impact from increased potato, pulses and vegetable oil prices.
Research scholars from SC, OBC communities face delays in fellowship grants
Hundreds of scholars from Scheduled Castes (SC) communities have reported delays in receiving grants under the National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste Students (NFSC), with pending payments ranging from two to five months, reports The Hindu. This comes on the heels after the Union government told the parliament that funds for scholars from Other Backward Caste (OBC) communities have not been not been disbursed since June last year. An NFSC scholar from Punjabi University, who wished to remain anonymous, said that her fellowship money for December and January is still pending. She added that a group of 130 scholars is facing similar delays, with payments overdue by one to three months. According to the Union government, Rs 54.5 crore of the allocated Rs 55 crore has already been spent.
Permanent government jobs in higher education are now contractual jobs
There has been a trend wherein permanent government jobs at higher education institutions are being replaced by shorter-term, contractual jobs; this is “driven by the government’s retreat from public education and the increasing influence of neoliberal policies”, the parliamentary standing committee on education, women, children, youth and sports led by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh said earlier this week. On the grounds that contractual staff do not have job security and face difficulty in conducting research, the committee recommended the regularisation of these jobs. It also said that the draft Higher Education Commission of India Bill would “fuel privatisation” especially in rural areas. Sravasti Dasgupta reports.
The Long Cable
When Supreme Court Upheld Provisions of PMLA
Gautam Bhatia
In 2022, the Supreme Court heard a comprehensive challenge to the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The PMLA is one of the ‘special statutes’.
The Indian Constitution and its investigating agency—the ED—has been particularly active in recent years. The record speaks for itself: while the case was being heard, a detailed investigative report revealed a sharp rise in the use of the ED, including the targeting of opposition politicians.
The Supreme Court upheld the provisions of the PMLA, including the powers of arrest, search, and seizure, and the ‘twin test’ for bail. While the judgment was decried for the effective carte blanche that it gave to a centrally controlled investigative agency in exercising its coercive powers, the Supreme Court’s reasoning marks the culmination of the legal doctrines that we’ve discussed above, rather than a break with the past. In essence, the Court subordinated the reality of the coercive power enjoyed by the ED over the individual to the formal terminology used by the law (au courant with its doctrinal history under Article 20(3)), and to the continuing existence of an ordinarily extraordinary state of affairs in order to justify that power (consistent with its doctrinal history under Articles 21 and 22).
Thus, the ED’s powers of arrest—including the power not to reveal the grounds of arrest to the individual—were upheld on the basis that the PMLA was not really a penal statute, and that the ED was not really akin to the police (despite having all the powers of the police, and wielding them with much greater enthusiasm). The same reasoning was then used by the Court to exclude the applicability of the right against self-incrimination as well as the bar on confessions to police officers under the Evidence Act to the PMLA and the ED: the ED’s officials were not really police officers, and the persons they were questioning in custody were not technically ‘accused of an offence’. The ‘twin test’ for bail was not itself challenged on substantive grounds, but rather on grounds of procedural arbitrariness, and was likewise upheld.
Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, therefore, was only the latest milestone along a road that the Supreme Court had been walking for a long time, marked by inflection points such as Romesh Chandra Mehta,
Kartar Singh, and other such judgments. Vijay Madanlal Choudhary saw a convergence of these paths upon one overarching doctrine of subordinating the constitutional guarantees of individual freedom to the logic of State power. As Sekhri summed up the state of play in the immediate aftermath of the judgment:
... Vijay Madanlal Choudhary is a conservative decision, inasmuch as the Supreme Court has simply remained faithful to its inglorious past of taking away all semblance of safeguards to personal liberty and property when it comes to socio-economic offences. Restrictive bail conditions in independent India first came for the essential supplies law before they became famous for anti-terror laws; reverse burdens were held good in 1964 when it came to gold smuggling; the guarantee of Article 20(3) was held inapplicable till customs officials or those from the registrar of companies concluded their inquiry given the theoretical possibility that such inquiries might, till that stage, not end in prosecution ... what the PMLA does, is that it weaves together all the restrictive, rights-effacing clauses from this illustrious past in one fine blanket, and it then goes a step further. It is not restricted to just the smuggler or hoarder, but to practically anyone ... in its reach and deleterious impact on basic freedoms, the PMLA is truly a sui generis law unlike any other. The judgment in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary was an opportunity to trim it down to size and prevent it from becoming another MISA from the 1970s; instead, the
Court has, for now, green-lit that very outcome. In his famous book, The Jurisprudence of Emergency, Nasser Hussain challenges us to examine how ‘the concept of emergency cannot be separated from the logic of a rule of law’. While Hussain’s arguments are located within the context of colonial constitutionalism — in particular, how racial difference contributed to the ‘interplay between norm and exception’ — as he himself notes, the blurred lines between the two concepts have had a long afterlife in the post-colony. In this chapter, we have seen how the Indian Constitution is a stark illustration of this: Articles 20 to 22 represent what Hussain calls ‘attempt[s] to regulate the claim of necessity by rules ... to locate [such claims] within a normative legality’.
The interpretive borders of this finely wrought scheme, however, were left porous by design, and ill-suited for containing what the 1818 Bengal Regulation first referred to as ‘the reasons of State’. In this context, Articles 20 to 22 have been a terrain of contestation between the ‘contrary impulses’ enabling the exercise of State power upon the individual, and constraining it. Through various inflection points, the courts have contracted the boundaries of constitutional constraint, allowing—in effect—an eternal state of necessity, a permanent exception. The courts thus have taken what was originally a colonial justification of a permanent emergency, and sanctified it with the authority of a post-colonial Constitution. Vijay Madanlal Choudhary is the most striking and most recent example of this tradition. But it is, at the end of the day, a tradition of constitutional interpretation as old as the Constitution itself, and deeply embedded in its structure, design, and vision of State power.
(Excerpted from The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power by Gautam Bhatia, a Delhi-based lawyer.)
Reportedly
Prakash Mishra, a top cop who was sidelined by the Naveen Patnaik government in Orissa, and then retired, is now back in contention as an advisor to the BJP chief minister in the state with a Cabinet rank. During Patnaik’s time, he was in the boondocks because there were corruption charges against him. But he continued to be in the Centre’s good books and eventually joined the BJP. Now, with a BJP government in the state, he has been appointed to a top position.
Deep dive
Ramakrishna Ramaswamy writes on the problems and dangers of the UGC’s draft regulations on VC appointments. He writes, “The UGC was created to ensure that there were standards maintained in the degrees that were awarded to students and to ensure that adequate funds would be allocated to universities. These basic duties have been relegated to a minor role. In these regulations, as in much else that the UGC has been doing in the past several years, the adage that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has been ignored. Threats of de-recognition of universities based on an alleged violation of rules in appointing a vice-chancellor do not serve the best interests of the main stakeholders, the students.”
Prime number: 145 police personnelAhead of his wedding, Dalit lawyer Mukesh Parecha thought it fit to ask for police protection for his varghodo or horse-riding ceremony, given his caste and the fact that he would be the first Dalit in his village to have one. The local police sent 145 personnel to escort him, the Indian Express reports. Parecha told the newspaper that someone pelted a stone at his car after the ceremony – something the police denied – and that an inspector drove his car after the alleged incident.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
Sanjaya Baru writes on the other ‘pravasi’ who are marginalised in India and deported from the US. “They remind the world not of Indian talent and enterprise, culture or civilisation but of the lack of opportunity, of discrimination of one kind or another and of the unease of living here that makes them undergo the hardship of illegal migration.”
The issues with Air India were once attributed to political interference, which was eliminated with privatization. Then, the blame shifted to an inefficient public sector workforce, but that too was addressed with the hiring of 9,000 new employees. So why does AI remain poorly managed and an embarrassment to the Tatas? Vir Sanghvi points out, how can anyone trust an airline that fails to serve even its premium customers properly?
Maharashtra’s chief minister last month travelled to Panipat to honour the Peshwas’ fight against the Durranis in 1761; Vivek Katju notes that while Fadnavis said the Marathas lost because no one helped them, the Haryana government seems to think they stood guilty of alienating potential allies. Considering the saffron establishment’s ‘thousand years of slavery’ narrative, Katju preempts the question of how those who did not resist the Afghans or Mughals ought to be viewed; he sounds a cautionary note.
Is the rupee on course for a bottomless fall? Abhinaba Saha on the outlook for the rupee which remains bleak and hinges on future tariff moves by US President Trump.
Although New Delhi wants to encourage the legal movement of skilled workers to the US, “with the Indian higher education system being degraded gradually … even that steam may dry up soon,” writes Bharat Bhushan. He has a few ideas on what India can do to stop people from turning into undocumented immigrants and becoming brutalised.
Coldplay concerts and Indian real estate: Two expensive ways to say, I have arrived in life. Vivek Kaul on why that is not great for the economy.
Listen up
Introduced to make it easier to deliver welfare benefits, Aadhaar is now a necessity for all sorts of things, from opening a bank account to buying a SIM card. Usha Ramanathan, who has warned of Aadhaar’s pitfalls, tells Sidharth Bhatia in this episode of The Wire Talks that it is ‘creating a digital economy that is for the benefit of business’ and that the marginalised suffer the most because of its shortcomings.
Watch out
Prime Minister Modi ought to take up the treatment of Indian deportees – who were handcuffed and their legs chained – aboard the US military aircraft earlier this week with President Donald Trump during his planned visit to Washington next week, said former foreign secretary Shyam Saran to Karan Thapar. Calling the deportees’ treatment inhuman, Saran said he would say the same thing when accused (and not guilty) people, including undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, are “mistreated” within India.
Over and out
Retired All India Radio news reader, R. S. Venkatraman (102), passed away early this week at his daughter’s residence in Mandaveli, Chennai. Srimathi Ravichandran, his daughter-in-law, who was also a newsreader, said apart from reading the news, he was a prolific writer too. He wrote many short stories in Tamil under the pen name Gajamukhan.
Over 200 original sketches, watercolour paintings and etchings by surrealist artist Salvador Dali will be on display in Delhi this month and next. Dali had never been to India, but he has had a few brushes with it, including by designing ash trays for Air India and being given a young elephant from the Bangalore zoo in return, Cherylann Mollan finds.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.