Parliament passes Delhi Special Police Establishment Amendment Bill

Parliament has passed the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Bill, 2021. The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill. The Bill will replace the ordinance promulgated in this regard. The Bill seeks to amend the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946.  Under the Act, the minimum tenure of the Director of Central Bureau of Investigation is of two years. The Bill permits extension of the tenure of the CBI Director up to one year at a time, till the completion of five years from the initial date of appointment. Such extensions may be granted in the public interest, on the recommendation of the Committee. Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the amendment brought in the bill reiterates the commitment of the Narendra Modi government of adopting zero-tolerance against corruption. He said that in several countries, the term of Director and Chief of premier investigation agency is in the range of 6 to 10 years, and in the case of CBI, the tenure of Director is fixed as a minimum of 2 years but how much beyond it, is not defined. He said, with a view to make the Agency more democratized and institutionalized, the amendment to the existing Act has been brought. He said, after two years the tenure of Director of CBI will be extended for one year at a time. The Union Minister said that the Modi government wants to make the law more candid and clear.

-After that Rajya Sabha has also passed the Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2021. The bill will replace the ordinance promulgated in this regard. The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill. The Bill seeks to amend the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003.  The Act provides for the constitution of a Central Vigilance Commission to conduct inquiries into offenses alleged to have been committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 . Presently, the Director of Enforcement has a tenure of a minimum of two years. The Bill adds that the tenure of the Director may be extended by up to one year at a time, till the completion of five years from the initial appointment.  Such extensions may be granted in the public interest, on the recommendation of the Committee.  Under the 2003 Act, the Director of Enforcement is appointed by the central government, on the recommendation of a Committee. This Committee is chaired by the Central Vigilance Commissioner and includes the Secretaries from the Ministries of Home Affairs, Personnel, and the Revenue department.

-In Kurukshetra  on Geeta Jayanti, Kurukshetra Vikas Board and Department of Education on Tuesday jointly organized Global Geeta Path (recitation), in which 1155 students of 15 schools of Kurukshetra participated. Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, Union Minister of Culture and Tourism G Kishan Reddy, Swami Gyananand, and other dignitaries performed Geeta Poojan and enlightened the lamp before the start of the Global Geeta Path. The students from various districts of the state and people from abroad joined the event online. The students recited 18 shlokas of 18 chapters of Shri Mad Bhagwat Geeta to give the message of peace to the world.

-The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Mumbai has busted a massive drug cartel and has seized psychotropic substances worth 18 crore rupees. NCB Mumbai Zonal Director, Sameer Wankhede in a press briefing today said that around eight operations were launched by the agency in the last two days, leading to a large seizure of drugs such as Amphetamine, Opium, and Zolpidem tablets.  Wankhede said that the peddlers and suppliers used innovative ways of trafficking the psychotropic substances by concealing them in a stethoscope, microwave oven, cycling helmets, hard-drive of a computer and eatables, and grocery items. He said the drug consignments were to be transported to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, Switzerland, and Maldives. The senior NCB officer said that they have intercepted an Ivory Coast national and further investigations are on.

-The ruling Telangana Rastra Samithi party has bagged all MLC seats with a clean sweep of the local body MLC elections. Of total 12  seats, TRS won six MLC seats unanimously and won MLC seats for which polling was earlier on December10. Though the counting of votes concluded, the election authorities are yet to hand over the election certificate. TRS candidates T Bhanuprasad Rao and L Ramana from Karimnagar Local Authorities Constituency (LAC), V. Yadava Reddy from Medak LAC, T. Madhu from Khammam LAC, MC Kotireddy from Nalgonda LAC, and D. Vittal from Adilabad have been declared victorious.
-Former Maharashtra Minister and BJP candidate Chandrashekhar Bawankule won the Nagpur MLC seat defeating Congress backed Independent Candidate Mangesh Deshmukh. In the result declared on Tuesday. Bawankule received 362 votes against his nearest rival Mr. Deshmukh who got 186 votes. On the other hand, Mr. Vasant Khandelwal from Akola Buldana Washim from BJP defeated three-time legislator Shiv Sena’s Gopi Kishan Bajoriya by 110 votes. With this, BJP has won six out of four seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council. Earlier, two candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party Rajhans Singh from Mumbai and Amrish Patel from Dhule Nandurbar; and one candidate from Shiv Sena Sunil Shinde from Mumbai and Congress candidate and Minister of State for Home Satej Patil were elected unopposed to the biennial elections to the state legislative council. Former Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis hailed the party’s victory and said the winning spree of the party will continue in future as well. In a tweet, Mr. Fadnavis said both the victories of Nagpur and Akola are special and are results of hard work of the party workers.