I am not soft like my mom: Rahul

May 24, 2013

New Delhi, May 24: Making it clear to all party unit leaders and workers as also Delhi Government functionaries that he did not have a soft heart like his mother Sonia Gandhi but was more resolute and determined like grandmother Indira Gandhi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday gave the thumbs up to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s functioning, and cautioned that indiscipline would not be tolerated.

Mr. Gandhi, who made his first visit to the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee headquarters on taking over as vice-president, held discussions with party and government functionaries, and urged them to work unitedly till the Assembly elections due later this year. He side-stepped the issue of change of leadership in either the government or the party in Delhi and instead, through his narrative, gave every indication of the status quo continuing till the elections.

Mr. Gandhi allowed a large number of party workers, elected representatives and government functionaries to say their part. He spent nearly four hours at the PCC office and even took notes of what the various leaders had to say.

At the first meeting, which began around 10.30 a.m., Mr. Gandhi interacted with Chandni Chowk MP Kapil Sibal, area MLAs, district presidents, vice-presidents and block presidents of the party from the constituency. Thereafter, he called people from two constituencies each – North-West and South, East and North-East and South and North.

Here, a number of party office-bearers raised district-level issues and accused the area MLAs and MPs of ignoring them at various functions.

While Mr. Sibal came in for some praise, South Delhi MP Ramesh Kumar and MLA Surender Kumar drew flak from leaders of their constituencies.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Minister and senior MLA Mukesh Sharma accused West Delhi MP Mahabal Mishra of not working for the party’s cause. This was why the party lost the election from Nasirpur, which seat he vacated, by around 15,000 votes, Mr. Sharma said.

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

Mere downloading or watching of child porn is also offence under POCSO Act: Supreme Court

News Network

September 23,2024

New Delhi: Downloading and watching child pornography is an offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the Supreme Court ruled today in a landmark judgment on the stringent law to prevent child abuse.

The bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala set aside the Madras High Court order that had ruled that merely downloading and watching child pornography was not an offence under the POCSO Act. The Supreme Court noted that the high court had committed an "egregious error" in passing the judgment.

The Madras High Court's order had come in a case in which a 28-year-old man was charged with downloading child pornography on his phone. The court had quashed the criminal proceedings against the man and said children these days are grappling with the serious issue of watching pornography and society must be mature enough to educate them instead of punishing them.

The Supreme Court today restored the criminal proceedings against the man.

At the outset, Justice Pardiwala thanked the Chief Justice for the opportunity to pen this judgment. The order focused on Section 15 of the POCSO Act which lays down punishment for the storage of pornographic material involving children.

"Any person who stores any pornographic material involving a child and fails to report or destroy it is punishable with a fine of not less than five thousand rupees., and repeat offence will be punishable with fine of not less than ten thousand rupees. If the material is stored for further transmitting or propagating, then along with fine, it is punishable with upto three years of imprisonment. For storing child pornographic material for commercial purpose is punishable with three to five years of imprisonment, and in subsequent conviction, upto seven years of imprisonment," the Section says.

Justice Pardiwala said that in this case, mens rea is to be gathered from actus rea -- mens rea refers to the intent behind the crime and actus rea is the actual criminal act.

"We have said on the lingering impact of child pornography on the victimisation and abuse of children... We have suggested to the Parliament to bring an amendment to POCSO... so that child pornography can be referred to as child sexually abusive and exploitative material. We have suggested an ordinance can be brought in. We have asked all courts not to refer to child pornography in any order," the bench said.

The Chief Justice called it a "landmark judgment" and thanked Justice Pardiwala.

Comments