Eight days after Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut was arrested after by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money-laundering case, a special PMLA Court sent him to 14-days judicial custody till August 22 here on Monday.

The ED had raided Raut’s residence in Bhandup on July 31 and arrested him in the wee hours of August 1 in connection with a money-laundering case.

Meanwhile, the PMLA Court Special Judge M.G. Deshpande granted Raut judicial custody after the ED said it did not require his additional custody.

The cas was detected from the redevelopment project of the Patra Chawl, Goregaon, by Guru Ashish Construction Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of the HDIL.

Besides Raut, his the ED had interrogated the MP’s wife, Varsha Raut for around 10 hours on Saturday in the same case in which it had earlier arrested his close associate, Pravin Raut.

Sanjay Raut, 61, was earlier sent to a four-day ED remand which was extended by three more days till August 8, followed by the two-week long judicial custody granted on Monday.

The Special Judge Deshpande took cognisance of the MP’s medical records pertaining to his heart ailments and permitted him home-cooked food along with his medicines as prescribed by the doctor while ordering judicial custody,

In April the ED had attached properties belonging to Varsha Raut and Pravin Raut and two others, worth around Rs 11.15 crore as part of its probe.

On July 1, Sanjay Raut was grilled for over 10 hours by the ED and then summoned again on at least two occasions, but he skipped the same citing the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.

NEW DELHI, Aug 8: The Supreme Court on August 8 orally observed that it is “contrary to law” to identify religious and linguistic minority communities district-wise. A Bench of Justices U. U. Lalit and S. Ravindra Bhat remarked that minority status of linguistic and religious communities have to be considered State wise.
The Court was hearing a petition filed by Devkinandan Thakur Ji, a Mathura resident, claiming that Hindus do not get minority status in States where they are “socially-, economically-, politically non-dominant and numerically inferior”. The petition had also sought a declaration from the Court to identify minorities district wise.
“Your prayer to recognise minorities at the district level is contrary to law. There is a 11-judge Bench judgment which holds that it should be done at the State level,” Justice Bhat addressed the petitioner side.
The judge was referring to the majority verdict given by the 11-judge Bench in the T. M. A Pai versus State of Karnataka case in 2002. The Bench said the Court cannot pass “general” directions to States to bestow certain communities with minority status. “If you bring a concrete case, we can look into it… This has to be done on a case-to-case basis,” Justice Lalit told the petitioner side.
“You want to somehow bring out a case when there is none. We can look into concrete case of denial, the court cannot pass general orders” Justice Bhat said.
At this point, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay intervened to point out that a similar petition was pending before another Bench of the apex court. He urged the Bench to tag this petition along with the other one which has been pending since 2020. Mr. Upadhyay is himself the petitioner in the 2020 case.
The Court tagged Mr. Thakur’s case with the earlier case and scheduled a hearing in the first week of September before the appropriate Bench.
In the previous hearing before Justice Lalit’s Bench, Mr. Thakur had complained that followers of Judaism, Bahaism and Hinduism, who were the real minorities in Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur could not establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, thus jeopardising their basic rights guaranteed under Articles 29 and 30.
But the Court had indicated that a religious or linguistic community which were a minority in a particular State could inherently claim protection and the right to administer and run their own education institutions under Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution.
The Court had asked whether a specific notification, declaring such non-dominant communities as a ‘minority’ in the particular State, was required to be issued at all.
The Court had made it clear that it would not entertain petitions devised in “thin air”. It had challenged the petitioner to bring a “concrete case” in which Hindus were denied rights in States where they were a minority. (AGENCIES)

The Central government will move the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2022 for consideration and passing in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will move the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2022 to further amend the Central Universities Act, 2009, as passed by the Lok Sabha, and be taken into consideration and passed.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will move a motion to elect, in the manner as directed by the Chairman, one Member from the House to be a member of the Council of the Institutes established under the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (Amendment) Act, 2021.

Mandaviya will also move a motion to elect, in the manner as directed by the Chairman, one Member from amongst the Members of the House, a member of the Governing Council of the Northeastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, Shillong.

Bhubaneswar Kalita and Shaktisingh Gohil will lay the 53rd report on ‘Excesses over Voted Grants and Charged Appropriations (2019-20)’ of the Public Accounts Committee (2022-23).

Union Minister Pralhad Joshi will make a statement regarding the status of implementation of the recommendations contained in the 19th Report of the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Coal, Mines and Steel on ‘Coal Conservation and Development of Infrastructure for Transportation of Coal across the Country’ pertaining to the Ministry of Coal.

Mandaviya will make a statement regarding the status of implementation of the recommendations contained in the reports of the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare on Demands for Grants (2021-22) pertaining to the Departments of Health and Family Welfare and Health Research respectively of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Union Ministers Pankaj Chaudhary, Prahalad Singh Patel and Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma will make a statements regarding the status of implementation of the recommendations contained in the reports of the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee of their respective ministries.

Dola Sen and Hardwar Dubey to lay the 80th report of the Joint Committee on Offices of Profit.

Several ministers will lay papers related to their respective ministries.