Page 37 - PR Communication Age - JUNE 2016
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76 m Indians have no ac- be challenged without the filing of a 2014, which caused 19,513 deaths and
cess to safe water proper petition. injuries to 1,889 people. Other causes
included fire in school buildings, mines,
India has the highest number of "Four hundred pages are filed, but we trains, private vehicles, government
people, 76 million, in the world with- don't read beyond 40," Justice Anil R said buildings, and manufacturing units of
out access to safe water supply, fol- on context of a case under right to combustible materials like crackers and
lowed by China and Nigeria, a equality enshrined in Article 14. Dave match boxes.
WaterAid report said. The people end said, adding that it was unnecessary.
up incurring high costs for access, The report showed that the maximum
which is primarily due to poor manage- IT ministry warns online deaths in fire accidents in 2014 were
ment of water resources, says the re- players against illegal reported from Maharashta (3892) fol-
port 'Water: At what cost? The State printing of Aadhaar details lowed by Madhya Pradesh (2305),
of the World's Water' -released by the Gujarat (2011), Karnataka (1610), Tamil
global agency to mark the World Wa- The billion-strong citizen identification Nadu (1594), UP (1164), Chhattisgarh
ter Day 2016. system, Aadhaar, has given rise to busi- (1089) and Rajasthan (1034).
nesses keen on illegal harnessing of this
The report placed India on the top of private data, say the authorities. Muslim board wants to
10 countries in the world with the strengthen the Shariat
greatest numbers of people living with- Outfits are offering services to print courts
out access to safe water, followed by the Aadhaar details on plastic cards,
China and Nigeria. Pakistan figures at something the Union information tech- The All India Muslim Personal Law
the 10th place. "Nearly 76 million nology ministry warned against. These Board (AIMPLB) has decided to
people in India have no access to a safe entities charge anywhere between Rs strengthen the network of Darul Qazas
water supply. If they have the oppor- 50 and Rs 600, and are listed on e- (Shariat courts) which primarily deal
tunity to buy water from a tanker it commerce websites, apart from own with marital discords including divorce.
can cost 1 Rupee (£0.01) per litre, online presence. The move is likely to revive demand for
sometimes double if supplies are reviewing constitutional validity of
scarce," says the report. Under the Aadhaar law, collecting and such institutions led by a Qazi and work
storing of the data by private compa- on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence.
SC mulling over lowering nies without the user's consent is a
paper consumption by crime. The warning from the ministry Demand for banning Darul Qaza have
lawyers to e-commerce marketplaces such as been made in the past too on the
Amazon, Flipkart and eBay to disallow grounds that they were operating as
The Supreme Court has said it will con- merchants from collecting and printing a parallel judicial system in the coun-
sider easing its business rules to cut such details was a result of this. try. In 2005 a Delhi based advocate
down on the voluminous sets of papers Vishwa Lochan Madan had even chal-
that a lawyer is required to file with a Over 1.13 lakh people killed lenged the validity of such institutions
case, a move that will not only reduce in fire accidents in 5 yrs in the Supreme Court. The court, in its
the top court's carbon footprint but July 2014 verdict, stopped short of call-
also speed up its work. The death of over 100 people in Kollam ing Shariat courts unconstitutional, but
has retrained the focus on fire related said these institute-run courts were
The remarks came when a five-judge accidents that killed over 1.13 lakh people functioning parallel to the Indian judi-
constitution bench was hearing argu- across the country in five years between cial system and have no legal sanction.
ments on the legality of reservation of 2010 and 2014. Though the number of
seats for scheduled castes (SCs) and deaths in such incidents has been decreas- AIMPLB member and senior high court
scheduled tribes (STs) in parliament ing in the past five years, the figure still lawyer Zafaryab Jilani said, "The Board
and state assemblies. "We are trying remains uncomfortably high. has decided to boost setting up of
to cut down on paper," Justice Shiva more Shariat courts across the coun-
Kirti Singh said in response to Attorney Data released by the National Crime try and create awareness among Mus-
General Mukul Rohatgi's contention Records Bureau (NCRB) of the home lims so that they could get their dis-
that no constitutional amendment can ministry showed that 20,377 fire acci- putes settled before a Qazi".
dents were reported in the country in
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