Two interesting news items, which caught my attention today, which I wanted to share with you friends with my views on the same.
1 Supreme Court (SC) says there is rampant misuse of social media, and it is going to be very dangerous for society and country if it is left unchecked. Yesterday SC asked the central govt to frame guidelines to regulate social media and put in place a solid mechanism to track the originator/origin of fake news, objectionable material like pornography, rumours on social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and You Tube.
A bench of Justice Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, while hearing a plea of Face Book and WhatsApp seeking transfer of all cases which are in different court to the apex court pertaining to regulation of Social media, pointed out about the rampant misuse of social media for spreading rumours and fake news, which sometime lead to mob violence, law and order problems. They directed the centre to put the law in its place at the earliest as this new media needs regulation. They also directed the central govt to file an affidavit in 3 weeks time, which should give definite time frame to form the policy in this regard. As it is a policy matter neither SC nor HC can do any thing in this matter, as this issue needs to evolve the technology to tackle the problem and courts lack of experience to deal with it. Justice Gupta made a remark that recently he came across an AK 47 is being sold online and it took him few minutes to find the site.
Solicitor General informed the court that it is going to be tricky area for law making as social media is seen as a ‘democratising’ medium that gives voice to individuals and their view points.
In my opinion use of social media is double edged sword, one can use the same to be in social contacts and air one’s views but on the other side it can be misused for slandering reputations, spreading false information, for circulating inflammatory matter and rumours which have in many instances lead to violence, which pose a challenge to law & order machinery.
2 Is law catching up with Pawars? The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a money laundering case against NCP Chief Sharad Pawar and his nephew and former deputy CM of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar, former Shiv Sena MP Anandrao Adsul among others, in the Rs 25,000 Cr Maharashtra State Co Op Bank (MSC) embezzlement case. The ED case follows the FIR registered by Economy Offences Wing (ECW) of Mumbai Police, on a complaint filed by activist Surender Arora. The Bombay HC had last month, after examining evidences provided, directed EOW to register FIR in case in which the accused, who granted loans to cooperative sugar mills, were allegedly caused losses to the bank. This scam took place over a period of 15 years from 2002 to 2017. ED has found 4 main irregularities
-Bank officials provided loans to coop sugar mills whose owners were connected with them, allegedly to benefit the bank’s directors.
-Loans were sanctioned to the sugar mills despite them having weak financial/negative net worth.
-No collateral were asked for most of the loans.
-In the end sugar mills were sold for much less than the reserve price.
On Sharad Pawar, the complaint in the MSC case had said “the complete mis management was not inadvertent but pre planned and schemed, as the persons in the state govt were under the implicit direction of Sharad Pawar, who was holding the reigns of all the pillars of the coop sector in Maharashtra”. Others named by the ED are PWP leader Jayant Patil, Dilip Deshmukh(brother of late CM Vilasrao Deshmukh), Congress’s Shivajirao Nalvade, Madan Patil and two other NCP leaders Rajendra Shingane and Isharlal jain. Ajit Pawar was director in the bank when the alleged irregularities took place.
As this has come ahead of assembly poll, now all these leaders will be saying it is political vendetta. This is the first time in Sharad Pawar’s 55 year long political career that an investigating agency has registered a criminal case against him. Reacting to the ED’s move to file a case against him for money laundering, Sharad Pawar said “ I am not surprised by by ED’s decision. It follows the massive response to my election rallies across western Maharashtra.”
In my opinion, Sharad Pawar is still living in his dream world and thinking that he can still be the king or king maker, but in the last 10 years his influence in Maharashtra politics is dwindling and last 2 general elections and last state election are the indicators. Now before the assembly polls there have been exodus from his party NCP, and his alliance partner Congress party is also in the mess in Maharashtra. This time even if their alliance gets even half the seats compared to 2014, then they should consider themselves lucky, both the parties are inflicted with in house fighting and both of them are at their lowest.
So what you say my friends.
Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
25th Sep 2019
R. N. Mungale.
1. There is no doubt on my mind that Social Media is being misused.
2. As far as Sharad Pawar is concerned I can only say ‘Wait & Watch,’