Top News Headlines 7th Jan 2021: Bulli Bai: Another Sulli Deals

Bulli Bai: Another Sulli Deals: Keep Reading To Know More!

• A few days ago, hundreds of Muslim women woke up to see their images splashed across Bulli Bai, an app which invited bids for their auction.
• The app surfaced on 1 January, 2022 on Github. The women whose pictures were being displayed on the app include prominent figures, politicians and journalists, amongst others. This incident has sparked massive outrage in the country, and rightly so.
• This brings back memories of the Sulli Deals, an infamous app that surfaced in July 2020, that also auctioned muslim women, sparking massive outrage internationally. But no action was taken against the people behind the app. It is being said that this must have emboldened the offenders, who have now come back with this new app, meant to derogate and objectify Muslim women.
• Along with the pictures, many personal details of the women have also been released, leading to a blatant and a very serious violation of their privacy. The people who were visiting the app have been making dummy bids on the women, judging them on the basis of their body and making lewd sexual remarks and making rape threats.
• While there was no real auction or sale, the main purpose behind the app seems to be to humiliate, degrade and target women, majority of whom are avid social media users.
• Thankfully, the law enforcement agencies have been very proactive this time around. Four arrests have been made in relation to this case. The first one being that of an 18 year-old Shweta Singh who is speculated to be the mastermind in this case. She was arrested from Udham Singh Nagar, a district in Uttarakhand. She is currently preparing for her entrance examinations. She is also an orphan, having lost her father to Covid and her mother to cancer a few years back.
• Shweta also has a twitter account by the name of a Khalsa leader from which she has posted many derogatory remarks looking to fuel religious enmity.
• Another arrest has been of a 21 year-old engineering student named Vishal Kumar Jha, although his lawyer claims that he has been falsely implicated in this case.
• Another arrest on Thursday was made of Niraj Bishnoi, who is speculated to be the main conspirator in the case. He is a second year B-tech student studying in VIT, Vellore.
• Mayank Rawat, another conspirator, was also arrested from Uttarakhand. Son of an army Subedar, he is currently studying chemistry at Zakir Hussain College.
• A Nepal connection has also surfaced in this case. Apparently Shweta was acting on the orders from a ‘friend’ named Giyou, who is operating from Nepal. It was on his instructions that she created a twitter account called @jattkhalsa07, and stared uploading photos of women from the Muslim community.
• This incident and the other back in 2020 clearly shows how dangerous technology can be, if it falls into the wrong hands. It is also making us wonder the depths that humanity can fall to when fueled by an intense hatred for people of other communities.

Right To Education In Mother Tongue A Fundamental Right? Know What The Rajasthan HC Has To Say

• The Rajasthan HC, while setting aside an administrative order of the State Government to convert Hindi medium schools into English medium, examined whether the right to get an education in one’s mother tongue or in Hindi is a fundamental right or not.
• In the instant case titled School Development Management Committee, Shri Hari Singh Senior Secondary School and ors. vs. State of Rajasthan and ors. The Director, Secondary Education in September, 2021 allowed the conversion of 345 Government Schools into Mahatma Gandhi Government Schools which are in the English medium. One of these schools was Shri Hari Singh Senior Secondary School, which has been teaching 600 students from all sects, which challenged the impugned order before the HC.
• The Court observed that the right to get an education in any particular language is a part and parcel of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. To support this view, the Court also relied upon the decisions of the Hon’ble SC in the case of State of Karnataka vs. Associated Management of English Medium Primary and Secondary Schools and ors. (2014)SCC where the Court has held that the right to get an education in one’s own mother tongue or in any particular medium is guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
• However, the Court has also said that the right guaranteed under the aforementioned Article is also subject to the reasonable restrictions mentioned in Article 19(2). Therefore, the State can prescribe a medium of imparting education while considering the overall well-being of the child as well as the socio-economic factors.
• Thus, the Court observed that the impugned decision was purely administrative, and it also could not be said to be a reasonable restriction under Article 19(2) of the Constitution.
• While referring to the Right to Education Act, the Court also mentioned that the right to get elementary education in one’s mother tongue is also a statutory right guaranteed by Section 29(2)(f) of the Act. It was also observed that education falls under Concurrent List of the Constitution and since Right to Education is a central Act, any law made by the legislature of the State, if it has not received the assent of the President, would be repugnant by virtue of Article 254 of the Constitution.
• Thus, the Hon’ble HC quashed the impugned order and upheld the fundamental right of the child to get an education in his/her mother tongue.

Employee’s Right To Appear In Departmental Proceedings Through A Pleader Of His Choice: Know What The SC Has To Say

• In the case of Rajasthan Marudhara Gramin Bank vs Ramesh Chandra Meena the Hon’ble SC has held that an employee does not have the absolute right to be represented by a pleader of his choice during departmental proceedings and that the same can be restricted by the employer if he so wishes.
• In this case, the HC had permitted the delinquent employee who was facing departmental proceedings to be represented by an ex-employee of the bank. Relying upon regulation 44, the Court observed that it only restricts the representation by a legal representative and that too is permissible with the leave of the competent authority. Thus, in the absence of an absolute bar, the employee cannot be restricted from engaging the services of a retired employee of the bank.
• Setting aside the order of the HC in an appeal filed by the Bank, the Hon’ble Apex Court has held that the HC has not taken into account clause 8 of the Handbook, thinking that it is not supplementary to Regulation 44. But in the Apex Court’s opinion, the same is supplementary and is not in conflict with Regulation 44.
• The Court was of the opinion that Regulation 44 neither permits nor restricts the engagement of an ex-employee. If the same is read harmoniously with clause 8.2 of the handbook, the object of the same seems to be to avoid any outsider, which even includes an ex-employee of the bank.
• Thus, the Court observed that there is no absolute right of the delinquent employee to be represented in the departmental proceedings through an agent of his choice.
• The Court has also observed that the above mentioned observation is also not in violation of any principle of natural justice as the only requirement is that the delinquent officer should be given a fair opportunity to represent his case. In case the charges leveled against him are of a very complex nature, a request to be represented through a counsel can be made under Regulation 44, and in case the same is denied, it would later become a ground to challenge the decision.