Group items tagged

In a setback to veteran Congress leader and former governor of Andhra Pradesh N D Tiwari, the Supreme Court on Monday held that he has to undergo DNA test in a paternity case. However, it maintained that the test findings would not be made public until it is required to do so. A Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha refused to stay the Delhi High Court order asking the 85-year-old leader to undergo DNA test and directed him to suggest by Friday the procedure preferred by him for the DNA test. Tiwari who has held the post of chief minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh and later of Uttarakhand contended that it would be a violation of his Right to Privacy and would cause him public humiliation if he is directed to undergo the DNA test.

The packed courtroom waited, but N.D. Tiwari didn't come. Despite a high court order, the Congress veteran didn't turn up to give his blood sample for a DNA test to ascertain whether Rohit Shekhar, a 31-year-old lawyer, is his biological son. Rohit and his mother Ujjawala were present in court today with a doctor who had come to take Tiwari's blood sample. Tiwari's lawyer Bahar Barqui moved an application before joint registrar Deepak Garg, saying Indian and international laws were clear that no individual could be "forced" to give DNA sample.

In the season of phonetaps, comes a startling admission by the Enforcement Directorate that while probing charges of money laundering, it intercepted phone conversations between members of the Singhania group, that runs Kanpur-based LML, and their lawyers. The tap was done just days before a court order was due in the case. The recorded conversations, said ED's counsel additional solicitor general Harin Rawal, raise questions regarding the Allahabad High Court order that stayed the ED probe. In their order, on June 9 last year, a vacation bench of Justice Rakesh Sharma and Justice Shyam Shankar Tiwari had called the ED's investigation "wholly without jurisdiction and contrary to the mandate of FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act)". In the first of his two opinions, on June 21, 2010 - which form the basis of the government's Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court last September challenging the HC stay - Rawal said: "To put it briefly, a couple of days prior to the interim order being rendered by the Honourable Division Bench, a conversation is recorded that would clearly be a reasonable basis to believe that the Honourable Division Bench has passed an interim order on considerations which are other than legal or judicial."