Comprehensive News Analysis - 11 May 2017

Context:

• Delhi High Court issued notice to the government for not initiating any action against the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which received foreign funds from two subsidiaries of Vedanta, a U.K.-based company.
• The Home Ministry will seek the Attorney-General’s opinion to amend the repealed Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) 1976, which barred foreign donations to political parties.

FCRA amendment:

• FCRA was amended last year through the Finance Bill route.
• This amendment allowed foreign-origin companies to fund NGOs and also cleared the way for donations to political parties by changing the definition of “foreign companies.”
• Even though the amendment was done retrospectively it only made valid the foreign donations received after 2010, the year when the 1976 Act was amended.

Contempt petition:

• Association for Democratic Reforms, a political watchdog, moved a contempt petition against the Home Ministry in March pointing out that the directives of the High Court against the two political parties which received foreign funds were not followed.
• The ADR filed a PIL plea against the two parties for violating the FCRA.
• The Delhi High Court had held that the donations were illegal in 2014, but the two parties challenged the order in the Supreme Court but later withdrew the petition.

Foreign companies definition anomaly:

• The original FCRA provision- declares that any company with over 50 per cent FDI was a foreign entity
• Finance and Commerce ministries- treat companies based in India and having Indian directors and employees as Indian subsidiaries.

What’s in news?

• The Integrated Case Management Information System (ICMIS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated ICMIS, a significant step being taken by the Supreme Court: one that will take it from a being a paper court to becoming a digital court.
• The Integrated Case Management Information System (ICMIS) will allow a litigant to digitally file a case and watch its progress on a real-time basis.
• The system will help litigants access data and retrieve information online.
• There is a proposal to integrate the system with all the 24 High Courts and the subordinate courts.

Advantage: usher in transparency, reduce manipulation and help the litigant track the progress of a case on a real time basis.

Pendency of cases: Over 61,000 cases are pending in the apex court, while the 24 High Courts have 38.70 lakh pending cases. 

Context:

• India got a stay on Pakistan’s death sentence to arrested former Navy official Kulbhushan Jadhav at an international tribunal.
• The government defended going to the tribunal, as a “carefully considered decision.”
• The Ministry of External Affairs said the decision to resort to arbitration at the International Court of Justice, after a gap of 46 years, was appropriate as the ultimate aim is to save Mr. Jadhav’s life.

India and ICJ:

• India has in the past refused to accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ on issues such as the Atlantique aircraft incident of 1999 and in the Saurav Kalia case.

Atlantique aircraft incident

• The Atlantique Incident was an event in which a Breguet Atlantic patrol plane of the Pakistan Navy’s Naval Air Arm, with 16 people on board, was shot down by the Indian Air Force for violating Indian airspace. The episode took place in the Rann of Kutch on 10 August 1999, just a month after the Kargil War.
• Pakistan later lodged a compensation claim at the International Court of Justice, blaming India for the incident, but the court dismissed the case, ruling that the Court had no jurisdiction in the matter

Saurav Kalia case: Captain Saurabh Kalia was an officer of the Indian Army who was killed during the Kargil War while being held as a prisoner of war by the Pakistani security forces. He along with five other soldiers of his patrolling team was captured alive and kept in captivity where they were tortured, then killed.

The International Court of Justice :

• The International Court of Justice (French: Cour internationale de justice; commonly referred to as the World Court, ICJ or The Hague) is the primary judicial branch of the United Nations (UN).
• Seated in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, the court settles legal disputes submitted to it by states and provides advisory opinions on legal questions submitted to it by duly authorized international branches, agencies, and the UN General Assembly.
• Jurisdiction: As stated in Article 93 of the UN Charter, all 193 UN members are automatically parties to the Court’s statute. Non-UN members may also become parties to the Court’s statute under the Article 93(2) procedure. Once a state is a party to the Court’s statute, it is entitled to participate in cases before the Court. However, being a party to the statute does not automatically give the Court jurisdiction over disputes involving those parties.

C. GS3 Related

Category: ECONOMY

1. Rail regulator to define performance standards 

   PIB Articles                  Editorials Roundup

Question 1: Identify the correct Statement.

Question 2: Consider the following statement with reference to The National 
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Question 3: Consider the following statements:

Question 4: Consider the following statements:

Question 5: Who is the present Indian member of the International Court Of 
Justice?