Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Friday, 25 August 2017
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Saturday, 12 August 2017
MTP ACT-THE NEED TO AMEND
Abortion laws in India are
contained in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, and the provisions
in relation to the procedure are governed by the Act. The Act has been widely
requested to be amended owing to the changed medical and social circumstances,
but the Amendment Act has been pending since 2014, while many aggrieved women
have been forced to approach the courts to seek remedies that are not available
in the written laws.
THE MEDICAL TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY ACT
The Act lays down situations
where a pregnancy may
be terminated, and the conditions to be met thereunder. Termination is
permitted if the continuance of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life
of the pregnant woman or of grave injury physical or mental health; or if there
is a substantial risk that if the child is born, it would suffer from such
physical or mental abnormalities, but categorization of the level of medical
judgment required is done on the basis of gestation period completed:
·
Up to 12 weeks – One Medical Practitioner
·
12-20 weeks – Atleast two Medical Practitioners
The anguish caused by a pregnancy arising from rape is
regarded as a grave injury to the mental health; and similarly a pregnancy
arising from the failure of protection or contraceptives in a married couple
will be regarded as grave mental injury.
In case of minors or lunatics, the written consent of
guardian is essential to terminate the pregnancy; but the specific requirements
relating to the length of pregnancy do not apply where the Medical Practitioner
has formed an opinion in good faith that the termination of such pregnancy is
immediately necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman.
THE AMENDMENT BILL OF
2014
The Amendment Bill that has been pending for the past 3
years purports to introduce certain changes in the provisions of the Act:
·
To substitute “Registered Medical Practitioner”
with “Registered Healthcare Provider’ in the long title of the Act.
·
The ambit is widened to include Homeopathic
practitioners, Unani, Sidhha, and Ayurveda; or nurse or auxiliary nurse midwife who
possesses an authorized registration under their respective category.
·
S.3 pertaining to the conditions to terminate pregnancy
to be modified in favor of women and their will; up to 12 weeks of gestation, MTP
may be conducted upon request of the woman.
·
MTP allowed upto 24 weeks instead of 20.
·
S.5A to be introduced, to protect privacy of the
woman.
THE NEED OF THE
HOUR
With the
incidents of rape victims becoming pregnant, unwanted pregnancies and
unprotected intercourse on the rise, it is expedient for the Govt to take up
steps to ensure reproductive health of women. The data from the Sample
Registration System (2001-03) under the Registrar General of India, unsafe
abortions contribute to about 8% of the total abortions happening in the
country. The reasons for this are multifold, with women attempting to gain some
amount of autonomy in deciding whether or not they want the baby, and the law
continuing with the shackles it has placed on the freedom to decide. Apart from
affording women a rightful opportunity to decide on the same, the law also
needs to consider rape victims and child sexual abuse victims, who may be left helpless after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The current scenario requires such aggrieved victims to approach the Courts of
law to interpret the clauses in a wide manner so as to accommodate their
anguish in the terms “grave injury to her
physical and mental health”.
In May, the Rohtak Court had granted permission to
a 10-year old child to terminate her 18-22 weeks old foetus; while a similar
matter is currently under the consideration of the Supreme Court.
Relevant Case Laws (INDIAN KANOON)
·
Mrs. X and Ors. v. Union of India and Ors.
·
Meera Santosh Pal v Union of India
Thursday, 10 August 2017
COMPENSATION TO STATES UNDER GST
The
implementation of GST as the sole indirect tax in place of the earlier multiple
taxation legislations has reasonably raised a probability of States losing a part
of their revenue from tax, in response to which the Centre has enacted the
Compensation to States Act[i]
along with the principal Acts of GST.[ii]
Here we analyze the provisions relating to the said Act, to get a brief picture
of how the scheme will be put to effect.
The Act
intends to provide for compensation to the States for the loss of revenue
arising on account of implementation of the goods and services tax. For the
purposes of calculation and determination of the compensation amount, the Base
year revenue of the State is calculated in accordance with the Act. The base
year revenue for a State is the sum of the revenue collected by the State and
the local bodies during the base year, on account of the taxes levied by the
respective State or Union net of refunds with respect to the taxes subsumed
into GST such as VAT, Sales tax, Purchase Tax, entry tax, octroi, local body
tax, etc. The projected revenue for any year in a State is to be calculated by
applying the projected growth rate over the base year revenue of that State,
and the projected growth rate has been fixed at 14%.
Compensation
under the Act is payable to any State during the transition period, and the
calculation and release is to be done at the end of every two months, and an
annual final calculation is made at the end of every financial year by the CAG. Any excess amount released to any
State during a financial year will be adjusted against the compensation in the
subsequent financial year.
The manner of
calculation of the loss of revenue is also elaborated as:
·
The projected revenue that could have been
earned by the State in absence of the goods and services tax till the end of the relevant two
months period of the respective financial year shall be calculated on a
pro-rata basis as a percentage of the total projected revenue for any financial
year during the transition period[iii].
·
The actual revenue collected by a State till the end of relevant
two months period in any financial year during the transition period will be the
actual revenue from State tax collected by the State, net of refunds given by
the State; the integrated goods and services tax apportioned to that State, as
certified by the Principal Chief Controller of Accounts of the Central Board of
Excise and Customs;
and any collection of taxes levied by the said State, under the Acts specified
in sub-section (4) of section 5, net of refund of such taxes[iv].
·
The provisional compensation payable to any
State at the end of the relevant two months period in any financial year shall
be the difference between the projected revenue till the end of the relevant
period and the actual revenue collected by a State in the said period reduced
by the provisional compensation paid to a State till the end of the previous
two months period in the said financial year during the transition period[v].
In case no compensation is due to be released in any
financial year, or any excess amount has been released to a State in the
previous year, the State is bound to refund the same to the Centre. Every
taxable person making a taxable supply of goods or services or both is bound
the pay the Cess and furnish Returns to the Authorities as required. The Cess
amounts collected under the Act is to be deposited into the Goods and Services
Tax Compensation Fund, which is a part of the public account of India, and all
the payments of compensations under s. 7 are to be made from this Fund.
Wednesday, 9 August 2017
A MOVE TO CURB HONOUR KILLINGS
In a move that
must set an example to the Govts in other States as well, the Madurai and Salem
City Police have formed special cells to protect couples in inter-caste
marriages and curb honour killings and hate crimes.
The move came
as a response to a HC verdict that came over a year ago in relation to the case
of B. Dilip Kumar v Secy. to Govt, Department
of Home, wherein the death of the Petitioner’s wife was alleged to be an
instance of honour killing and the same was ordered by
the Court to be probed by the CBI .
The Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, an Organization working
towards the eradication of caste-based atrocities, had filed a petition in the Madras
High Court on the matter, and Directions were passed by the Court to take steps
to curb honour killing instances. Though late, the Madurai and Salem City
Police have set up a separate cell to deal with matters concerning honour
killings, related atrocities, and to ensure protection to couples in inter-caste marriages from threats from their
communities. Separate Officers from different Departments within the Police
Force have been looped in to receive complaints from couples facing threats/issues
and to oversee the supervision of the cell’s functioning.
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