08:04 RBI Governor met PM on Nov 9 possibly to thrash out issues:
RBI Governor Urjit Patel is believed to have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week in a bid to work out a solution on contentious issues that have been flash point between the central bank and the government during the last few weeks.
Sources said Patel was in the national capital on Friday and met senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The meetings, which some said also included with the prime minister, came amid a face-off between the central bank and the finance ministry over issues ranging from appropriate size of reserves that RBI must maintain to ease of lending norms to step up growth in an election year.
Sources said there are indications that the RBI may create a special dispensation for lending to small and medium enterprises, but it was not immediately clear if an agreement has been worked out to ease liquidity situation for non-banking finance companies and the RBI parting with its substantial part of its surplus.
Tensions between the RBI and the government have escalated recently, with the finance ministry initiating discussion under the never-used-before Section 7 of the RBI Act which empowers the government to issue directions to the RBI Governor.
RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya had in a speech last month talked about the independence of the central bank, arguing that any compromise could be “potentially catastrophic” for the economy.
Last week, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg had said the government was not in any dire need of funds and that there was no proposal to ask the RBI to transfer Rs 3.6 lakh crore.
Patel’s meetings at the PMO came days before the RBI’s crucial board meeting on November 19 during which contentious issues are likely to come up for discussion.
— PTI
00:04 SC to consider pleas seeking review of Sabarimala verdict today:
The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on Tuesday a batch of petitions seeking review of its September 28 verdict allowing entry of women of all age groups into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
On September 28, a five-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in its 4:1 verdict, had paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple saying that the ban amounted to gender discrimination.
A batch of 48 petitions seeking review of the judgment would be taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra.
Besides these pleas, three separate petitions seeking review of the verdict are also slated to come up for hearing in the open court before a bench comprising CJI Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph.
The apex court’s judgment has led to protests and counter-protests at the hill-top shrine in Kerala.
The top court had on October 9 declined an urgent hearing on the review plea filed by an association which had contended that the five-judge Constitution bench’s verdict lifting the ban was ‘absolutely untenable and irrational’.
Later, the court had said that it would consider the review pleas on November 13.
A plea filed by National Ayyappa Devotees Association (NADA), which has sought review of the verdict, had said that ‘the notion that the judgment under review is revolutionary, one which removes the stigma or the concept of dirt or pollution associated with menstruation, is unfounded.
‘It is a judgment welcomed by hypocrites who were aspiring for media headlines. On the merits of the case, as well, the said judgment is absolutely untenable and irrational, if not perverse’.
Besides the Association, several other petitions including one by Nair Service Society (NSS), have been filed against the apex court verdict.
The NSS had said in the plea that as the deity is a ‘Naistika Brahmachari’, females below the age of 10 and after the age of 50 years are eligible to worship him and there is no practice of excluding worship by females.
‘Hence, the delay or wait for 40 years to worship cannot be considered as exclusionary and it is an error of law on the face of the judgment,’ the plea had said. — PTI
Source: Rediff