The Western Railway (WR) has collected Rs. 6.45 crore from as many as 1.71 lakh ticketless travellers during July.

“In continuation of our efforts to curb the practise of ticketless travelling, WR conducted regular checks during the month of July, 2015 where in 1.71 lakh cases of ticketless/irregular travel including unbooked luggage cases were detected, resulting in recovery of around Rs. 6.45 crore,” a statement issued by Western Railway said.

This amount is 12.68 per cent more than the corresponding month of last year,” it said, adding WR has regularly taken innovative steps.

“Senior officers are closely monitoring the revenue loss due to ticketless travel and such other irregularities. During July, 52 cases of illegal transfer of reserved tickets were detected and an amount of over Rs. 46,000 was realised,” the statement said.

While 1,289 beggars and unauthorised hawkers were apprehended, 466 were evicted, 487 charged. From them Rs. 1.32 lakh was collected as a penalty.

Moreover, 336 beggars and hawkers were prosecuted of which 249 were fined from whom Rs. 21,000 was recovered and 87 of them were sent to jail.

Also, during this period, 195 checks were conducted against touts and other anti-social elements by commercial department. As a result, 222 persons were apprehended and prosecuted and fined under various sections of Railways Act, it added.

WR General Manager G C Agrawal has emphasised the need of further improving the same in future, it added.

In addition, WR has urged all rail users to buy a railway ticket and travel with dignity.

The pendency of cases in Bombay High Court continues to rise, even as the number of ongoing cases in district and subordinate courts registered an upsurge this year, an official data said. The number of pending cases under different laws, Acts and tribunals in Bombay High Court and its Nagpur, Aurangabad and Goa benches have gone up from 3,51,297 in 2010 to 3,76,604 in 2015, revealed an RTI query, filed by Pune-based activist Vihar Durve.

Total 8,19,184 (fresh) cases were instituted from January 2010 to June 2015 while 7,80,763 cases were disposed of by all benches of Bombay HC, it revealed. As regards the district judiciary (districts and subordinate courts), the overall number of pending cases went down over the years, but 2015 witnessed a considerable rise.

While in 2010, a total 39.05 lakh cases were pending in districts and subordinate courts, the number decreased over the years and it came down to 28.69 lakhs in 2014. However, the figure went up this year and total 29.51 lakhs cases were pending by June this year in districts and subordinate courts, as per the RTI. From 2010 to June 2015, total 98.16 lakh fresh civil and criminal cases were instituted while 1.30 crore cases were disposed by all districts and subordinate courts.

The RTI query has also revealed that actual strength of judges in Bombay High Court has gone significantly down as there were 61 judges working out of sanctioned 75 judges in 2010. In 2015, there were only 65 judges working with the Bombay High Court as against the sanctioning strength of 94. The number of judicial officers in Maharashtra has also seen a significant decline.

According to the RTI reply, the actual working strength of judicial officers was 1,786 in 2010 against the sanctioned strength of 2,057. This actual working strength came down to 1,784 in 2015 while the sanctioned strength went up to 2,072.

Replying to a query on what the High Court has done to meet the demands of additional courts, the HC’s Public Information Officer said, “High Court vide its letter dated 3rd November 2012 has furnished the detailed information in respect of additional 867 courts of various cadre of Judges in the state of Maharashtra considering the Judge-Case Ratio 1:1000/1200.”

Commenting over the rising cases of pendency and declining number of judiciary staff, Durve said, “Of course, it’s the prime responsibility of state to provide infrastructure and judiciary staff to the fullest, but courts should also consider that the judicial process is causing delay which needs to be improvised. Bombay High Court’s former judge Justice Suresh Hosbet said, ‘Law Commission recommended that there should be at least 200 judges for every 10 lakh population, but today this figure staggers at around 16.8 judges per million of population.’ Hence, recruiting the judges is the first and foremost step to start with, to deliver quick justice and the age of retirement for judges also needs to be increased,” he said.

Another RTI activist Krishnaraj Rao, who has launched a campaign to highlight the delayed justice system in India, said, “This can only happen in India where judges enjoy month long vacations every year despite knowing the staggering figures of pendency of cases.”

Amid growing criticism over the arrest of five FTII students by the police, the institute’s director Prashant Pathrabe has come out in defence of his decision to file an FIR against students.

Pathrabe said, “I was kept in illegal confinement by students for about 8-10 hours on Monday night. Six people had been asked to come and 40-50 people came in forcefully and I had no choice but to start a discussion with them.”

“After the discussion on the agenda of assessment, when I told them my decision, they said we will not allow you to go. Initially for couple of hours I refused to call police, but even after 4-5 hours,they did not give in,I had no choice but to call police,” Pathrabe said.

“They formed chains to forcefully block me. I was tortured using interrogation techniques, verbal assault. When the Police came in, there was a scuffle that ensued and in it, they broke telepohone, furniture, the office has been sealed,” he added.

Expressing his anguish over the behaviour of the students, Pathrabe said, “I really wonder by what yardstick you can call such people ‘students’. They wanted to enact a drama, it was all pre planned.”

I had to take the unfortunate step of filing an FIR with the Police yesterday night: FTII Director Prashant Pathrabe

Claiming that he was still in a state of mental shock Pathrabe said, “I had no choice but to take this decision as tolerating this kind of lawless behavior would have emboldened them to do anything further and there should be a deterrent.”

The Bombay High Court has upheld the life sentence awarded to a man by a lower court for killing his pregnant wife by setting her afire for not meeting his dowry demands
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The HC observed that the evidence adduced by the prosecution points at the guilt of the accused.

However, a bench headed by Justice Vijaya Tahilramani, reduced the two-year sentence awarded to the victim’s mother-in-law (on the charge of aiding and abetting the dowry demand) to the period already undergone by her in jail (nine months).

Accordingly, the appeal of Dattatraya More was rejected by the bench while that of his mother Chandrabhaga More was allowed and her sentence reduced from two years to nine months.

More, who hails from Phaltan in Satara district, was married to Jyoti and had two children.

According to prosecution, he used to often beat his wife for not bringing dowry from her house. When she refused to get Rs 5,000 from her mother, More poured kerosene on her on June 2, 2006 and set her ablaze.

Jyoti, who was four-month pregnant, suffered 52 per cent burns and succumbed to her injuries in hospital a few days later.

Police had recorded three dying declarations of Jyoti. While one of them was recorded by a special executive magistrate, two others by a police inspector. Besides, there were oral dying declarations given by Jyoti to her mother, sister and paternal uncle.

“In the cross-examination of these witnesses, it is true that the defence counsel has succeeded in eliciting some inconsistencies or discrepancies, but, in our considered opinion, they do not affect the core of their testimony as to the demands and harassment mated out by both the accused to Jyoti,” the court observed in their order delivered recently.

“Instead of making their evidence suspect in any way, these discrepancies act as inbuilt guarantee of their truthfulness. Considering that marital life of Jyoti was about four to five years and there were several instances of the cruelty meted out to her and also of the unlawful demands, it is but natural that the evidence of witnesses cannot be a parrot like version,” the judges remarked in their judgement.