STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said threatening any person to give false evidence is a cognisable offence and offered a clarification on the ambiguity of a provision inserted in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2006 that led different high courts to give contradictory interpretations.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe said from the statutory scheme, it is clear that section 195A of the IPC was conceptualised as an offence distinct and different from those under sections 193 (punishment for false evidence), 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence), 195 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of offence punishable with life imprisonment for life or seven years or more jail term) and 196 (perjury).
It said offences under sections 193 to 196 of the IPC require a complaint to be made only by those named in section 195(1)(b)(i) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and these are all non-cognisable offences. “However, an offence living on the state land”.
“It is not a problem of one area, but of entire J-K. You have a legacy of (National Conference founder) Sheikh Abdullah to live up to,” the PDP MLA said.
Responding to that, the CM said the PDP never owned NC’s legacy “but, today he is remembering it”.
“Land to tiller (law implemented by senior Abdullah) was giving rights to tillers, not land grabbers. There is huge difference between land to tiller and what you are proposing. We don’t work under fear. I will say that floodgates would be opened by this bill,” the CM said.
Referring to Para’s remarks that the bill would also benefit the chief minister’s relatives, Abdullah said, “My relatives were not illegal occupants, they had lease which was violated (by the other side)”.
“I would not bring such a bill even for my relatives. Then you bring religion and region into it,” he said, opposing the introduction of the bill.
After Para refused to withdraw the bill, Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather put it to vote, but it received the support of only three members.
The bill was defeated by the voice vote.