The Evening Wrap: Presidential elections: Voting concludes, total turnout at 98.90%

Voting for the presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint Opposition pick Yashwant Sinha concluded at 5 p.m. on July 18. Polling began at 10 a.m. and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to cast his vote. The presidential poll has been conducted peacefully and cordially everywhere; the total turnout at Parliament is 99.18%, said Chief Returning Officer P.C. Mody. According to the Returning Officer, out of 736 electors (727 MPs, nine MLAs) permitted by EC to vote in Parliament in the presidential poll, 730 (721 MPs, nine MLAs) voted. Two MLAs of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik — could not vote because they are in jail under various charges, including money-laundering. Parliament adjourned on first day of Monsoon Session over Agnipath, inflation and GST Both the Houses of Parliament witnessed adjournment on first day of the Monsoon Session as Opposition protested price-rise, the Agnipath scheme and the imposition of Goods and Services Tax on items such as packaged milk and rice. The Rajya Sabha was adjourned within an hour after it assembled at 11 a.m. Monday. The disruption in Rajya Sabha came a day after Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu sought the co-operation of the floor leaders for a productive session as his farewell gift. Naidu, who is presiding over the last session of his tenure that will come to an end on August 10, said that 57% proceedings were either fully or partly disrupted during this period. He urged the members to rise to address the demands of the next 25 years of ‘Amrit Kaal’ by the end of which the country’s population is set to increase by another 20 crores. Several Opposition members had given an adjournment notice in the Upper House to discuss inflation and Agnipath scheme. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi come to the House and answer their concerns against growing autocracy. As many as 28 new members were sworn in to the Upper House. Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after it witnessed a disruption because of Opposition protests over the issue of price rise and Agnipath scheme. Opposition members trooped to the well of the House as Lok Sabha convened for the afternoon session at 2 p.m. BJP member Rajendra Agarwal, who was in the chair, allowed laying of parliamentary papers on the table of the House during which Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju introduced a bill to amend the law pertaining to Family Courts. As Opposition members started raising slogans, Agarwal adjourned the proceedings for the day. The day started with obituary references and new members taking oath. Among those who took oath included Bollywood actor and Trinamool Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha (West Bengal) and BJP members from Uttar Pradesh, Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua and Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi. Before this, Speaker Om Birla read out obituary references, including that of three foreign leaders — former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, United Arab Emirates president and Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Kenya’s third president Mwai Kibaki. Some Opposition members tried to raise some issues but Birla did not allow them to do so, indicating he would like to say something. He then talked about the Presidential elections and said elections in India are celebrated as a festival. Members should participate in the festival, the speaker said, and declared the House adjourned till 2 pm. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Sonia Gandhi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Congress leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were among those present in the House. SC asks Uttar Pradesh to not take any action against Zubair without its nod The Supreme Court on Monday said the “vicious cycle” of cases filed by the Uttar Pradesh Police against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for his tweets seem to have “similar content” and ordered the State to not take any precipitate action against him without the apex court’s permission. A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna has effectively thrown a protective cloak around the fact-checker till his petition for regular bail comes up before it for hearing on July 20. The order comes even as a court in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh heard arguments on Monday for a 14-day police remand for Zubair. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Uttar Pradesh, objected, saying an order of the apex court should not be seen to stay the hand of another court from passing a judicial order. “What we have seen is that the contents of the FIRs [First Information Reports] seem similar... He has been given bail by a Delhi court and we gave him interim bail in the Sitapur case... The moment he gets bail in one case another case is registered... It is like a vicious cycle,” Justice Chandrachud addressed Mehta. The turn of events began in the morning when advocate Vrinda Grover made an urgent mention before Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana for early hearing, possibly on Monday itself, of Zubair’s petition seeking interim bail in the five cases in Uttar Pradesh. The CJI had agreed to list the case before Justice Chandrachud and asked Grover to mention it there. Grover appeared before Justice Chandrachud shortly thereafter and pressed for an urgent hearing, saying Zubair’s life was in danger and he should be protected by the apex court. Mehta, who was appearing in another case, was also present at the time in the courtroom. Justice Chandrachud told Grover that the court would take up the matter in a few minutes, giving time to Mehta to peruse the case records. When the case was called up, Grover submitted that “cash rewards” from ₹1,000 to ₹50,000 were offered to people to successfully initiate criminal action against Zubair. “This is all on social media and no action was taken by the Uttar Pradesh Police,” she submitted. Grover detailed the quick succession of cases registered against Zubair in an effort to keep his custody “ever-green”. FIRs were registered in Uttar Pradesh at Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri and Hathras. “He was arrested on June 27 in the Delhi case. Six other cases were registered in different districts of Uttar Pradesh. When he was remanded in judicial custody in the Delhi case, a production warrant from Sitapur arrives. When the Supreme Court gave interim bail to him on July 8 in the Sitapur case, the FIR is acted upon in Lakhimpur Kheri case. When he was granted bail on July 15 in the Delhi case, the Hathras production warrant arrives where the police have sought a full 14-day remand... Even I am finding it difficult to keep track,” Grover submitted. She said the offences arraigned against him mandate punishment of only three years. “Direct threats for him to be killed are being made... Not a single action has been taken,” Grover emphasised. “This kind of targetting must end... You may not like a tweet, but what is the purpose of making a criminal offence out of it?” Grover asked. SC agrees to list plea seeking darshan, pooja of shivling reportedly found on Gyanvapi mosque premises Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Monday agreed to list on July 21 a petition seeking darshan and pooja of the shivling reportedly found on the Gyanvapi mosque premises during a survey. In an oral mentioning, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain urged the CJI to list the plea along with another petition filed by the caretakers of the Gyanvapi mosque, Anjuman Intejamia Masjid, which has challenged a lower court order to conduct a survey of the premises. “This is a petition to allow darshan and pooja of the ‘shivling’ which has been found in the complex and also to direct the Archaeological Survey of India to do carbon dating. The petition filed by masjid committee challenging the commission survey is coming up on July 21. Please list this petition along with that,” Jain submitted. The case is pending before a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. On May 20, the Justice Chandrachud Bench had said its interim order on May 17 to protect the area where the shivling was reportedly found would continue while Muslims would be able to offer namaaz in the mosque. The court had ordered the District Magistrate to make appropriate arrangements, if not already made, for Muslims to offer wazu khana before namaaz at the mosque. The Supreme Court had also transferred the Gyanvapi Masjid suit proceedings from a civil judge to the District Judge of Varanasi, saying the social complexities of the dispute required a “more senior and experienced judicial officer”. The Justice Chandrachud Bench had further, on May 20, directed the District Judge to hear on priority a challenge moved by the mosque’s caretakers against a suit filed last year by five Hindu women who want untrammeled rights to worship Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesh, Lord Hanuman and other “visible and invisible deities” within the mosque premises. The Anjuman has argued that the suit is barred in law. One more case of monkeypox in Kerala A second case of monkeypox has been confirmed in Kerala in a 31-year-old man who reached Kannur from Dubai, via Mangalore, on July 13. Health Minister Veena George confirmed on Monday that one person had been isolated for treatment at Pariyaram Medical College Hospital, Kannur, as he seemed to have typical symptoms of monkeypox and that the samples had been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for confirmation. The patient is in good health and his close contacts have been brought into the Health department’s surveillance network for the next 21 days. The State has tightened disease surveillance at all four of its international airports and help desks have also been opened at these airports where trained healthcare workers have been deployed to help guide anyone, who may have symptoms or whose contacts may have tested positive for monkeypox. Meanwhile, the Health department has decided to make facilities for testing for monkeypox in its own laboratories. There are 28 government laboratories that have the facilities for conducting RT-PCR tests. In the first phase, the tests kits for testing monkey pox would be made available from NIV, Pune, at the National Institute of Virology lab at Alappuzha. Supreme Court stays orders by Karnataka HC against ACB in bail plea hearing, calls them ‘unconnected’, ‘irrelevant’ The Supreme Court on Monday stayed orders passed by Karnataka High Court judge Justice H.P. Sandesh against the State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and its chief, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Seemant Kumar Singh, unconnected to a bail plea he was hearing in a corruption case. The directions in question had ranged from seeking reports on prosecution/closure of cases probed by the ACB since 2016 and summoning confidential service records of the ADGP. “We stay proceedings like asking for service report, B summary report, observations on the ACB, etc. Prima facie, the observations made were unconnected to the bail petition. The observations were not made within the ambit of bail proceedings. The conduct of the ACB officer is unconnected to the bail petition. We direct the High Court to decide the bail petition,” a Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana ordered. The Bench said the observations made by the High Court judge were “irrelevant” to the bail plea. The Bench also issued notice in a plea by ACB and Singh to expunge remarks made by Justice Sandesh against them. Justice Sandesh had formerly called the ACB a “collection centre” and Singh a “tainted officer”. The court, however, did not accede to a request to shift the case to another Bench. “Sorry, we have to balance... We cannot be seen to be favoring one side,” the court said. The court listed the case after three weeks. On July 11, Justice Sandesh had revealed in an order that he was threatened with transfer for his adverse remarks against the State ACB and its top officer. He had proceeded to give a blow by blow account of how he was subjected to a veiled threat of transfer, that too through a sitting judge of the High Court, unless he laid off the ACB and its top officer. Justice Sandesh said the incident had happened during the farewell dinner for a retiring Chief Justice of the High Court. In Brief As many as 7,813 complaints against banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), pertaining to digital lending applications and recovery agents, were received under the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during the last financial year, according to the Central government. In a written reply to a question from Lok Sabha member Aparajita Sarangi, the Minister of State for Finance said the RBI had introduced the “The Reserve Bank -- Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021” wherein complaints against banks and NBFCs regarding digital lending could be lodged. The ombudsman has the power to pass an award for any consequential loss suffered by the complainant up to ₹20 lakh, in addition to up to ₹1 lakh for the loss of the complainant’s time, and expenses incurred and the harassment/mental anguish caused. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow [logo] The Evening Wrap 18 JULY 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Presidential elections: Voting concludes, total turnout at Parliament 98.90% Voting for the [presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu]( is pitted against joint Opposition pick Yashwant Sinha concluded at 5 p.m. on July 18. Polling began at 10 a.m. and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to cast his vote. The presidential poll has been conducted peacefully and cordially everywhere; the total turnout at Parliament is 99.18%, said Chief Returning Officer P.C. Mody. According to the Returning Officer, out of 736 electors (727 MPs, nine MLAs) permitted by EC to vote in Parliament in the presidential poll, 730 (721 MPs, nine MLAs) voted. [Security personnel carry ballot box after voting for the election of the President is completed, at UP Vidhan Bhavan in Lucknow on July 18, 2022.] Two MLAs of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik — could not vote because they are in jail under various charges, including money-laundering. Parliament adjourned on first day of Monsoon Session over Agnipath, inflation and GST [Both the Houses of Parliament witnessed adjournment on first day of the Monsoon Session]( as Opposition protested price-rise, the Agnipath scheme and the imposition of Goods and Services Tax on items such as packaged milk and rice. The Rajya Sabha was adjourned within an hour after it assembled at 11 a.m. Monday. The disruption in Rajya Sabha came a day after Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu sought the co-operation of the floor leaders for a productive session as his farewell gift. Naidu, who is presiding over the last session of his tenure that will come to an end on August 10, said that 57% proceedings were either fully or partly disrupted during this period. He urged the members to rise to address the demands of the next 25 years of ‘Amrit Kaal’ by the end of which the country’s population is set to increase by another 20 crores. Several Opposition members had given an adjournment notice in the Upper House to discuss inflation and Agnipath scheme. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi come to the House and answer their concerns against growing autocracy. As many as 28 new members were sworn in to the Upper House. [Opposition members stage a protest in the well of the Lok Sabha during Monsoon Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, on July 18, 2022.] Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after it witnessed a disruption because of Opposition protests over the issue of price rise and Agnipath scheme. Opposition members trooped to the well of the House as Lok Sabha convened for the afternoon session at 2 p.m. BJP member Rajendra Agarwal, who was in the chair, allowed laying of parliamentary papers on the table of the House during which Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju introduced a bill to amend the law pertaining to Family Courts. As Opposition members started raising slogans, Agarwal adjourned the proceedings for the day. The day started with obituary references and new members taking oath. Among those who took oath included Bollywood actor and Trinamool Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha (West Bengal) and BJP members from Uttar Pradesh, Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua and Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi. Before this, Speaker Om Birla read out obituary references, including that of three foreign leaders — former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, United Arab Emirates president and Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Kenya’s third president Mwai Kibaki. Some Opposition members tried to raise some issues but Birla did not allow them to do so, indicating he would like to say something. He then talked about the Presidential elections and said elections in India are celebrated as a festival. Members should participate in the festival, the speaker said, and declared the House adjourned till 2 pm. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Sonia Gandhi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Congress leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were among those present in the House. SC asks Uttar Pradesh to not take any action against Zubair without its nod  The [Supreme Court on Monday said the “vicious cycle” of cases filed by the Uttar Pradesh Police against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair]( for his tweets seem to have “similar content” and ordered the State to not take any precipitate action against him without the apex court’s permission. A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna has effectively thrown a protective cloak around the fact-checker till his petition for regular bail comes up before it for hearing on July 20. The order comes even as a court in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh heard arguments on Monday for a 14-day police remand for Zubair. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Uttar Pradesh, objected, saying an order of the apex court should not be seen to stay the hand of another court from passing a judicial order. “What we have seen is that the contents of the FIRs [First Information Reports] seem similar... He has been given bail by a Delhi court and we gave him interim bail in the Sitapur case... The moment he gets bail in one case another case is registered... It is like a vicious cycle,” Justice Chandrachud addressed Mehta. The turn of events began in the morning when advocate Vrinda Grover made an urgent mention before Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana for early hearing, possibly on Monday itself, of Zubair’s petition seeking interim bail in the five cases in Uttar Pradesh. The CJI had agreed to list the case before Justice Chandrachud and asked Grover to mention it there. Grover appeared before Justice Chandrachud shortly thereafter and pressed for an urgent hearing, saying Zubair’s life was in danger and he should be protected by the apex court. Mehta, who was appearing in another case, was also present at the time in the courtroom. Justice Chandrachud told Grover that the court would take up the matter in a few minutes, giving time to Mehta to peruse the case records. When the case was called up, Grover submitted that “cash rewards” from ₹1,000 to ₹50,000 were offered to people to successfully initiate criminal action against Zubair. “This is all on social media and no action was taken by the Uttar Pradesh Police,” she submitted. Grover detailed the quick succession of cases registered against Zubair in an effort to keep his custody “ever-green”. FIRs were registered in Uttar Pradesh at Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri and Hathras. “He was arrested on June 27 in the Delhi case. Six other cases were registered in different districts of Uttar Pradesh. When he was remanded in judicial custody in the Delhi case, a production warrant from Sitapur arrives. When the Supreme Court gave interim bail to him on July 8 in the Sitapur case, the FIR is acted upon in Lakhimpur Kheri case. When he was granted bail on July 15 in the Delhi case, the Hathras production warrant arrives where the police have sought a full 14-day remand... Even I am finding it difficult to keep track,” Grover submitted. She said the offences arraigned against him mandate punishment of only three years. “Direct threats for him to be killed are being made... Not a single action has been taken,” Grover emphasised. “This kind of targetting must end... You may not like a tweet, but what is the purpose of making a criminal offence out of it?” Grover asked. SC agrees to list plea seeking darshan, pooja of shivling reportedly found on Gyanvapi mosque premises [Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Monday agreed to list on July 21 a petition seeking darshan]( and pooja of the shivling reportedly found on the Gyanvapi mosque premises during a survey. In an oral mentioning, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain urged the CJI to list the plea along with another petition filed by the caretakers of the Gyanvapi mosque, Anjuman Intejamia Masjid, which has challenged a lower court order to conduct a survey of the premises. “This is a petition to allow darshan and pooja of the ‘shivling’ which has been found in the complex and also to direct the Archaeological Survey of India to do carbon dating. The petition filed by masjid committee challenging the commission survey is coming up on July 21. Please list this petition along with that,” Jain submitted. The case is pending before a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. On May 20, the Justice Chandrachud Bench had said its interim order on May 17 to protect the area where the shivling was reportedly found would continue while Muslims would be able to offer namaaz in the mosque. The court had ordered the District Magistrate to make appropriate arrangements, if not already made, for Muslims to offer wazu khana before namaaz at the mosque. The Supreme Court had also transferred the Gyanvapi Masjid suit proceedings from a civil judge to the District Judge of Varanasi, saying the social complexities of the dispute required a “more senior and experienced judicial officer”. The Justice Chandrachud Bench had further, on May 20, directed the District Judge to hear on priority a challenge moved by the mosque’s caretakers against a suit filed last year by five Hindu women who want untrammeled rights to worship Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesh, Lord Hanuman and other “visible and invisible deities” within the mosque premises. The Anjuman has argued that the suit is barred in law. One more case of monkeypox in Kerala [A second case of monkeypox has been confirmed in Kerala in a 31-year-old man]( who reached Kannur from Dubai, via Mangalore, on July 13. Health Minister Veena George confirmed on Monday that one person had been isolated for treatment at Pariyaram Medical College Hospital, Kannur, as he seemed to have typical symptoms of monkeypox and that the samples had been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for confirmation. The patient is in good health and his close contacts have been brought into the Health department’s surveillance network for the next 21 days. The State has tightened disease surveillance at all four of its international airports and help desks have also been opened at these airports where trained healthcare workers have been deployed to help guide anyone, who may have symptoms or whose contacts may have tested positive for monkeypox. Meanwhile, the Health department has decided to make facilities for testing for monkeypox in its own laboratories. There are 28 government laboratories that have the facilities for conducting RT-PCR tests. In the first phase, the tests kits for testing monkey pox would be made available from NIV, Pune, at the National Institute of Virology lab at Alappuzha. Supreme Court stays orders by Karnataka HC against ACB in bail plea hearing, calls them ‘unconnected’, ‘irrelevant’ The [Supreme Court on Monday stayed orders passed by Karnataka High Court judge]( H.P. Sandesh against the State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and its chief, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Seemant Kumar Singh, unconnected to a bail plea he was hearing in a corruption case. The directions in question had ranged from seeking reports on prosecution/closure of cases probed by the ACB since 2016 and summoning confidential service records of the ADGP. “We stay proceedings like asking for service report, B summary report, observations on the ACB, etc. Prima facie, the observations made were unconnected to the bail petition. The observations were not made within the ambit of bail proceedings. The conduct of the ACB officer is unconnected to the bail petition. We direct the High Court to decide the bail petition,” a Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana ordered. The Bench said the observations made by the High Court judge were “irrelevant” to the bail plea. The Bench also issued notice in a plea by ACB and Singh to expunge remarks made by Justice Sandesh against them. Justice Sandesh had formerly called the ACB a “collection centre” and Singh a “tainted officer”. The court, however, did not accede to a request to shift the case to another Bench. “Sorry, we have to balance... We cannot be seen to be favoring one side,” the court said. The court listed the case after three weeks. On July 11, Justice Sandesh had revealed in an order that he was threatened with transfer for his adverse remarks against the State ACB and its top officer. He had proceeded to give a blow by blow account of how he was subjected to a veiled threat of transfer, that too through a sitting judge of the High Court, unless he laid off the ACB and its top officer. Justice Sandesh said the incident had happened during the farewell dinner for a retiring Chief Justice of the High Court. In Brief As many as 7,813 complaints against banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), pertaining to digital lending applications and recovery agents, were received under the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during the last financial year, according to the Central government. In a written reply to a question from Lok Sabha member Aparajita Sarangi, the Minister of State for Finance said the RBI had introduced the “The Reserve Bank -- Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021” wherein complaints against banks and NBFCs regarding digital lending could be lodged. The ombudsman has the power to pass an award for any consequential loss suffered by the complainant up to ₹20 lakh, in addition to up to ₹1 lakh for the loss of the complainant’s time, and expenses incurred and the harassment/mental anguish caused. 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