Kerala High Court resumes hearing of Bail Application of M Sivasankar, Former Principal Secretary of Kerala Chief Minister

He denies ED's allegations that Sivasankar contacted customs officials to clear the baggage alleged to be containing smuggled gold.
He also tells Court that all of Swapna's statements categorically denied his client's involvement in gold smuggling, until before her arrest.
"If you don't identify the crime, how do you know it is a 'Scheduled Offence' under the PMLA from which the proceeds of crime came?": Gupta
Reads out Section 3 of PMLA:
"There has to be a predicate offence from which proceeds of crime arise, that money needs to be touched by the accused to be prosecuted"
https://t.co/sDkgKRDwp8
What is the predicate offence? PMLA is not applicable here: Gupta
The Project was a private contract, how are they saying that a government servant received kickbacks from it?: Gupta
Read S. 45 here: https://t.co/Y9emmHQIfa
(This Section was amended in 2018.)
Gupta refers to SC's verdict in Nikesh Tarachand Shah v. UoI where it was held that S. 45 is manifestly arbitrary and contravenes Art 14.
Gupta submits that 2018 amendment has not removed the problem.

Read here:
https://t.co/p8ykH5Z56P

Says that they are social acquaintances & merely because Sivasankar sought accommodation for Swapna, Respondents are making an impression that it was to keep proceeds of crime
Gupta: If this is to be read without any external allegations in mind, there is nothing suspicious about it. They are trying to create impressions.
https://t.co/lWadiouGKm
More from Live Law
More from Law
You can see who gave evidence in her support from these extracts from the Tavistock's Skeleton Argument.

Helpful for you to bear in mind that her solicitor was a man called Paul Conrathe, who has a long association with the religious right in the US (I have talked about him a number of times but this is as good a starting point as any).
In this thread, I noted the lawyer acting against the Tavistock, Paul Conrathe, is using very similar arguments (those under 18 cannot consent at all; or cannot lawfully consent without x conditions) as he has run/is running in a number of cases challenging abortion rights. https://t.co/gJk4c9bUED
— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) June 21, 2020
I am not going to address here other criticisms that might be made of the form in which that evidence was given or the timing of its service before the court. I am just going to address, in alphabetical order, the individuals whose evidence Mr Conrathe led on Ms Bell's behalf.
The first witness, alphabetically, was Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford, Michael Biggs.
Mr Biggs was exposed for posting transphobic statements online under a fake twitter handle: @MrHenryWimbush according to this report.
New out 🤯 A review which says lots about the academic context in which it was written - with its embedded behaviorist fixations on just implementing *better* - with complete disregard for the unintended consequences of treating "agency" as a dirty word
In all #becausehuman fields, we see justifiable professional kick-back at reductionist agendas driven by a focus on #obesity & nonsensical CMO guidance of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development
If we're going to "Bring the Early Years Expert out of the Shadows" we might start by linking #ECSDNConference2021 practitioners with @greg_dryer / @meaningfulPE in critique of the nonsensical CMO "60 minute" guidelines. PLEASE review @fhcappg session \U0001f447https://t.co/CFC61gNrsG https://t.co/I2mO6BwcZ0 pic.twitter.com/KFC65fSKco
— Greg Spencer (@SingleBlade1) January 22, 2021
What's fundamentally missing is not just a respect for complexity. It's respect for Homo-Narrans - for the ordinary, everyday story-telling folk all around us whose aspirations & dispositions provide the context in which we find meaning, purpose & value
We don't need spurious arguments against initiatives... but let's consider ethics & unintended consequences - on which, see @snowded (especially around epistemic justice) #becausehuman
https://t.co/gu97xDEamB
https://t.co/E1GzCdCfLA
https://t.co/bKowDAgARQ
https://t.co/evzYMBPwvZ

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As a dean of a major academic institution, I could not have said this. But I will now. Requiring such statements in applications for appointments and promotions is an affront to academic freedom, and diminishes the true value of diversity, equity of inclusion by trivializing it. https://t.co/NfcI5VLODi
— Jeffrey Flier (@jflier) November 10, 2018
We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.
Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)
It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.
Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".

Stan Lee, who died Monday at 95, was born in Manhattan and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. His pulp-fiction heroes have come to define much of popular culture in the early 21st century.
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The New York universe hooked readers. And the artists drew what they were familiar with, which made the Marvel universe authentic-looking, down to the water towers atop many of the buildings. https://t.co/rDosqzpP8i

The Avengers Mansion was a Beaux-Arts palace. Fans know it as 890 Fifth Avenue. The Frick Collection, which now occupies the place, uses the address of the front door: 1 East 70th Street.