Taking note of Vikrant Jaitly’s “wish to not communicate with his sister”, the Delhi high court on Monday closed the petition of Bollywood actor Celina Jaitly was seeking directions to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to facilitate interaction with her brother.. Celina Jaitly’s brother, Major (Retd) Vikrant Jaitly, has been in detention in the UAE for 18 months now.. Celina’s petition seeks directions to the Centre to facilitate legal assistance for her brother and enable communication with him. Vikrant Jaitly has been detained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for over 18 months for reasons not known yet.. The Centre on Monday told the Delhi high court that Celina Jaitly’s detained brother Vikrant was unwilling to be represented by any law firm, including the one chosen by his sister, to communicate with her, and had said that decisions regarding legal representation would be taken solely by his wife, Charul, HT reported earlier.. The submission was made by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma before a bench of Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav in Celina’s petition. The same was based on a February 18 meeting between the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and Vikrant.. Noting submissions by the ASG, the high court closed Celina Jaitly’s petition and turned down her further request for at least one opportunity to speak with her brother through video conferencing to confirm his stand.. Saying that the court must adhere to Vikrant’s stated position and that the reliefs sought had been “sufficiently” addressed, the judge said that there was no reason to keep the matter pending.. The court said that the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi had been in “active contact with Vikrant” and had interacted with him nine times since his detention. The bench directed the Centre to continue providing legal assistance to Vikrant and look after his well-being.. “The Indian officials deputed in UAE, when interacted and when Mr Jaitly says something we’ll have to adhere to it. There is no reason to doubt that. Why we should continue this petition?”, the earlier report quoted the bench as saying.. On the basis of the statement and undertakings given by the MEA, the bench said, it has come on record that the respondent is in active contact with Vikrant Jaitly.. It also appears that counsellor access to Jaitely has been granted, the bench further said.. “The officials of the embassy of India in Abu Dhabi have interacted 9 times. In view of the aforesaid, aforenoted facts and developments, there is no reason to keep the petition pending and the same is accordingly disposed of,” it said. 

 The biennial Rajya Sabha elections were held on Monday to fill 37 seats across 10 states. While many candidates won unopposed, voting was required for 11 seats, including five seats in Bihar, four in Odisha and two in Haryana.. Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister, Nitish Kumar, was among the prominent leaders who won in the Rajya Sabha polls. (HT File Photo/Santosh Kumar via HT). Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister, Nitish Kumar, was among the prominent leaders who won in the Rajya Sabha polls. Notably, the Opposition faced losses in Odisha and Bihar as candidates backed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) gained from cross-voting and the absence of some legislators, as mentioned in an earlier HT report.. ALSO READ | Nitish Kumar, Nitin Nabin emerge victorious as NDA sweeps all five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar. Rajya Sabha Election Results. State. Candidate. Party. BiharNitish KumarJD(U). BiharNitin NabinBJP. BiharRam Nath ThakurJD(U). BiharShivesh KumarBJP. BiharUpendra KushwahaRLM. OdishaManmohan SamalBJP. OdishaSujeet KumarBJP. OdishaSantrupt MisraBJD. OdishaDilip RayIndependent. HaryanaSanjay BhatiaBJP. HaryanaKaramvir Singh BoudhCongress. Many others were elected unopposed. Among those elected to the Upper House unopposed were former Lok Sabha deputy speaker M Thambidurai from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and senior lawyer Abhishek Singhvi from the Congress party.. In poll-bound West Bengal, four Trinamool Congress (TMC) nominees were also elected without opposition. They include Babul Supriyo, former West Bengal director general of police Rajeev Kumar, senior Supreme Court lawyer Menaka Guruswamy and actor Koel Mallick. Former BJP state president Rahul Sinha was also elected unopposed.. Notably, Guruswamy has become India’s first openly queer member of parliament.. In Maharashtra, all seven nominees won unopposed. These include six candidates from the ruling Mahayuti alliance as well as NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar.. The biennial Rajya Sabha elections were held on Monday to fill 37 seats across 10 states.. In Telangana, Congress nominees Abhishek Singhvi and Vem Narender Reddy were elected unopposed.. In Tamil Nadu, all six candidates also won without a contest. AIADMK sitting MP M Thambidurai and PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss were elected along with ruling DMK candidates Tiruchi Siva and J Constantine Ravindran. Congress candidate M Christopher Tilak and DMDK treasurer LK Sudeesh were also elected unopposed.. In the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, Congress candidate Anurag Sharma, a close aide of chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, secured victory.. With inputs from agencies 

 Kerala Congress (M), a partner in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), announced their candidates for the upcoming Kerala assembly polls on Monday.. Kerala Congress (M), BDJS announce names of 12 candidates each. KC(M) chairman and Rajya Sabha MP Jose K Mani will fight from the Pala assembly constituency in Kottayam, a seat his father KM Mani represented for over five decades until his death in 2019. Pala is currently represented by Mani C Kappan, a partner in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).. Water resources minister and senior KC(M) leader Roshy Augustine has been renominated from Idukki constituency while four of the remaining five sitting MLAs including Pramod Narayan, N Jayaraj and Sebastian Kulanthungal will fight from their respective seats.. Nirmala Jimmy, the sole woman candidate among 12 faces of the party, has been allotted the Kaduthuruthy seat while Biju Chirayath, a former Congress councillor, has been nominated from Chalakudy assembly constituency.. The BDJS also announced candidates in 12 seats while the remaining are set to be named by Tuesday. The fate of the BDJS president Tushar Vellappally is not known.. Some of its candidates are Santhosh Shanthy (Kuttanad), Thambi Mettuthara (Kayamkulam), Suresh Ettikunnel (Kaduthuruthy) and Sangeetha Viswanathan (Udumbanchola).. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BDJS contested 21 of the 140 seats. 

 New Delhi: A parliamentary panel has recommended the government to institutionalise a system of maintaining a reserve panel or waitlist to fill the vacancies in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), noting that the federal agency was facing around 15% shortage of personnel and was not receiving sufficient nominations from the state police, which have traditionally been a major source of recruitment.. Keep waitlist or reserve system for CBI vacancies: Parl committee. The parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice, in its 160th report, tabledin the Lok Sabha on Monday, also recommended undertaking a detailed root-cause analysis to examine the reasons for attrition in the sub-inspector cadre in the federal anti-corruption agency.. The committee, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Brij Lal, noted that in 2025, CBI had in-position strength of 6,212 personnel, 1,088 posts (or 14.90%) lower than the sanctioned 7,300 positions. To be sure, CBI had 20.57% vacant posts in 2024.. Asserting that a vacancy level of nearly 15% in a premier probe agency is a matter of serious concern, the committee in its report said: “The committee notes that one of the major reasons for vacancies under the Direct Recruitment quota is that certain candidates recommended by UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) and SSC (Staff Selection Commission) do not ultimately join the organisation, resulting in persistent shortfalls.”. Stating that such avoidable vacancies should not be allowed to spill over and affect operational efficiency, the committee report recommended that “a system of maintaining a reserve panel or waitlist, in consultation with the recruiting agencies, may be institutionalised so that vacancies arising due to this phenomenon can be filled in a time-bound manner without initiating a fresh recruitment cycle.”. The department of personnel and training (DoPT) informed the committee that CBI was not receiving sufficient and suitable nominations of officers from state police, particularly in the ranks of inspectors and superintendents of police (SPs).. The report pointed out 77 vacancies out of 500 posts in the sub-inspector grade in CBI as on December 31, 2025, adding that a “high attrition rate has also been indicated in this cadre”.. “Considering that Sub-Inspector is the feeder grade for supervisory positions and forms the backbone of investigation work, the Committee views this as a matter of serious concern,” the report said.. It recommended that “a detailed root cause analysis be undertaken to examine the reasons for attrition in the SI cadre, including issues relating to workload, career progression, working conditions, transfers, training, and inter-organisational mobility. Based on such analysis, appropriate corrective measures may be introduced to enhance retention and morale.” 

 Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has agreed to revoke the suspension of eight Opposition MPs, including seven from the Congress, who were suspended for the entirety of the ongoing budget session. At a meeting convened by Birla, both the ruling and the opposition sides also agreed not to enter the well of the Lok Sabha to confront the other and to adhere to the established norms and traditions of the House.. The Opposition’s notice for a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had also mentioned the suspension of MPs. (ANI). The government will move a motion to revoke the suspension of lawmakers on Tuesday, 42 days after they were barred for the remainder of the budget session. They were suspended after massive protests rocked the House following Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s insistence to read from former army chief MM Naravane’s unpublished memoir.. The Opposition’s notice for a no-confidence motion against Birla had also mentioned the suspension of MPs. On Monday, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal raised the issue in the Lok Sabha. “Rose in the Lok Sabha to raise concern over the unfair suspension of 8 Opposition MPs for this Session. Parliament has seen countless protests but the suspension of MPs is a disturbing new trend that cannot be allowed to continue. This suspension should be revoked immediately,” the Congress MP said in a post on X.. At the meeting convened by Birla, several opposition MPs, including Congress’s K Suresh, NCP(SP) lawmaker Supriya Sule, TMC’s Shatabdi Ray, demanded that the suspension be lifted. Samajwadi Party leader Dharmendra Yadav told Birla: “You are a large-hearted Speaker. You should revoke the suspension.”. Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju also raised the topic of disruptions and unruly protests. “The leaders collectively decided that no member from either side would approach the opposite side in the well of the House, tear papers and throw them towards the Chair, or climb on the officials’ table inside the House. There was further consensus that all members would adhere to the established decorum and traditions of Parliament, and that both sides would ensure such incidents are not repeated in the future,” an official said.. Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Hibi Eden, C Kiran Kumar Reddy, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Manickam Tagore, Prashant Padole and Dean Kuriakose (all Congress) and S Ventakesan of the CPI(M) were suspended from the House by a motion moved by Rijiju on February 3.. Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a bulletin reminding the members that areas in the Parliament estate should be kept obstruction-free to ensure the movement of members. “…Members have also been repeatedly advised not to bring or display posters, placards, or banners inside Parliament,” it added.