SCOI Reports

The Supreme Court’s collegium of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and the next senior-most judges, justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, have begun to post recommendations for elevations and other business on a new ‘resolutions of the collegium’ section of its website according to minutes dated 3 October.

As the challenge to compulsory Aadhaar identification to file IT returns was heard by the Supreme Court for the second day today (27 April), the mood among the anti-Aadhaar activists has been upbeat.

In a first of its kind, the Supreme Court on 30 March directed the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to deactivate one of its cell phone towers, located in a residential area in Gwalior since 2003, on the mere suspicion by a petitioner that it might have caused the cancer of a resident, working in its vicinity, as first reported by the Times of India.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has passed a resolution slamming the Bar Council of India (BCI) and that it opposed the Law Commission’s reforms of the profession and that it’s members should wear white arm bands in solidarity with striking lawyers tomorrow.

It’s perhaps not enough of the transparency that the systems needs, but it’s an important step in that direction: once judges get used to a camera staring at them without adverse repercussions (and possibly even benefits, in stop the worst of lawyer theatrics and occasional riot-like behaviour in court rooms), we may even get audio recording, and, eventually maybe, full access to live feeds from courts...

And here’s one of the problems with the opaque collegium and judiciary, which rarely if ever officially confirms anything to journalists, leaving reporting on the bench to often be sourced on hints and whispers.

A petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay in the apex court is arguing that legislators should cease practising law because it gives rise to conflict between their duty to client and to the constitution, seeking to extend the restriction that exists on public servants and judges to carry out professions to elected parliamentarians, reported The Hindu:

Senior counsel Dushyant Dave, writing in The Wire, has criticised a number of recent decisions of the Supreme Court regarding judicial elevations and transfers, for having been as opaque (as ever) and having missed out on obvious candidates, suggesting that executive pressure scuppered the elevations of several judges who’d handed down decisions the government wouldn’t have liked.

The Supreme Court collegium has finally completed its year-long-awaited draft of the memorandum of procedure (MOP), which would govern how judges are appointed in future, reported the The Times of India’s Dhananjay Mahapatra earlier today:

The suicide note of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister, Kalikho Pul, has landed the apex court in a bit of a dilemma, with its decision to judicially hear as a writ petition the letter written by his widow, Dangwimsai Pul, backfiring today, as we had reported.

The case of the suicide note of Arunachal Pradesh ex-chief minister Kalikho Pul took a dramatic turn today, with the Supreme Court closing the matter on the judicial side after senior counsel Dushyant Dave impassioned pleas for Pul’s widow, Dangwimsai Pul.

With the last batch of Supreme Court elevations having been made only in May 2016 with four new judges (who had been recommended in December 2015), the collegium’s latest recommendations of five new Supreme Court judges were cleared by the president yesterday.

After the Supreme Court slapped him with suo motu contempt charges, Calcutta high court Justice CS Karnan has written a letter dated yesterday to the Supreme Court, vowing to file a criminal case against the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and another Supreme Court judge under the SC / ST Atrocities Act for allegedly victimising him because of his caste.

The Supreme Court has accepted the review petition of its controversial Uphaar fire tragedy sentencing verdict, which had seen the two accused escape without any additional jail time.