SCOI Reports

Angry exchanges between senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand, and the Solicitor General, Ranjit Kumar, marked the hearing before Court No 3 at 2pm before justices Anil R Dave, Fakkir Mohammed Ibrahim Kalifulla and V Gopala Gowda.£££para£££

The uncertainty surrounding the Supreme Court’s extension of protection from arrest of social activist, Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand, will be cleared tomorrow, 14 October, as matter has been listed before justices Anil R Dave, Fakkir mohammed Ibrahim Kalifulla and V Gopala Gowda at 2 p.m. at Court 3. The bench will hear the matter till 2.55 p.m.

The composition of the Constitution Bench on Aadhaar, which begins its hearing from 2 pm tomorrow, had led to an uncertainty as to how a five-judge bench could decide the question whether the right to privacy is a fundamental right, when a similar question was decided by a eight-judge bench.

As item 8 came up in Court No.3 at 11:30 AM on Monday, 12 October, before justices Anil R Dave and Adarsh Kumar Goel, the principal judge, Dave, showed considerable reluctance to extend the protection given to social activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand from arrest by the Gujarat Police, as sought by their counsel, senior advocate, Kapil Sibal.

Tomorrow, on Tuesday 13 October, the SC delivers will deliver judgment in Narendra Modi-baiter Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea to constitute a SIT to probe his allegations against Gujarat Government’s collusion with the riot-accused, and shield him from harassment.

Arguments in Rajbala vs State of Haryana] began in Court No.6 before justices J Chelameswar and AM Sapre on Wednesday, 7 October with petitioners’ counsel, Kirti Singh making her submissions first. She was followed by senior advocates, Sanjay Parikh and Indira Jaising on 8 October. Indira Jaising, who began her arguments at 2 p.m. was on her legs, when the Court rose for the day at 4 p.m.

Heated exchanges were witnessed in Court No 6 of the Supreme Court between 2 and 4 pm in the hearing of the case of Nagrik chetna manch vs UOI The attorney general, Mukul Rohatgi, who argued in favour of modification of the Court’s 11 August order clashed with SA Shyam Divan, who represented the petitioners in the main case, and opposed the modification plea.

In the Extra-Judicial Execution of Victim Families Association vs Union of India, which came up before the bench of justices Madan B Lokur and UU Lalit at Court 9 on Monday at 2.30 p.m., the amicus curiae, Menaka Guruswamy, proposed the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the six fake encounters involving seven victims in Manipur, as a result of action by the security forces.

A Supreme Court bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant today invoked Sir Winston Churchill through late Justice VR Krishna Iyer, to direct the High Court of Manipur at Imphal to decide expeditiously the election petition against Mairembam Prithviraj, elected from the Moirang assembly constituency of Bishnupur district, Manipur, in the election held on 28 January 2012.

In Arjun Gopal vs UOI filed in the Supreme Court, the three infants, all residents of Delhi, have sought the immediate intervention of Supreme Court against the inevitable and upcoming widespread use of firecrackers and fireworks and other products of the same classification, especially during the festivals of Dussehra and Diwali. The Supreme Court, their petition says, is bound under Article 32 to take interim steps in effectuating the people’s right to clean, healthy and breathable air under Article 21.

The reported comments of the Chief Justice of India, Justice HL Dattu, while refusing to entertain a petition from a journalist from Chennai seeking a ban on the sacrifice of animals during religious festivals across the country, have led to considerable consternation.

In a significant order, the social justice bench of the Supreme Court Justice Madan Lokur and Justice UU Lalit on Monday, 28 September, dismissed an application filed by the Government of Madhya Pradesh (GoMP) / Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) seeking a ‘modification / clarification’ of the apex court’s previous judgements of 2000 and 2005, thereby denying right to land of a few thousand adult sons of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) affected farmers.

When the BJP formed the Government at the Centre in 2014 with an absolute majority of its own, it was widely expected that judicial activism, which was on the rise in the 1990s and 2000s when coalition governments with bare majorities were in power at the Centre, might well be on its decline.

When the petition filed by Delhi Grameen Samaj and others against the Central Government’s Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance came up in court No.4 on Thursday, 24 September, it was a foregone conclusion that Justice JS Khehar, and Justice R Banumathi who heard it, would consider it infructuous, as the ordinance had already lapsed.

Association Of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy president, Neelam Krishnamoorthy expressed dismay over the reasoned judgment delivered by Justices Anil R Dave, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel yesterday (Wednesday, September 23) in the Uphaar criminal appeal.

The Supreme Court’s Social Justice bench comprising of Justices Madan B Lokur and Uday Umesh Lalit pursued their quest for social justice on Friday, Sepember 18 with a combination of compliment, reprimand, and expression of dismay. The bench heard eight cases in two hours from 2 pm in Court 9.

On September 15, the Supreme Court bench of justices Anil Dave and Adarsh Kumar Goel expedited a pending hearing on admission of SLP, and granted leave thus converting it into a civil appeal, even while continuing the ad-interim relief granted earlier. In the normal course, it would not have raised eyebrows. But when it became known that the subject of the SLP is about the Government’s denial of tax exemption to a film on gay sex, Meghdhanushya, (meaning a spectrum or a rainbow) it made news and rightly so. The film centers around a young boy who finds himself attracted by persons of his own sex.

Opponents of the Aadhaar scheme have stepped up their campaign to expose instances of contempt of court in the Aadhaar case, which is pending for a resolution by the yet-to-be constituted Supreme Court’s Constitution bench.

The Supreme Court bench comprising justices TS Thakur and Kurian Joseph, in their order first granted permission to file the SLP in the appeal against Bombay high court order staying the Maharashtra government’s ban on sale of meat on some days of Paryurshan, an annual holy festival of Jain community. The ban was to be effective on September 10 and 17.

History was made in Court No.6 yesterday (Wednesday, 16 September) with justices J Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre hearing in camera, Ravi, who is in judicial custody at the police station in Khekhra, Bhagpat district, Uttar Pradesh, in connection with a crime registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act since May 28, 2015.