Author: NitiRiti Bureau

New Delhi, Feb 6. Five more judges were sworn in as Supreme Court judges on Monday taking the strength of the top court to 32, two short of its full strength of 34. The court’s caseload stands at 69,511 cases as of Feb 1, 2023. Here’s a look at the new judges as seen through their observations (which are of course obiter), orders, judgements and news reports. Justice Pankaj Mithal, Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court 1.In a recent ruling, the Rajasthan High Court dismissed the appeal of a Yemeni national who had got his research visa extended on the…

New Delhi, Feb 4. Singapore Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon on Saturday exhorted judicial systems in different jurisdictions to engage with each other more, communicate and collaborate with each other, and also make the system easier for litigants who wish to fight their legal battles on their own. The Singapore Supreme Court conducts regular surveys to get feedback from users i.e., self-represented laypersons, to constantly improve the system, he said. Their numbers are increasing. Make judicial system more user-centric Besides, this category there are another 1.3 billion who have been left out of the system due to lack of access to…

New Delhi, Feb 3. The Supreme Court on Friday sought an explanation from the Indian government over its recent move to block the BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and any connected tweets and links. The government will have to respond to the court notices in 4 weeks. The case will come up for hearing again in April. The bench, however, refused to pass any interim orders for now such as lifting the ban on the documentary. “Can we pass interim orders without first hearing the government,” the two-judge bench sought to know when senior advocate C.U. Singh sought…

New Delhi, Feb 2. Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud observed on Thursday that the right to vote was a fundamental right of a citizen as it was part of his right to speech and expression. “Right to vote is a fundamental right of the right to free speech of a citizen,” Justice Chandrachud said in a petition challenging the right of a candidate to contest election from two seats simultaneously. The CJI is the second judge to air such views on this in open court. Justice K.M. Joseph had also expressed similar views regarding the right to vote during…

New Delhi, Feb 1. Whatsapp India won’t for now disrupt service even if a user were not to accept its much-contested 2021 privacy policy and also not hold those who have already accepted it to their legal obligations. This position will continue till the government of India comes up with a personal data protection bill. This was the sum and substance of the day-long hearing in the Supreme Court on the issue today. Whatsapp’s 2016 and 2021 privacy policy have been challenged in the courts on the ground that it allowed Whatsapp to share data with Facebook and other group…

New Delhi, Jan 31. Adultery may well have been struck off the statute books as a crime, but armed forces personnel will continue to be held to a higher standard and any adulterous relationship will be treated as conduct “unbecoming” of an armed services personnel. This follows a Supreme Court five-judge bench clarification on the issue. The top court clarified this at the insistence of the central government which said that army personnel cannot be allowed to behave in such an unbecoming manner. “Any such behaviour will compromise discipline and professionalism of the forces,” Additional Solicitor General Madhavi Divan told…

New Delhi, Jan 28. Former Supreme Court judge R.F. Nariman on Friday tore into Law Minister Kiren Rijiju’s criticism of the collegium system. He was equally scathing in his criticism of the recent remarks made by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar against the basic structure doctrine espoused by the Supreme Court. The doctrine laid down in the Keshavananda Bharti case states that the basic structure of the Indian Constitution cannot be amended. There has been much criticism of both the collegium system, which gives a CJI-led collegium of four senior-most judges primacy over judicial appointments, and the basic structure doctrine used…

New Delhi, Jan 25. The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted interim bail to Lakhimpur Kheri key accused Ashish Mishra for eight weeks. Mishra, the son of Union minister of home Ajay Mishra, will not stay either in Uttar Pradesh or Delhi NCR during this time, the court said. Mishra junior is accused of leading a convoy of vehicles belonging to BJP party workers which ran over farmers protesting against the central government’s farm laws. Four farmers were killed in the mowing down incident. Four others died in the retaliatory violence. Ashish Mishra will leave Uttar Pradesh within a week of…

New Delhi, Jan 24. Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday took umbrage to the Supreme Court collegium making public adverse IB reports on candidates recommended for appointing as judges. Placing secret or sensitive reports of the RAW or IB in public domain is a “matter of grave concern” Rijiju said, days after the collegium placed several such reports in public domain in a bid to counter government objections to its recommendations. The objections by the IB/RAW ranged from critiquing government policy on social media or articles critical of the top executive etc. The collegium had said that candidates being recommended…

New Delhi, Jan 19. Amidst a standoff with the government over the collegium system of appointing judges to constitutional courts, the Supreme Court has reiterated several names for appointment as High Court judges, names which were earlier rejected by the government on grounds that they had voiced their opinion on social media or critiqued government policy. HOLDING ONESELF AS GAY IS NOT A DISQUALIFICATION Nor can openly holding oneself out as gay count as a disqualification, a collegium headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said in collegium resolutions uploaded on the website of the Supreme Court. These resolutions…