BREAKING| Supreme Court To Have Two Constitution Benches Sitting Tomorrow; 4 Matters Listed Before Each Bench

The Supreme Court will have two Constitution Benches of 5-judges each sitting tomorrow. Four pending matters are listed before both the benches.

First Bench

The first CB consists of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit, Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi, JB Pardiwala.

It will consider the following four matters :

1. Whether Muslims, as a community, can be declared socially and educationally backward for the purposes of Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution? (Case No. C.A. No.7513/2005)

2. Minority reservation for Sikhs in Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) institutions (SLP (C) No.2755/2008)

3. Petitions seeking reliefs for division of Supreme Court into appellate and Constitutional divisions with regional benches for the former(W.P.(C)No.36/2016)

4.  Validity of Constitution 103rd Amendment which introduced provision for reservation to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) (WP(c) No.55/2019).

 Second Bench.

The Second CB consists of Justices Indira Banerjee, Hemant Gupta, Surya Kant, MM Sundresh and Sudhanshu Dhulia. It will consider four matters as follows.

1. Correctness of K. Manjusree v. State of Andhra Pradesh and another (2008) 3 SCC 512, wherein it was held that "introduction of the requirement of the minimum marks for interview, after the entire selection process (consisting of written examination and interview) was completed, would amount to changing the rules of the game after the game was played which is clearly impermissible" and subsequently, reference has been made by the 3-judge bench to a larger Bench for an authoritative pronouncement(C.A. No. 2634 of 2013).

2. Whether dictum in Kothari Products Ltd v Government of AP, or the contradictory dictum laid down in Commissioner, Sales Tax UP v M/s Agra Belting Works, Agra, is correct. Also the question whether view of five learned Judges cannot be overruled by a view of four learned Judges speaking for a Bench of 7 learned Judges? (C.A.NO.8485/2011).

3.Plea relating to validity of Muslim personal law practices of Nikah Halala, polygamy (WP(c) 222/2018).

4. Validity of Haryana Government's policy allowing premature release of life convicts aged above 75 which overrides Section 433A of Code of Criminal Procedure(CRL.A.NO.1003/2017).

On August 25, the Supreme Court had notified that 25 Constitution Bench matters will be listed from August 29 onwards. The matters are not listed for substantive hearing but for directions related to the completion of filings, indication of tentative time to be taken by lawyers for arguments etc.

For details about the 25 Constitution Bench matters which will be listed in the coming days, refer this report.

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