SC Issues Notice To Justice Katju In Govindaswamy Review Case [Read Order]

In a surprise development, after the conclusion of hearing of arguments by the review petitioners in the Govindaswamy case, the Supreme Court bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi, Prafulla C Pant and Uday Umesh Lalit, this afternoon, issued notice to the former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Markandey Katju, to appear in Court in person, and participate in the proceedings on November 11 at...

Judiciary Must Defend And Protect Political Freedoms, Says Anupama Roy, Author And Expert On Citizenship Law - [Interview:Part-2]

Q. In your book, there is an interesting discussion about Gandhi’s support to a moral right to rebel and resist an unjust government at the core of the duties of citizenship and Ambedkar’s famous plea in the Constituent Assembly in 1949 to abandon the methods of non-cooperation, civil disobedience and satyagraha. Today, if India is to experience something like the Internal Emergency of 1975-77, what are the options to citizens? Can they claim a right to rebel against a Government, which imposes...

Uniform Civil Code

The issue of a uniform civil code has recently been raised. I am fully in support of a uniform civil code.Article 44 of the Indian Constitution states : " The state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India ". No doubt Article 44 is in the Directive Principles, and not the Fundamental Rights of our Constitution, but Article 37 states...

How Embedded Patriarchy Has Historically Denied Justice to Women

In a Judgment [Narendra vs. K.Meena] by Justice Anil Dave and Justice Nageshwar Rao, the Supreme Court has stated that separating a Hindu husband from his parents amounts to ‘cruelty’.The Judgment suggested that “a son, brought up and given education by his parents, has a moral and legal obligation to take care and maintain the parents, when they become old and when they have either...

Time To Revamp The Parole System In India?

Many aspersions have been cast on the parole system in India and it continues to face intense debate and antagonism. Balancing individual freedom and larger social interests is the nucleus of legal policy making and an inextricable component of justice. The Positivist School of thought believes in the power of rehabilitation while the Classical approach condemns the risk associated with...

Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 Goes Against Constitutional Morality: Anupama Roy, Author And Expert On Citizenship Law

Anupama Roy is a Proessor at the Centre for Political Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests include legal studies, political anthropology of political institutions, political ideas, and gender studies.  She obtained her Ph.D from the State University of New York at Binghamton, United States.  She is the author of Gendered Citizenship: Historical and Conceptual Explorations (2013) and Mapping Citizenship in India (OUP, 2010), and has co-edited Poverty, Gender...

PIL Battles Involve Much More Than What Meets The Eye

Among the many anecdotes which Nandini Sundar narrates in her latest well-researched book-'The Burning Forest: India’s war in Bastar', the readers will surely find this amusing:Every time the case she filed against Salwa Judum was listed for hearing in the Supreme Court,  Nandini Sundar made offerings at the tomb of a medieval ‘judge saab’ in the scrub jungle near her home in Delhi,...

Strange Ideas Of Justice Dave

The ideas of Justice Anil Dave, the second senior most judge in the Supreme Court are, to say the least, strange.Consider the following: He gave a public statement that the Gita should be made compulsory in all schools in India. Now the Gita is perceived by most Muslims and some other non Hindu communities as a Hindu religious book. How can it be forcibly taught to non Hindus in a...

Women As Respondents Under The Domestic Violence Act: Critiquing The SC Decision In Harsora V. Harsora

Last week, in Hiral Harsora v. Kusum Harsora, the Supreme Court held that Section 2(q) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (“DV Act”), is unconstitutional to the extent that it defines “respondents” under the Act to only include “adult males.” The impugned section had permitted aggrieved persons under the Act to file a case only against adult male...

Casket Of Dadri Lynching Accused Draped With Indian Flag; Violation Of Flag Code

Photos of the casket of Ravi Sisodia, one of the accused in the Dadri lynching of October 2015 have been circulating in today’s newspapers. The Indian national flag is placed upon his casket, which falls directly in violation with the Flag Code of India 2002. Legally, the custom of the Indian Tricolour being placed over funeral caskets has been reserved for members of the Armed Forces,...

Centre Urges SC To Abolish Triple Talaq, Polygamy [Read Affidavit]

“Validity of practices like triple talaq and polygamy needs to be seen in the light of gender justice. They go against the principle of gender equality and are unfair, unreasonable and discriminatory”: Centre’s affidavit in Supreme Court. Taking a firm stand against the controversial Muslim custom of triple talaq and polygamy officially for the first time, the Centre has told the...

SC Stays Patna HC Order Which Quashed Bihar Liquor Ban

Nitish Kumar government secured a major relief from the Supreme Court today when it stayed the operation of the September 30 Patna High Court judgement which quashed the state's law banning sale and consumption of all types of liquorThe SC said: “liquor and fundamental rights” do not go together.A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U lalit also issued notices to all the respondents...