HIGHLIGHTS
~ The SC shed its traditional nervousness in dealing with issues having religious overtones.
~ It turned into a window of hope for distressed women with more than 20 week pregnancies.
~ Many constitution benches were set up to deal with pending issues - from validity of Aadhaar which halfway through gave birth to the path-breaking right to privacy as a fundamental right, to tricky issues like misbehaviour of a sitting high court judge.
Attitude, approach and rectitude of a Chief Justice of India bring in marked changes in the core character of the Supreme Court. In the year gone by, the SC saw three CJIs. But Justice J S Khehar, followed by Justice Dipak Misra, set the ball rolling by taking up for adjudication constitutional issues that were brushed under the carpet for years.
This made the SC appear truly a constitutional court, a role assigned by the Constitution and envisaged by the framers of the Constitution. The SC, sitting at the top of the three-tier judiciary, had for the last two decades got mired in too many PILs, giving fodder to politicians to slam the judiciary for encroaching into the executive's domain.
In the 2017 balance sheet, the SC had many positives. To overcome an eight-judge bench decision negating the fundamental nature of right to privacy more than 50 years ago, a nine-judge bench took up the important issue for scrutiny keeping in mind citizens' vulnerability to present day gadget-encouraged intruding tendencies.
"Right to privacy is an integral part of right to life and personal liberty guaranteed in Article 21 of the Constitution," the nine-judge bench ruled unanimously while comprehensively rejecting the NDA government's stand against privacy being conferred the status of fundamental right.
The SC shed its traditional nervousness in dealing with issues having religious overtones to set up a multi-faith five-judge bench to examine petitions by Muslim women challenging the legality of triple talaq, a tool used by Muslim men to divorce wives instantaneously.
The bench ruled that triple talaq was arbitrary and violated right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 because it gave Muslim men unilateral right to terminate marriage without any rapprochement. It was a decisive step towards gender equality, which for centuries was strangulated in the name of religion. The SC ruled that triple talaq was not sanctioned by the Quran and hence not part of Islamic religious practices.
Following the footsteps of the Bombay High Court which threw open the Shani Shingnapur temple to women, the SC helped women gain entry into the sanctum sanctorum of the famous Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai. The SC's nudge made the Valsad Zoroastrian panchayat permit two Parsi women, forbidden from entering the Tower of Silence because they married outside the community, to enter the premises to perform the last rites of parents.
A bench of top seven SC judges, including the CJI, was constituted to deal with open defiance and derogatory comments of sitting Calcutta HC judge Justice C S Karnan. Putting a premium on judicial discipline, decorum and dignity, the bench sentenced Justice Karnan to six-month imprisonment holding him guilty of contempt. For the first time in the SC's 67-year history, a sitting judge was jailed. Though embarrassing, it sent a loud message to everyone, both within and outside judiciary, about non-negotiability of rule of law and judicial dignity.
If decisions on right to privacy, triple talaq and Justice Karnan settled raging national debates, the SC's upholding of a trial court decision to convict and sentence V K Sasikala in a DA case had a tectonic effect on Tamil Nadu politics. Tremors of the verdict continue to smudge the state's political canvas.
Concerned by alarming levels of pollution, the SC on Diwali-eve banned sale of crackers in Delhi and the National Capital Region. But the decision was hardly a deterrent as pollution refuses to go away.
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act permitted a woman to terminate a problematic pregnancy or diseased foetus only up to 20 weeks. When the SC on humanitarian considerations allowed a minor to terminate her over 20-week pregnancy, there was a deluge of similar applications.
The SC turned into a window of hope for distressed women with more than 20 week pregnancies to get medical boards' opinions for safe termination. A pertinent questioned emerged from this exercise - should Parliament amend the law to allow termination of over 20-week pregnancies in exceptional situations?
One cannot end the narrative for the year in the SC without mentioning the medical admission scam that saw a retired HC judge arrested and indicated possible involvement of a sitting Allahabad HC judge. The scam threatened to singe the SC itself with spirited advocates insinuating against the incumbent CJI. Rules were thrown to the winds when advocates decided to pursue PILs on the issue before a particular bench, which obliged.
The crisis made CJI Misra hurriedly constitute a five-judge bench which ruled that the CJI was the master of the roster and no other judge could decide when and who would hear a petition. The course correction brought a diminishing trust quotient within the SC into the open.
On the administrative side, the CJI instituted an inquiry into complaints against the Allahabad HC judge who had permitted a private medical college, despite complete a ban by the SC, to admit students for the 2017-18 academic year.
#Challenges
Alarming level of vacancies in HC judges has remained stagnant at 40% of sanctioned strength. Nine HCs are without chief justices. The SC has six vacancies.
2018 has to be the year of appointments. The CJI-headed collegium must attempt to fill SC vacancies, followed by appointment of CJs to HCs.
Two years have passed since a Constitution bench ordered framing of memorandum of procedure for appointment of judges. Sadly, the law minister and the collegium have not been able to sort out contentious issues. It is time for wise heads, in the government and the judiciary, to resolve this lingering disagreement, which is impacting speedy justice.
(स्रोत - Times Of India )
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