oppn parties Supreme Court Restores Faith In Rule Of Law

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
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Supreme Court Restores Faith In Rule Of Law

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2024-01-10 03:05:05

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The Supreme Court has quashed the Gujarat government order granting remission of sentence to 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano rape case in which 7 of her family were also brutally murdered. They have been ordered to report to prison authorities within 15 days of the order. Saying that the Gujarat government was not the competent authority to decide on the remission as the trial was held in Maharashtra, the apex court said that the state government did not apply its mind before deciding to release the 11 convicts.

The court was scathing in its criticism of the Gujarat government which, it said, had used 'fraud' through misrepresentation of facts to use a Supreme Court 2022 directive to look into the situation of one of the convicts to grant remission of sentence to all convicts. The court nullified its 2022 direction on the grounds that it was 'misled by suppression of facts'. It said that although the Gujarat government acted on the basis of its 2022 direction, it was "contrary to the letter and spirit of law".

The court categorically said that it cannot "be left to the whims and fancies of the appropriate government either to seek or not to seek the opinion of the presiding judge or the court before which the conviction had taken place". In this case, the Gujarat government did not seek the opinion of the court in Maharashtra which had convicted the 11 accused.

It is good that the apex court acted to reverse the arbitrary and premeditated decision of the Gujarat government. In this case, the executive threw the legal process out of the window to fulfill its political agenda. It did not matter to it that the convicts were guilty of a heinous hate crime which bordered on the rarest of the rare description as it was a cold-blooded conspiracy against a family of the minority community. The Supreme Court, by sending the convicts back to prison, has restored the faith of the people in the rule of law.