Author: Anvita Dwivedi
In a significant development expanding the discourse on victim rights and rehabilitative justice, the Supreme Court has called upon the Union Government and the Ministry of Railways to examine the feasibility of extending rail travel concessions and an emergency reservation quota for acid attack survivors. The observations came during the hearing of a matter concerning the rehabilitation and welfare of acid attack victims, where the Court indicated that meaningful rehabilitation cannot be confined merely to monetary compensation but must encompass measures that facilitate access to healthcare, education, employment and social reintegration. While refraining from issuing a mandatory direction at this…
In a significant order concerning the intersection of judicial administration, technology governance and institutional autonomy, the Supreme Court has declined to entertain a public interest petition seeking a direction that the Court adopt only Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for its case management system. While refusing to issue a judicial mandate compelling the Registry to replace or redesign its digital infrastructure, the Court nevertheless recognised the value of constructive public participation by observing that the petitioner was at liberty to submit technical suggestions and recommendations directly to the Supreme Court Registry for consideration. The order reflects a careful constitutional…
The legal battle surrounding the investigation into the tragic Air India Flight AI-171 crash has now moved beyond questions of technical causation into a larger constitutional debate concerning judicial oversight, executive accountability and India’s obligations under international aviation law. In a detailed affidavit placed before the Supreme Court, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has opposed the demand for a court-monitored or parallel investigation into the crash, asserting that the inquiry is being conducted strictly in accordance with the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) and the globally accepted standards contained in Annex 13 governing aircraft accident investigations. The…
More than twenty-seven years after one of India’s most shocking incidents of religiously motivated violence, the Supreme Court has once again found itself examining not the guilt of the convicted offender, but the constitutional limits of executive clemency and sentence remission. Hearing the plea of Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two young sons, Philip and Timothy, the Court directed the Government of Odisha to take a final decision on his application for premature release by August 19. The Bench clarified that…
In a judgment that is likely to become an important precedent in the law relating to dowry death prosecutions and criminal appreciation of evidence, the Supreme Court has acquitted a husband convicted in a twenty-six-year-old dowry death case while delivering a scathing criticism of what it described as a “clear travesty of justice” arising from the indiscriminate prosecution of seventeen members of the matrimonial family. The Court observed that the accused relatives appeared to have been arraigned not because of credible evidence demonstrating their individual involvement, but merely because they happened to share a marital relationship with the deceased. Simultaneously,…
In an important clarification with far-reaching implications for constitutional rights, electoral law and welfare governance, the Supreme Court has observed that removal of a person’s name from the electoral roll does not automatically deprive that individual of statutory welfare benefits such as subsidised food grains or ration entitlements. While disposing of a writ petition filed by a resident of West Bengal whose ration benefits were allegedly threatened following his exclusion from the State’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Court reiterated that the legal consequences of deletion from the voters’ list are strictly confined to electoral participation and…
In a judgment that is likely to assume considerable significance in the jurisprudence governing the intersection of national security, property rights and religious institutions, the Rajasthan High Court has dismissed a batch of writ petitions challenging show-cause and eviction notices issued to several Mosques, Madrasas and Dargahs situated within approximately 50 kilometres of the India–Pakistan international border. Holding that the controversy must be viewed through the lens of border security and regulatory compliance rather than communal identity, the Court observed that the impugned action formed part of a larger administrative exercise undertaken in a strategically sensitive border belt and could…
In a judgment that is likely to become a landmark in India’s securities regulation jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has emphatically held that a regulatory breach under securities law cannot be justified merely because investors ultimately earned profits. Dismissing a batch of appeals filed by Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company (Kotak AMC), Kotak Mahindra Trustee Company, and several of their senior executives, the Court upheld the action initiated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over the handling of six Fixed Maturity Plan (FMP) schemes linked to the Essel Group debt crisis. Delivering a strong message to the mutual…
The Supreme Court’s recent attempt to explore the possibility of an amicable settlement in three of the country’s most closely watched religious site disputes the Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute in Varanasi, the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute in Mathura, and the Shahi Jama Masjid dispute in Sambhal has triggered an important constitutional conversation on the limits of mediation in public law litigation. During the proceedings, the Court proposed referring the matters to the “Samadhan Samaroh”, a special Lok Adalat and mediation initiative scheduled to be held within the Supreme Court premises from 21 to 23 August, with the objective of…
The Delhi High Court has once again reaffirmed that digital platforms cannot become safe havens for copyright infringement merely because infringing content is uploaded by third-party users. In a significant interim order, the Court directed Meta Platforms Inc. to remove specific Facebook URLs found to be hosting copyrighted content belonging to Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) without authorization. At the same time, the Court adopted a measured approach by declining Zee’s request for immediate suspension of the entire Facebook accounts involved, observing that such an extreme direction could only be considered after affording the concerned parties an opportunity to be…