Secularism vis-à-vis Religions By Justice KT Thomas

The word ‘secularism’ is mistakenly translated in Malayalam as  Mathanirapekshatha (disjuncted from religion).  This Malayalam word represents  only a very restricted meaning for secularism.  Therefore Malayalees by and large have understood the word  secularism in such  restricted sense.  No doubt disjunction from religion is one of the attributes of secularism, as I understood it.  But the concept of secularism has much wider and more valuable connotation than the religion related nuance.  It...

No Politics In Educational Institutions: Kerala HC [Read Order]

A Division Bench of Kerala High Court on Friday observed that Educational Institutions are meant for imparting education and not politics.In an interim order, the bench of Chief Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh and Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan also held that political activities like Dharna, hunger strikes and other practices like Sathyagrah have no place in a constitutional democracy, much less...

Bombay HC Strikes Down MoEF Notification That Transferred All Cases From Goa At NGT Western Zone To New Delhi

In a highly significant judgment, the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court has struck down a notification of the Ministry of Environment and Forests dated August 10, 2017, wherein all matters relating to the State of Goa, Daman, Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, before the National Green Tribunal, Western Zone in Pune, were transferred to the principal bench in New Delhi.In a 47-page judgment passed...

The ICJ Statutes And The Rohingya Refugee Issue

A perception is increasingly gaining ground in legal circles that the case of the Union of India before the Supreme Court in the Rohingya refugee issue has amounted to making a declaration that international law is only ‘a vanishing point of jurisprudence’. The stand taken by the Union government  through its affidavit before the Court, they feel, is a swift and sudden strike marking a paradigm shift in the approach of the union government towards principles of international law, especially in...

Delhi HC Sets Aside JNU's Disciplinary Action Against Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban, 12 Others [Read Judgment]

The Court has set aside Appellate Order dated August 22, 2016,and the matter is remanded back to the Appellate Authority to pass a reasoned order as expeditiously as possible preferably within six weeks thereafter,The Delhi High Court on Thursday set aside the disciplinary action taken by the Jawaharlal Nehru University(JNU) against 15 of its students, including former JNUSU president...

Referring To Gauri Lankesh’s Murder, Bombay HC Says Trend Of Killing Anyone With Liberal Values Is Dangerous

While hearing the matter regarding the investigations into the murder of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, the Bombay High Court referred to the murder of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on September 5 and said: “People with liberal values and principles are being targeted. It’s like if there is any opposition to me, I shall have that eliminated. This is...

SIT On Black Money Is Public Authority Under RTI: CIC [Read Order]

The Central Information Commission (CIC) has held the special investigation team on black money a ‘public authority’ as per the Right to Information Act.Venkatesh Nayak had approached the commission praying to recognize the special investigation team (SIT) on black money of the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance as a ‘public authority’ within the terms of Section 2(h)...

Why Political Parties Should Be Brought Under The Domain Of Right To Information Act?

Once again, the matter whether political parties are answerable under the provisions of Right to Information Act, 2005 or not reached Supreme Court of India(SC). A public interest litigation was filed by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay requesting the apex court to declare political parties as ‘public authorities’ under Section 2(h) of the above Act. The issue raised in the petition is quite pertinent as political parties as ‘institutions of governance’ are second to none when it comes to their...

Bombay HC Imposes ₹5-Lakh Cost On Petitioners For Seeking To Re-argue Case With Different Set Of Lawyers [Read Judgment]

The Bombay High Court recently imposed ₹5 lakh cost on petitioners reminding them about the limitations of a review jurisdiction.A bench of Justice SC Dharmadhikari and Justice MS Sonak observed that it is being seen lately that litigants try to go behind binding orders of the high court by canvassing arguments before the Supreme Court that do not give the entire or true picture of the...

Gujarat Govt. Failed To Maintain Law And Order: HC In Godhra Verdict [Read Judgment]

The Gujarat High Court in the ‘Godhra’ Judgment held that the state Government had failed in its duty to maintain law and order in the state during the period of Godhra incident. The High Court, on Monday, commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to 11 convicts in the case of the burning of Sabarmati Express in Godhra in 2002, which had triggered massive communal riots...

The Supreme Court’s Right to Privacy Judgment – IX: Living Constitutionalism, Natural Law, and Other Interpretive Issues

The Puttaswamy case came to Court because the Indian Constitution does not have a textually guaranteed right to privacy. Each of the six judgments spent considerable time establishing why, despite the constitutional text, privacy was a fundamental right. Many different arguments were advanced, and in the first two posts in the series, we discussed one of them: privacy was a fundamental right because without it, effective enjoyment of textually guaranteed rights such as the freedom of speech, the...

Bombay HC Slams Trial Court For Branding Petitioner With Stigma Of ‘Living In Adultery’ Without Evidence [Read Judgment]

The Bombay High Court has quashed and set aside an order of a family court in Sholapur wherein an application filed by X seeking enhancement of compensation for herself and her son was rejected and her ex-husband’s (respondent) application seeking cancellation of maintenance was allowed.The family court had relied upon an earlier order dated December 21, 2006, which allowed the...