Supreme Court Weekly Round Up - News Updates [November 14-19, 2022]

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  1. [Places Of Worship Act] The Centre through Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, has informed Supreme Court that its response on the plea(s) that have challenged the constitutional validity of Places of Worship Act, 1991 will require a consultative process involving higher functionaries. Court has thus granted more time to the Centre to file its response and has listed the cases for a hearing in the first week of January, 2023 and centre's response is to be filed on or before December 12, 2022.
    Bench: Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud led bench
    Case Title: Batch of petitions
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  2. [Usage Of Religious Symbols By Political Parties] A division bench of the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file its counter in the plea against usage of religious symbols by political parties before the next date of hearing. When the matter was taken up, the counsel appearing on behalf of ECI told court that they had received notice just a week before and thus asked for some time to file their reply.
    Bench: Justices MR Shah and Hima Kohli
    Case Title: Syed Waseem Rizvi vs. Election Commission of India and Anr.
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  3. [Plea in SC] An urgent letter petition has been filed before the Supreme Court, seeking time-bound disposal of special leave petition(s) and constitution of Special Benches in Rape/ Gang Rape/ Child Rape cases. The petition filed by Alakh Alok Srivastava, Advocate-on-Record, Supreme Court, sought the Supreme Court to issue urgent appropriate orders or directions for quick disposal of SLPs for matters in rape, gang rape and child rape cases within 6 months. The idea is to be in consonance with the legislative intent enshrined within the amended Section 173 (1A), 309 (1) and 374 (4) of CrPC, the petition says.
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  4. [RTI] The Supreme Court on Friday, November 11, observed that the online portal for streamlining the responses under the Right to Information Act, 2005 is practically ready for being launched. Court made these observations while disposing of a plea that sought directions to include Supreme Court in setting up an online RTI Portal in a time-bound manner.
    Bench: CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice Kohli
    Case Title: AKRITI AGARWAL & ANR. vs. SUPREME COURT OF INDIA & ORS.
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  5. [Freedom of Speech of Public Functionaries] A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court reserved its judgment in the pleas relating to freedom of speech of public functionaries. Justice BV Nagarathna also made an observation that a constitutional restriction should be inculcated in the political society which would stop them from indulging in hate speech.
    Bench: Five-judge bench led by Justice Abdul Nazeer
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  6. [Suspension of Twitter Accounts] The Supreme Court dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) filed by Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde seeking transfer of all pending cases before top court, with regard to Twitter Inc and suspension of twitter accounts. Hegde's counsel told court that similar matters were pending across high courts which should all be heard by the Supreme Court. "Why? Let there be a decision of the High Court", Justice Shah asked in response.
    Bench: Justices MR Shah and Hima Kohli
    Case Title: Sanjay R Hegde vs. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and ors
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  7. [Ghaggar Basin Overflooding] The Supreme Court has noted that though Status Reports were filed on behalf of State of Punjab and State of Haryana, no further concrete steps had been taken except holding the meetings to act appropriately and in time bound manner as per the recommendations made in the final Model Study Report by Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS), Pune so that the problem of overflooding of Ghaggar basin could be resolved. The court has thus directed the states to filed their project report within a period of four weeks.
    Bench: Justices Shah and MM Sundresh
    Case Title: Nagar Panchayat Moonak and Ors. vs. State of Punjab and Ors.
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  8. [Gautam Navlakha] The Supreme Court rejected the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) plea filed against its previous order to shift Bhima Koregaon case accused Gautam Navlakha to house arrest from jail. NIA’s application alleged deliberate and successive suppression of material facts, and further alleged personal bias vitiating the medical report placed on record.
    Bench: Justice KM Joseph and Justice Hrishikesh Roy
    Case Title: Gautam Navlakha vs. National Investigation Agency and Anr.
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  9. [Appointment Of Judges] A CJI DY Chandrachud led bench of the Supreme Court agreed to list a petition challenging the present collegium system for appointment of judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts. The petitioner mainly seeks issuance of a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction, directing the Union of India to bring into existence such legislative or administrative measures for the creation of a non-governmental/non-departmental public body, or a Judicial Appointment Commission to select Judges for the higher judiciary by inviting applications from all eligible candidates, invite references from all stakeholders, the Bar Associations, the public at large.
    Bench: CJI DY Chandrachud led bench
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  10. [Population Explosion] The Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking directions to the Centre to frame regulations and guidelines to control population, in spirit of the 24th recommendation of National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution; Justice Venkatachaliah Commission and ascertain the possibility of making “Two Child Law”, as a criteria for Government Jobs, aids and subsidies. Court refused to entertain the plea made by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay while holding that the judiciary cannot get into such issues as these are social issues that should be examined and decided by the government.
    Bench: Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh
    Case Title: Ashwini Upadhyay vs. UoI
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  11. [Gautam Navlakha] Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha, who was directed to be put under house arrest by the Supreme Court, informed the top court that the said order has not been complied with.  The matter was mentioned before Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud on Thursday by Navlakha's counsel Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan who told Court, "They were supposed to inspect premises within 48 hours and not within 96 hours..." On the other hand, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), claimed that Navlakha, instead of providing details of a house had given details of a library cum residential place belonging to the Communist Party.
    Bench: CJI Chandrachud led bench
    Case Title: Gautam Navlakha vs. National Investigation Agency and Anr.
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  12. [Gautam Navlakha House Arrest] National Investigation Agency sought vacation of the orders of 10-11-2022 whereby the Supreme Court directed to put Gautam Navlakha under house arrest for a month due to health conditions alleging deliberate and successive suppression of material facts, and personal bias vitiating the medical report. Many letters and emails were also annexed with the application, where Navlakha has addressed and has been addressed to by other accused members of CPI (Maoist).
    Case Title: Gautam Navlakha vs. National Investigation Agency and Anr
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