Judiciary
The Madras high court on Thursday convicted a well-known Youtuber, A Sankar alias 'Savukku' Sankar, for criminal contempt and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment.
"The contemnor would be well within his rights to highlight specific instances of corruption. Of course, they must be backed by materials. He cannot tar the entire institution with a single brush. That would be crossing the Lakshman Rekha by a long shot."
It is criminal contempt of the highest degree to portray the entire institution of higher judiciary as corrupt. The contemnor by proclaiming in the public domain that all judges are corrupt and dishonest is clearly guilty of criminal contempt, the judges said.
15/09/2022
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qPA6jqlkvs
IAMC Official Channel Over the last several weeks India’s Supreme Court has passed at least three rulings that not only severely restrict civil and political liberties but also greenlight the abuse of anti-terror and sedition laws against human rights defenders, journalists, and even politicians that are in opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Prashant Bhushan, a veteran lawyer in New Delhi and a leading human rights defender, who has faced relentless attacks from Hindu supremacists as well as from the top judiciary whose values and performance he has courageously questioned for decades.
Himanshu Kumar, a Renowned Gandhian activist who was in July 2022 falsely accused by Supreme Court judges of forging evidence that the police had carried out torture and killings of the adivasis (indigenous people) in Chhattisgarh state. Kumar has refused to pay a fine of Indian Rupees 500,000 the court has imposed and is ready to go to prison.
Mihir Desai, veteran lawyer in Mumbai who has long defended human rights defenders and members of marginalized communities such as Muslims and Dalits falsely charged with crimes. He was also the lawyer for Prisoner of Conscience Teesta Setalvad who was accused, without evidence, by the Supreme Court of forging evidence to prove that Modi was complicit in the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002
THE SOUND OF SILENCE: THE LEGACY OF CHIEF JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA Gautam Bhatia. https://thewire.in/law/cji-ramana-legacy
unlike CJI Bobde – and indeed, before him, CJI Gogoi – CJI Ramana did not indulge in the intemperate and partisan pro-state broadsides that had become something of a habit for his predecessors. However, once you strip away the rhetoric and focus on the record, it becomes easier to see the similarities -- Judicial evasion and the sound of silence
When he took over as Chief Justice in April, 2021, the following crucial constitutional cases were pending:
The constitutional challenge to electoral bonds (which allow unlimited, anonymous corporate funding of political parties) (from September 2017);
The constitutional challenge to the effective abrogation of Article370, and the splitting of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir into two union territories (from August 6, 2019)
The constitutional challenge to EWS reservations (from January 10, 2019)
The constitutional challenge to the Aadhaar amendment ordinance (later the Act) (from July, 2019)
Judicial review over money bills (from November 13, 2019)
The constitutional challenges to the Citizenship Amendment Act (from December, 2019).
During CJI Ramana’s tenure, not one of these cases was decided:
Other legacies:
Other articles by Gautam Bhatia
But as the Pegasus case and the Freebies case show (in different contexts), what is worrying is not just the inability to protect rights, but the formation of the Executive(‘s) Court that marches in lock-step with the executive, acting as both its shield and its sword. In Pegasus, the Court acted as a shield, protecting the government from accountability – from the first day of the hearing, when it refused to ask the “yes or no” question, to now, when it refused to publish the technical report of the Committee. In the Freebies case, the Court acted as the sword, amplifying – and providing judicial validation to – a debate that the political executive conjured up out of nowhere.
India’s Supreme Court is Complicit in Modi Government’s Crackdown on Activists, Say Whistleblowers, Lawyers, Victims
“The judicial system has turned anti-poor, anti-Dalit, anti-Muslim, anti-women, anti-indigenous people,” said activist Himanshu Kumar, who has faced arrest since the Supreme Court last month dismissed his petition seeking an investigation into the killing of 17 adivasis (indigenous people) by security forces in Chhattisgarh state in 2009.
The Supreme Court’s Kafkaesque ruling against Kumar has been widely criticized as it is based on submissions from the police, the agency accused of committing the crimes. Instead of questioning the police, the Court ruled without evidence that Kumar had lied.
A Look at Justice U.U. Lalit's Career, India's Next Chief Justice https://thewire.in/law/a-look-at-justice-u-u-lalits-career-indias-next-chief-justice
Prior to his elevation as a judge in August 2014, Justice Lalit’s career as a lawyer involved several high-profile and controversial cases, including representing Amit Shah in the alleged Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.