2605 Apr 28 Sat LESSON
We extend
our deepest sympathies to you and your family. May the soul of your
mother Most Respected Dr Mary be at peace with your Heavenly Father. - J
Chandrasekharan, Navaneetham, Banu Rekha, Sashi Kanth, Kartik Raja,
Sathaya Narayana, & Barathan
Venue: Bhagawan Buddha Homeopathic Medical College & Hospital
YOUTH DHAMMA SERVICE DAY
Venue: Dhammaloka Buddha Vihara,
Gulaharive Cross, Geddanahalli, Shettihalli Ring Road, Tumkuru
Buddha Jayanti Celebrations
Buddha Pujas, Tisaran and Pancasila, Sanghadana
DHAMMA DISCOURSE AND MEDITATION
Led by
Venerable Buddhadatta Bhikkhu
Director, Maha Bodhu Library and Research Centre
And Venerable Monks of Maha Bodhi Society
Organised by
Upasaka Hanumanthrayappa and Upasakas and Upasikas
Dhammaloka Buddha Vihara, Tumkuru
Buddha
Buddha
Buddha
Buddha
Buddha
https://scroll.in/…/at-the-very-end-of-scs-aadhaar-hearings…
[One only wonders what the Supreme Court bench hearing the case was doing till now!?]
https://scroll.in/…/at-the-very-end-of-scs-aadhaar-hearings…
At the very end of SC’s Aadhaar hearings, government admits it has been dishonest all along
When questioned by the court, the government admitted that the Supreme Court did not mandate linking phone SIM cards to Aadhaar
[Screenshot of Ravis Shankar Prasad’s tweet: <
11:04 PM -10 Sep 2017>>]
At the very end of SC’s Aadhaar hearings, government admits it has been dishonest all along
Yesterday · 10:30 am
Rohan Venkataramakrishnan
As the Supreme Court hears petitions contending that Aadhaar violates
the fundamental rights of Indians, it’s clear that much of the broad
edifice created by the government in defence of the national identity
project rests on shaky ground. The 12-digit biometric ID was supposed to
be voluntary, although in a huge swathe of circumstances it clearly was
not. The legislation for it was passed much after millions had already
been enrolled. It was supposed to be secure but has instead aided the
leaking of massive amounts of government data. It was meant to make
welfare delivery more efficient, but in many cases has made people’s
lives harder. And, on Wednesday, the government admitted that it had
been lying about another aspect too: the Supreme Court had never it
mandatory for all phone SIM cards to be linked to individual Aadhaar
numbers.
Justice DY Chandrachud, one of the five judges on the
Constitution Bench hearing the case, spelled it out for Rakesh Dwivedi,
counsel for the Unique Identification Authority of India, which runs the
Aadhaar project. “In fact there was no such direction from the Supreme
Court, but you took it and used it as tool to make Aadhaar mandatory for
mobile users,” Chandrachud said, according to PTI.
To this,
Dwivedi admitted that SIM-Aadhaar linking had commenced on the basis of
the recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India even
before the Lokniti Foundation order – in which the Supreme Court ordered
SIM cards to be verified – had been passed. Dwivedi went on to argue
that the government had a legal right to mandate that all SIM cards be
linked to Aadhaar.
What actually happened
If that is confusing, here is the sequence of events:
In 2015, the Supreme Court issued an order saying Aadhaar could not be
made mandatory until the court settles the fundamental rights challenge
one way or the other.
In 2016, the Aadhaar Act was passed, but it
focused on the delivery of subsidies and welfare and so did not cover
phone connections.
In February 2017, the Supreme Court ordered the
government to verify and register every SIM card in the country, but it
did not require this to be done by linking with Aadhaar.
Despite
this, the government spread the message that the Supreme Court had made
linking Aadhaar to your SIM card mandatory, a false claim that was also
relayed by major news organisations. Others criticised these false
messages, to no avail.
When asked why the government was forcing
people to link their SIM cards to Aadhaar, despite orders from the
Supreme Court saying it could not be mandatory, the government repeated
this false claim that the Supreme Court had itself ordered the linking.
[Screenshot of Ravis Shankar Prasad’s tweet: <
11:04 PM -10 Sep 2017>>]
On Wednesday, when Justice Chandrachud questioned him about these false
claims, saying government has used their order as a “tool”, counsel for
UIDAI seems to have admitted two things:
That it had already
made Aadhaar-SIM linking mandatory, based on what it saw were powers
granted in the Telegraph Act and despite the Supreme Court saying
Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for any services.
That the government
has been misguiding the people all this while, claiming that it was the
Supreme Court that made Aadhaar mandatory, when in fact that was not
true.
This, basically, is the last three years of the Aadhaar litigation before the Supreme Court, summed up in one moment.
— Gautam Bhatia (@gautambhatia88) April 25, 2018
As Gautam Bhatia, one of the lawyers challenging Aadhaar tweeted, this
revelation – coming so late in the process – is about as perfect an
encapsulation of the government’s approach to Aadhaar as possible: Get
its way first, tell everyone that it is required and mandatory, figure
out the legalities afterward.
Aadhaar’s DNA
This
approach is, in fact, built into the DNA of the Aadhaar project and
dates back to before the Bharatiya Janata Party took a u-turn and
decided to support it. Aadhaar was first introduced into the Indian
Parliament through a Bill in 2010, but that was rejected by a
parliamentary committee because of legislative, security, and privacy
concerns. Another committee in 2012 recommended that the law explicitly
say that it was voluntary, and allow people to opt out. Yet even as
these debates were underway, with no law being passed to legitimise the
programme, the UIDAI continued pushing enrollment of a scheme. This
legitimacy would eventually only be provided in 2016 – seven years after
enrolments began.
Indeed, one of the central fears of the
government’s enrol-first, legalise-latter approach was the fait-accompli
concern: that the government would simply argue in court that so much
money has been spent enrolling more than 1 billion people onto this
platform, and then getting them to link to other things, that it would
be a waste to strike it down now – even if it violated some rights. That
is exactly the tack the government took, as has now been laid bare in
the mobile linking. This strategy has been enabled to a large part by
the Supreme Court’s delay in taking up the Aadhaar case urgently..
Even those who do not believe that Aadhaar violates fundamental rights
ought to be able to see the bad faith with which the government has
rolled out and defended the scheme, going so far as to argue in court
that Indians have no fundamental right to privacy and then, brazenly,
denying having made that argument in the first place. Justice
Chandrachud’s question to the UIDAI counsel was useful in telling us
more about how this government has approached the entire case. Hopefully
it provokes the Constitution Bench to take a close look at many of the
other claims that the government has been making about Aadhaar. If it
was brazen enough to lie to the public about a Supreme Court order, what
else has it been misleading us about?
—
Peace Is Doable
http://indianexpress.com/…/govt-arguments-against-justice-…/
[<
(Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.)
<
The government’s actions come at a time
when there is a sense of crisis surrounding the relationship between the
executive and the judiciary. For over three months, the government sat
on a composite recommendation to appoint Indu Malhotra and K M Joseph,
and chose to act only after very public expressions of discomfort by
senior SC judges. After Justice Joseph struck down the imposition of the
president’s rule in Uttarakhand in April 2016, the government also
exercised “pocket veto” for nearly two years by ignoring the collegium’s
recommendation to transfer Justice Joseph to the Andhra Pradesh high
court as its chief justice. This is also the government that returned
the collegium’s recommendation to appoint Gopal Subramanium as a judge.
Subramanium notably was amicus curie in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter
case. These events should inform any scrutiny of the government’s
response to the collegium’s recommendation elevating Justice
Joseph.>>
(Excerpted from sl. no. II. below.)
<
Nariman admitted that the collegium may or may not be split
in its decision to send its recommendation back to the government
insisting on appointing chief justice K M Joseph of the Uttarakhand high
court to the Supreme Court, which may lead to a “confrontation with the
government…we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
…
Noting that the anniversary of Justice A N Ray superseding Justice
Khanna and appointing Justice Beg, on the eve of the Emergency on April
25, 1975, had just passed, Nariman said, “I am totally against
supercession. The Chief Justice would be well advised to recommend his
successor in accordance with the Constitutional convention. Which is
that the seniormost judge becomes Chief Justice.
“And that is Mr
Ranjan Gogoi. He has to be named. (CJ Mishra) has to recommend him. And
not supercede him as AN Ray did. Ray recommended Justice Beg in Court no
3 and that’s why Khanna retired in a blaze of glory,” Nariman said,
adding, that a majoritarian government is “always a potential danger to
the judiciary. Always. They want to control..”>>]
(Excerpted from sl. no. III. below.)]
I/III.
http://indianexpress.com/…/govt-arguments-against-justice-…/
Govt arguments against Justice KM Joseph do not hold water, say critics
Regarding the government’s argument that there is no representation
from SC/ST communities in the Supreme Court, there would be four
remaining vacancies in the apex court even after Justice Joseph’s
elevation.
Written by Sushant Singh | New Delhi |
Published: April 27, 2018 4:24:26 am
Govt arguments against Justice KM Joseph do not hold water, say critics
Senior advocate Indu Malhotra and Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice K M Joseph.
The arguments given by the government for returning the recommendation
for appointment of Uttarakhand Chief Justice K M Joseph to the Supreme
Court do not match precedent, experts critical of the move told The
Indian Express.
Seniority
While the government has stated
in its letter that Justice Joseph was at serial number 42 on the All
India High Court Judges’ Seniority List, he was the seniormost as the
chief justice of a high court. Sources said that there was no precedent
of going by the judges’ seniority list. Justices Mohan M Shantanagoudar
and S Abdul Nazeer from Karnataka High Court were elevated to the
Supreme Court by the same government in February 2017, when two judges, H
Ramesh and H G Ramesh from the same parent high court, were senior to
Justice Nazeer. Justices Navin Sinha and Deepak Gupta were appointed by
this government last year when there were many others higher on the
judges’ seniority list.
Read | SC rejects plea to stall Indu Malhotra’s appointment, on KM Joseph says wait
State representation
Regarding the government’s argument that certain high courts were
currently not represented in the Supreme Court, it is understood that at
any given point of time, some high courts are bound to be not
represented in the apex court. Moreover, if representation of all courts
was the determining factor, sources said this government would not have
appointed two judges from Bombay High Court in May 2016 and two from
Karnataka High Court in February 2017. Many high courts were
unrepresented in the Supreme Court at both the junctures, when multiple
names were elevated from the same parent high court.
The
government has argued that if Justice Joseph is elevated, he would be
the second judge from the parent Kerala High Court in the Supreme Court.
While the current judge in the Supreme Court from the same parent High
Court, Justice Kurian Joseph, is due to retire in November 2018, there
are at least five judges currently serving in the apex court whose
parent high court is Bombay High Court.
Read | It’s business as usual for Justice KM Joseph
SC/ST presence
Regarding the government’s argument that there is no representation
from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the Supreme
Court, there would be four remaining vacancies in the apex court even
after Justice Joseph’s elevation. Sources said that these vacancies
could be filled to give adequate representation to SC/ ST communities in
the Supreme Court.
Read | Collegium decision final, anything else malafide, says Fali Nariman
2 CJs from Kerala
To the government’s argument that there are two other chief justices of
high courts whose parent high court is Kerala High Court, currently
there are two chief justices whose parent high court is Bombay High
Court.
These facts are likely to be raised and considered if CJI
Dipak Misra convenes a full court to discuss the matter, as demanded by
some of his colleagues, or when a meeting of the five-member collegium
is convened to discuss the government’s action of returning Justice
Joseph’s name.
the government’s argument that there is no representation from SC/ST
communities in the Supreme Court, there would be four remaining
vacancies in…
http://indianexpress.com/…/indu-malhotra-woman-supreme-cou…/
Ball’s in Supreme Court
The manner and context in which the Supreme Court collegium’s
recommendation on the appointment of judges has been treated by the
executive poses a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
Written by Anup Surendranath |
Updated: April 27, 2018 12:32:40 am
indu malhotra, woman supreme court judge, k m joseph, chief justice of
india dipak misra, collegium recommendation, supreme court, dipak
misra, collegium system, Indian express The history of the judiciary is
replete with examples of instances where the independence of the
judiciary has been protected by the court and a succession of Chief
Justices of India against such interference by the government.
(Illustration: CR Sasikumar)
Written by Anup Surendranath, Aparna Chandra and Suchindran Baskar Narayan
The appointment of Indu Malhotra as a judge of the Supreme Court should
have been a reason for unmitigated celebration. She will become only
the seventh woman in the history of independent India to be appointed as
a judge of the country’s highest court. The momentous nature of this
appointment cannot be overstated given the under-representation of women
in all aspects of public life in India. Instead, this moment has now
become about whether the SC has the will and conviction to forestall
this government’s creeping and forceful assault on its powers.
The government’s actions come at a time when there is a sense of crisis
surrounding the relationship between the executive and the judiciary.
For over three months, the government sat on a composite recommendation
to appoint Indu Malhotra and K M Joseph, and chose to act only after
very public expressions of discomfort by senior SC judges. After Justice
Joseph struck down the imposition of the president’s rule in
Uttarakhand in April 2016, the government also exercised “pocket veto”
for nearly two years by ignoring the collegium’s recommendation to
transfer Justice Joseph to the Andhra Pradesh high court as its chief
justice. This is also the government that returned the collegium’s
recommendation to appoint Gopal Subramanium as a judge. Subramanium
notably was amicus curie in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. These
events should inform any scrutiny of the government’s response to the
collegium’s recommendation elevating Justice Joseph.
The law
minister’s reasons for sending back Justice Joseph’s recommendations do
not carry any real weight. His official reply states that Justice Joseph
was 42nd in the all-India high court judges seniority list and 12th in
the high court chief justices seniority list. While that is true, he has
failed to mention that Justice Joseph is the senior-most chief justice
of a high court in terms of experience as chief justice, having served
two years more as CJ than the other current CJs.
It is also
surprising to see seniority being invoked suddenly in this case. There
are numerous examples where judges of high courts were elevated to the
SC despite not being the senior-most as per all-India seniority,
according to the date of initial appointment. In the last round of
appointments to the SC, this very government approved the appointments
of Justices Mohan Shantanagoudar, Navin Sinha, Deepak Gupta, S K Kaul
and Abdul Nazeer, against the seniority norm. Further, the SC in the
Second and Third Judges’ case has explicitly held that seniority cannot
be the sole determinative factor in deciding suitability for elevation,
and that other considerations such as merit may outweigh the seniority
norm. It is pertinent that in recommending Justice Joseph, the collegium
expressly noted his all-India seniority but categorically stated that
he was more deserving of the appointment than other judges.
The
law minister seems to lay great emphasis on the fact that Justice K M
Joseph’s elevation might lead to Kerala’s over-representation in the SC
because Justice Kurian Joseph is already in the SC. (Justice Kurian
Joseph is due to retire in November 2018). However, the use of state
representation to send back the nomination of a judge is curious given
that this very government approved the appointment of Justice S K Kaul
despite the presence to two other judges (Justice Madan Lokur and
Justice A K Sikri) from Delhi.
Similarly, the minister’s reason
citing lack of representation from among the SC/STs is a curious one.
Lack of diversity cannot be cited as an ex post facto reason to send
back the nomination of a judge. If diversity is to be a institutional
priority, it should be stated upfront and there should be a clear
statement of the diversity being sought. It cannot be selectively and
retrospectively invoked in the manner that the law minister has done.
The government’s response points to the urgent need to set up
transparent norms for judicial appointments, for express conditions when
seniority or diversity norms can be circumvented, and for publically
available reasons for the “merit” that justifies the appointment of
particular judges to the higher judiciary. Till these procedures remain
opaque, judicial appointments will always be vulnerable to attack, and
the independence of the judiciary will be under threat from within and
without.
The rather weak reasons from the government also raise
ominous concerns regarding governmental attack on the independence of
the judiciary. It appears that government is trying to make Justice
Joseph pay the price for the judgment striking down president’s rule in
Uttarakhand while sending a message to all judges across the country,
that judges who rule against the government in important matters will
face consequences.
The history of the judiciary is replete with
examples of instances where the independence of the judiciary has been
protected by the court and a succession of Chief Justices of India
against such interference by the government. Very often wiser counsel
prevailed, and the executive interference with the independence of the
judiciary was repelled. Exceptions include the supercessions of 1973 and
1977, which were attempts to browbeat an independent judiciary, and
create a cadre of “committed judges”. The capitulation of the Court to
Indira Gandhi’s government during the Emergency was a legacy of these
interventions, and should caution us about the dangers of executive
interference in judicial appointments. This continuing threat was nipped
finally by the Second Judges case by the creation of collegium system.
While there has been some valid criticism of the collegium system, it
currently stands as the binding law of the land.
In June 2014,
when Gopal Subramanium, a former Solicitor General of India, was
unilaterally hived off from a composite list of four names forwarded by
the then collegium, Chief Justice R M Lodha said: “Segregating his name
was done unilaterally by the Executive without my knowledge and
concurrence which was not proper. This is one subject, which is
non-negotiable. At no cost the independence of the judiciary will be
allowed to be compromised. I will not hold my office if I feel that the
independence of the institution of the judiciary has been compromised.”
All the other appointees including currently serving Justices A K Goel,
Arun Mishra and R F Nariman were sworn in only after Gopal Subramanium
categorically withdrew his consent.
The manner and context in
which the collegium’s recommendation has been treated by the executive
raises a real and immediate threat for the independence of the
judiciary. Constitutionalism is developed and maintained by all
constitutional authorities acting in accordance with the letter and
spirit of the Constitution. Every act in contravention of the
Constitution detracts and chips away at the foundations of our
constitutional republic. At important junctures on our constitutional
journey, when the executive or the legislature has attempted to thwart
the independence of the judiciary or the basic structure of the
Constitution, the Court has risen to the occasion. While the Court is
not infallible, its authority and that of the Constitution will survive
only if it remains independent. For that, nothing less than an immediate
and categorical reiteration of the recommendation is necessary and
holding off on the swearing-in of Supreme Court Justice-designate Indu
Malhotra is required. It has been a few decades since the Supreme Court
faced such a powerful government. It is time for the court to confront
the ghosts of decisions past and lay to rest the burden of having
buckled the last time around.
Surendranath and Chandra teach at National Law University, Delhi and Narayan is an advocate in the Supreme Court
manner and context in which the Supreme Court collegium’s
recommendation on the appointment of judges has been treated by the
executive poses a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
http://indianexpress.com/…/collegium-decision-final-anythi…/
Supreme Court collegium decision final, anything else malafide, says Fali Nariman
Fali Nariman indicated that the current impasse over the appointment of
a judge may be linked to the government “still smarting” under the
Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the parliament’s decision to
vote in favour of the NJAC which sought to control the appointment of
judges.
Written by Jyoti Malhotra | New Delhi |
Updated: April 27, 2018 8:21:21 am
Collegium decision final, anything else malafide, says Fali Nariman
Senior jurist Fali Nariman (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal/file)
If the five-member Collegium of the Supreme Court, which includes the
Chief Justice of India, decides that a certain judge has to be
appointed, then its word is final and a contrary decision by the
government will be considered malafide, senior jurist Fali Nariman has
said.
Nariman admitted that the collegium may or may not be split
in its decision to send its recommendation back to the government
insisting on appointing chief justice K M Joseph of the Uttarakhand high
court to the Supreme Court, which may lead to a “confrontation with the
government…we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
He indicated that the current impasse over the appointment of a judge
may be linked to the government “still smarting” under the Supreme
Court’s decision to strike down the parliament’s decision to vote in
favour of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), which
sought to control the appointment of judges. “The (government) is still
very upset about that,” he said.
Read | Govt arguments against Justice KM Joseph do not hold water, say critics
He indicated that the joint Opposition’s move challenging
Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu’s decision to impeach the chief justice in
the Supreme Court could become a long drawn-out affair.
First of
all, he said, the Supreme Court would have to decide whether Naidu’s
dismissal is “justiciable or not,” meaning, since the matter concerns
Parliament, the Court would have to decide whether it has the power to
take up such a motion or not. “If the Court does take that decision, it
will then have to decide whether the Vice-President’s decision is
untenable or not,” Nariman said.
Moreover, he pointed out, when
the Opposition goes to court in appeal against the Vice-President, it
would be “up to the Chief Justice to decide which court it should be
listed in front of.
“That’s because he is still Master of the
Roster, irrespective of the fact that he is involved or not (in this
case, in the move to impeach him), and because the question of fixing
benches inheres in him. (That prerogative) can’t be taken away or shared
with someone else. It inheres in him, and he should say who should
decide the matter,” Nariman said.
Read | Fali Nariman on Opposition move to impeach CJI Dipak Misra: A horribly black day in SC history
The jurist added that he didn’t think Chief Justice Mishra would take
the Opposition’s case in his court. “Of course he won’t take it. But
even if he doesn’t, he has the power to decide who should take it,”
Nariman said.
Reacting to the detailed letter today written by
Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to Chief Justice Dipak Mishra, on why
the potential elevation of K M Joseph to the Supreme Court is
“inappropriate,” Nariman said that the “government was entitled to the
view it had taken. They have given reasons which are quite cogent. They
may be right or wrong. Whether this meets with the approval of the
collegium is quite another matter.”
According to the Law
minister’s letter, Justice Joseph is Number 42 in the seniority list of
judges, he hails from Kerala which already has adequate representation
in the Supreme Court (and several other states haven’t) and that a judge
from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would be preferable at
this time..
Read | Govt has struck at the very heart of judicial freedom: former CJI RM Lodha
“The collegium has to say whether they insist that despite this letter
Justice Joseph should be appointed or not. The Collegium is the last
word,” Nariman said, pointing out that according to the 1993 judgement
delivered by Justice J S Verma, the collegium’s word was final, “that
this is the law.”
Asked why the government had split the decision
to elevate Justice Indu Malhotra to the Supreme Court and not Justice
Joseph, he said “They are entitled to do that…Judges don’t go in pairs.
They are not husband and wife.”
As for the government’s move to
send Justice Malhotra’s elevation to the President for approval, Nariman
said that was the right thing to do because elevation to the Supreme
Court could only take place when the President issued a warrant in that
regard.
Noting that the anniversary of Justice A N Ray
superseding Justice Khanna and appointing Justice Beg, on the eve of the
Emergency on April 25, 1975, had just passed, Nariman said, “I am
totally against supercession. The Chief Justice would be well advised to
recommend his successor in accordance with the Constitutional
convention. Which is that the seniormost judge becomes Chief Justice.
“And that is Mr Ranjan Gogoi. He has to be named. (CJ Mishra) has to
recommend him. And not supercede him as AN Ray did. Ray recommended
Justice Beg in Court no 3 and that’s why Khanna retired in a blaze of
glory,” Nariman said, adding, that a majoritarian government is “always a
potential danger to the judiciary. Always. They want to control.”
—
Peace Is Doable
Nariman indicated that the current impasse over the appointment of a
judge may be linked to the government “still smarting” under the Supreme
Court’s…