by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand on a plea challenging the amendments made to the Land Acquisition Act 2013.
The amendments include exemption of the mandatory social impact assessment and provisions to safeguard food security for acquiring lands for infrastructure projects.
The Bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta issued notices to the five states as social activist Medha Patkar told the court that these states have done away with the provision of the land acquisition law that mandates undertaking of social impact assessment before acquiring land for any project.
The court was told that these states have also done away with the land acquisition law that bars acquiring multi-crop irrigated land.
Appearing for Patkar, counsel Prashant Bhushan told the court that the amendment to the law by these five states was violative of Article 21 of the Constitution that guarantees right to life.
He said that right to live with dignity under Article 21 also includes the right not to displace people from their lands. It has to be first determined that the acquisition of land is in the overwhelming interest of the state.
Issuing notices, the bench, however, told Bhushan that the Central legislation had provisions for states to amend the law.
Bhushan said that exemption for undertaking the social impact assessment for acquiring land was being given to projects under the public private partnership.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday directed the listing of the Ayodhya title suit matter in January 2019 before an appropriate bench. However, it declined to specify any dates.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi directed the hearing for next year on a batch of petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict trifurcating the disputed site in Ayodhya into three parts for Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and the original Muslim litigant.
Besides Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice K.M. Joseph were also on the bench.
On September 27, the top court bench led by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, along with Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, by a 2:1 majority rejected the plea challenging the high court judgment and had directed that the matter would be heard by a three-judge bench from October 29.
The newly constituted bench on Monday was expected to hear a batch of petitions filed by both the sides — Hindu and Muslim stakeholders — challenging the high court judgement.
The Muslim petitioners had pressed for hearing the challenge to the high court judgment by a five-judge bench as the court had relied on a 1994 top court judgment that said a mosque was not essential to Islam for offering ‘namaz’.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Dr. Javed Jamil,
The debate on the decriminalisation of homosexuality had not yet died down that the verdict resulting in decriminalisation of adultery has hit the headlines. So with the two “historical” verdicts in September 2018 on Homosexuality and Adultery, the corporatisation of Indian Legal System has almost reached its zenith. Market driven sex and sexuality will now prosper without any obstacles. Both husband and wife are free to have sex outside marriage and can remain husband and wife too till they choose to divorce. So while Triple Divorce is criminal, adultery is now only a civil matter. The stage is set for West-style “Sexual Revolution” in the country. It was long back I had, in my book “The Killer Sex”, described what “Sexual Revolution” implies in truth:
Revolution implies an extraordinary change. But the change is not always the antibiotic that kills the infection and treats the disease. Instead it may be the hypnotic that sedates, addicts and slowly poisons. For any colossal transformation to be valuable, it has to be for the better. If huge changes do not end into salubrious fruition, they have no credentials to be called a Revolution. “Sexual Revolution” is in truth the nadir of human behaviour. It has proved to be not the antibiotic but the hypnotic. It has heralded nemesis of individual’s peaceful existence, family’s peaceful sustenance and society’s peaceful countenance. It has derailed everybody from the right course, nailed every institution and failed every development; it has only bailed the merchants. It has made humanity look ludicrous; it has thinned to almost non-existence the demarcating line between human and animal. It has sacrificed abiding happiness at the altars of instant fun; and has crucified health on the cross of wealth. It has made character moribund by slaughtering the inspector of conscience that sustained it. It has pierced childhood, hanged womanhood and polluted manhood. It has snatched the apron of shyness that used to adore and protect woman, and has transvested her in the lingerie of shamelessness. It has transfigured man from a lover and protector of woman to mere usurper. It has made love without sex to look abnormal and ridiculous but sex without love to appear natural and admirable. It has reduced love to lovemaking, and has made lovemaking a perpetual captive of unadulterated lust. It has trounced parenthood and transfixed childhood. It has buried fatherhood and sickened motherhood. It has bulldozed the world converting it into huge rubble of solace and brought the mankind to the verge of total collapse. Sexual Revolution is the python that must be trapped at the earliest and killed without delay.
Sexual Revolution has taught us that sex is not for life but life is for sex. That sex must overrule every other consideration and overcome every obstacle in its way. If it is the custodian of Law, it must learn to behave; if it is the inspector of Religion, it has to be dismissed; and if it is the police of morality, it has to be confronted. It has made us believe that sex must not necessarily be between a human and a human; it can be between a human and an animal. That sex must not always require two sexes; it may be between a man and a man, and between a woman and a woman. That sex must not have to be between two adults: it may be between an adult and a child. That sex may not unfailingly involve those who are not linked by blood; it may involve a mother and a son, a father and a daughter and a brother and a sister. That sex should not always be limited to two individuals; many may join simultaneously. That sex must not necessarily use organs that are naturally meant for it; any organ that can be penetrated is fit for coitus. That sex must not necessarily be enjoyed away from the public gaze; it may be performed in front of their staring eyes and exhilarating hearts and brains. That sex must not necessitate any formal declaration; any two consenting individuals can have it without warranting any social or legal sanction. That, in extreme circumstances, sex does not even require consent; if one is smart enough to hoodwink Law or bold enough to face it, one may even rape without fearing too much. That sex does not have to be for fulfilling one’s legitimate physical and psychological desires; it may also be for filling one’s coffer. That sex need not be the corollary of love; it may be purchased or sold in the market. That whatever comes in the way of sex must be mercilessly got away with even if it is a human-in-making. In nutshell, Sexual Revolution has convinced us that sex knows no bounds. The old saying must be redefined thus: everything is fair in love, sex and war.”
World of Mammon, not Hygeia
On the one hand, we claim to be living in the 21st Century and argue that it is a world of Science & Technology and on the other we are making our legal systems totally independent of the impact of the items and practices on life and healthiness of life. Hygeia has evidently been made to prostrate before Mammon. If scientific facts are applied, our claims of Civilization will prove to totally absurd and the current civilization will emerge as nothing but barbarism at its worst. What else can be said about something that threatens the very survival of humankind as healthy and peaceful organisation?
Medical and social statistics are shouting at us informing that homosexuality, promiscuity and prostitution are not only the biggest killers of the human beings but do also threaten the very existence of man as species. Each of them alone is dangerous enough to warrant serious measures against it but together their impact is nothing but devastating. But each one of them is being supported in the name of “freedom of choice”, “human rights”, “equality of men and women” and “dignity of women”. All these phrases have become the biggest weapons in the hands of the economic fundamentalism and they are using them with impunity for commercialising to the hilt the human susceptibilities. Human weaknesses have now become “choices” worthy of respect by the Constitution and Supreme Court judges. Those who save the lives of the cruel murderers in the name of human rights and right to life quashing death penalties are allowing deaths of innocents (foetuses and those who fall victim to the killers like AIDS through contacts with them) in millions. Those who oppose them are dismissed with contempt as the retrogressive and obscurantist.
Equality
Interestingly, while all the years the legal institutions have been extremely concerned about the equality of women, in the case of adultery, Supreme Court has shown concern for unequal treatment to men in the matters of adultery. While previously, men were punished and women got free, now instead of making both punishable, the Supreme Court has pronounced equality for men by decriminalising them as well. What a way to achieve equality! But again, in order to sound pro-women, the Court has taken refuge in the argument that the previous law considered women only as the property of husbands and therefore the law needs to be quashed in order to ensure the dignity of women.
Family the Wall of Safety against Threats
The Supreme Court judgment has sounded death-knell for family system in India. The truth however is that family is the strongest wall of safety against diseases and social order. Marriage is a system that protects men and women against burdens of various kinds. Biologically speaking, man has the potential of impregnating as many women as he can engage with in physical relationship. He can father children from innumerable women at almost the same time. Woman cannot have more than a child at one time for at least a period of one year; if she actively breastfeeds her child the gap tends to be much longer, as long as three years. But what man can do in biological terms, he cannot justify in social terms if he has any obligations towards the women he is having sex with. Furthermore, the demographic composition does not allow such vagrancies as the number of men and women are almost equal in society. Women outnumber men only by an extremely thin margin, and this margin is slightly higher in terms of marriage seekers. A strong family system, which makes promiscuity unacceptable, is consistent with the demographic, social and medical realties. This kind of system successfully acts as an insurmountable barrier between sex-transmitted infections and human bodies.
Promiscuity is an all-enveloping monster. Only a few can practise polygamy because of the demographic unavailability of women if a sizeable percentage wants it; but promiscuity can go on entrapping almost everybody. This has in fact become the truth in a large number of societies that do not put any restrictions on free mixing of men and women. Wherever promiscuity is high, the incidence of sex transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS is significantly high. The safe sex measures have only a limited role in protection against these diseases.
With the decriminalisation of homosexuality and adultery, India will go the Western way with marriages not lasting more than few years and more and more children living in single parent families. The fatherhood of the child will need establishment through DNA Tests.
What is the real surprise is that these historical verdicts have come when Hindutva is in power. Do they reflect historical milestones towards the “neo- Rama Rajya” that Hindutva is so fond of dreaming and talking? I am sure, truly religious majority of Indians is disturbed. Muslims have their own Islamic ways to face the challenges. How Hinduism, which has been so proud of its extended family system, will cope with it, time will tell. Will they act together taking other religions along against this onslaught of immorality and threat to their health and peace?
(Dr Javed Jamil is India based thinker and writer and Head of Chair in Islamic Studies & research, Yenepoya University, Mangalore, with over a dozen books. He can be contacted at doctorforu123”yahoo.com )
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : By a majority 2-1 judgement that could hasten the process of hearing in the vexed Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea for referring the issue to a larger Constitution Bench and referred the case to a three-judge bench to be set up that will begin hearing from October 29.
“We are of the considered opinion that no case has been made out to refer the Constitution Bench judgment of this court in Ismail Faruqui case for reconsideration,” said Justice Ashok Bhushan, reading the judgement on behalf of himself and Chief Justice Dipak Misra, who headed Thursday’s three-judge bench.
The bench was giving its verdict on petitions by some Muslims who had pleaded that the 2010 judgement of the Allahabad High Court splitting the title dispute into three parts be heard by a Constitution Bench as it involved reconsideration of a 1994 ruling by a five-judge bench of the apex court which had held that mosque was not an essential part of Islam to offer namaz.
Thursday’s order assumes significance in view of the fact that a possible early judgement in the case could have implications in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as the Ayodhya dispute has been a major electoral issue in the last over 30 years.
The petitioners had contended that while deciding the title suit in 2010, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had referred to the observations made in the 1994 judgement by the five-judge bench.
However, in a dissenting ruling, Justice Abdul Nazeer said the judgement in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case needed reconsideration and the matter should be referred to a larger Constitution bench.
The majority judgement on Thursday held that a newly constituted bench will commence hearing from October 29 on a batch of petitions filed by both the sides — Hindu and Muslim stakeholders — challenging the 2010 judgement trifurcating the disputed site into three parts for Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and the original Muslim litigant.
“To conclude, we again make it clear that questionable observations made in Ismail Faruqui’s case as noted above were made in context of land acquisition. Those observations were neither relevant for deciding the suits nor relevant for deciding these appeals,” Justice Bhushan said.
“The issues, which have arisen in these appeals (Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid) are no doubt important issues, which have to be heard and decided in these appeals. Normally appeals arising out of suits are placed before a bench of two judges but looking to the importance of the matter, the present appeals have already been placed before three-judge bench.
“For the aforesaid reasons, we do not agree with the submission of petitioner that these appeals be referred to Constitution Bench of five judges to reconsider the constitution bench judgment in Ismail Faruqui’s case,” Justice Bhushan said in the verdict.
In his minority judgement, Justice Nazeer said “questionable” observations in the Ismail Faruqui ruling were arrived at without undertaking a comprehensive examination and they had permeated the judgement in the main Ayodhya title suit.
He said a Constitution Bench must decide what constitutes essential practices of a religion and thereafter the Ayodhya land dispute should be heard.
Justice Nazeer also said that whether mosque was an essential part of Islam for offering namaz was to be decided considering the religious beliefs and requires detailed consideration.
“It is clear from the aforesaid decisions that the question as to whether a particular religious practice is an essential or integral part of the religion is a question which is to be considered by considering the doctrine, tenets and beliefs of the religion. It is also clear that the examination of what constitutes an essential practice requires detailed examination as reflected in the aforesaid judgments,” Justice Nazeer said.
He also said that the question of the 1994 Ismail Farooqi judgement needed to be referred to a larger Constitution Bench.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, an adultery law dating to the British era, terming it unconstitutional, archaic and manifestly arbitrary, with one judge saying women can’t be treated as “cattle”.
“Mere adultery can’t be a criminal offence. It is a matter of privacy. Husband is not the master of wife. Women should be treated with equality along with men,” Chief Justice Dipak Misra said.
Most countries have abolished adultery as a crime. “It shouldn’t be a criminal offence, other people are also involved in it,” Misra said, reading out the judgement, also on behalf of Justice A.M. Khanwilkar.
Any discrimination shall invite the wrath of the Constitution, the Chief Justice said, adding that a woman cannot be asked to think about the way society desires her to do.
Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, reading out his judgement, said: “Women can’t be treated as cattle”.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud in a concurring but separate judgment said society has two sets of morality in sexual behaviour — one for women and another for men.
Society treating women as embodiment of virtue leads to things like honour killings, he said, adding that the archaic law is against dignity, liberty and sexual autonomy guaranteed under the Constitution.
—IANS
