6-April-2021 to 12- April-2021
JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA APPOINTED AS NEXT CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA
The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind has appointed Justice N.V. Ramana as the 48th Chief Justice of India, as per the recommendation made by the outgoing CJI S.A.Bobde, who is retiring on 23rd April, 2021. The designated CJI assumed the office on 17th February, 2014 and his term will expire on 26th August, 2022. The hon’ble Justice dealt with many important questions of law, As the hon’ble Justice N.V. Ramana in the case of Anuradha Bhasin v Union of India, 2020, while dealing with issue related to the suspension of internet post abrogation of Article 370 observed that the Suspension of internet for indefinite period not permissible and held that the Freedom of speech and expression and Freedom of trade and commerce through the medium of internet is a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) and Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution. Also in the Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 2019, of which the justice N.V Ramana was the member held that the office of Chief Justice of India is a public authority under Right To Information Act.
THE HON’BLE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA S.A. BOBDE LAUNCHED SUPACE PORTAL FOR ASSISTANCE TO COURTS BY AI TECHNOLOGY
The Supreme Court’s Artificial Intelligence Committee launched its Artificial Intelligence portal named Supreme Court’s Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency(SUPACE). While launching this portal the hon’ble CJI called the system a perfect blend of Human Intelligent and Machine Learning which works as a hybrid between the Intelligence of man and the Machine.
The event was attended by CJI S.A. Bobde, CJI designated Justice NV Ramana and Justice L. Nageswara Rao, who is also the Chairman of the Supreme Court’s Artificial Intelligence Committee. The Chief Justice of India Designate Justice Ramana called this development a historical day for judiciary and said that it is another big step in ensuring access to justice and will be helpful to Judiciary in reducing pendency and delivering justice to needy people.
A PERSON ABOVE 18 YEARS HAS FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO CHOOSE HIS RELIGION: SC
Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India
The bench of hon’ble Supreme Court headed by Justice Rohinton Faliman Nariman while hearing the PIL seeking control on the practice of black magic, superstition and forceful religious conversion, observed that “I don’t see a reason as to why any person above 18 cannot choose his religion. There is a reason why the word “propagate” is there in the Constitution.” and said that the PIL was nothing but a “publicity interest litigation”, which was of a “harmful kind”, the bench warned the petitioner that heavy costs will be imposed if the matter would be pressed.
Last week, the PIL filled in the hon’ble Supreme Court seeking appropriate direction to the Centre and State government to control the practice of black magic, superstition and forceful religious conversion. The petitioner alleged that incidents of forceful religious conversion by “carrot and stick” and by “hook or crook” not only offends Article 14, 21, 25 but also against the very principle of Secularism, which is an integral part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
MUSLIM WOMEN HAS RIGHT TO GET EXTRA-JUDICIAL DIVORCE UNDER PERSONAL LAWS: KERALA HC
X v. Y
The verdict in the case of KC Moyin v. Nafeesa,1972 recently overruled by the bench of kerala High Court which held that all other forms of extra-judicial divorce as referred in Section 2 of the Shariat Act are thus available to a Muslim women as their matter of right. Whereas in the previous judgement that is in KC Moyin, the single judge bench had held that Muslim woman could only resort to divorces under the provisions of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act and had no right to invoke the provision of their personal law.
The court in recent case pointed out that there were four major forms of dissolution of marriages as recognized under Muslim Personal law and protected under the Shariat Act at the instance of the wife. They were, Talaq-e-tafweez, where the wife can dissolve the marriage if her husband fails to keep his end of the marriage contract,
Khula, where a wife can unilaterally divorce her husband by returning his dower,
Mubara’at, dissolution by mutual consent, and, Faskh, dissolution with the intervention of a third person such as a qazi. Under the Shariat Act, Muslim women retained the right of all modes of extrajudicial divorce recognized under their personal law, except Faskh. Faskh was a form of judicial divorce effected through the intervention of a court or through the authority at the instance of a wife.