5 stories you must read today, December 5: From SC dismissing PIL against Arundhati Roy’s book cover to another US boat strike in Pacific and more

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a Special Leave Petition challenging the Kerala High Court’s dismissal of a PIL against the cover of Arundhati Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me, which depicts the author smoking a bidi. The SC bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi upheld the High Court’s view that the image does not violate the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2013. The petitioner contended that the cover lacked statutory health warnings and questioned whether the substance being smoked was tobacco. Read more

The Pentagon on Thursday said that the US military conducted another “lethal kinetic” strike on a vessel carrying illicit narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific. The latest strike was the first in nearly three weeks. It comes at a time when White House and Pentagon struggle to answer questions about the legality of killing suspected drug smugglers with military strikes. The strike took place hours after US lawmakers heard in a classified session from Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who led the Joint Special Operations Command during a military strike on a boat on September 2, about a second attack on two men who had survived the initial ambush. Read more

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain an attempt by Tamil Nadu authorities to mention their special leave petition challenging a Madras High Court order on lighting a lamp at the disputed ‘Deepathoon’ site at the Arulmigu Subramanya Swamy Temple, in Madurai. On December 4, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court declined a State plea challenging a Single Bench order for the lighting of the lamp under Central Industrial Security Force cover. The state’s attempt was stoutly contested by a counsel representing the worshippers. He told the bench that “the state is only playing a drama” and that they sought to mention it “only to tell the high court that they have mentioned before the Supreme Court”. Read more

Dr. Dhruba Kumar Bhattacharyya on Thursday was appointed the Acting Vice-Chancellor of Tezpur University in Assam, where students and faculty members have been protesting over the ‘missing’ incumbent Vice-Chancellor Dr Shambhu Nath Singh. Singh has been absent from the campus since late September, and since last week, staff and students have declared a shutdown of academic and administrative activities. The students and staff accuse Singh of financial irregularities and prolonged absence from the university, leading to “administrative stagnation”, disrepair of campus infrastructure, and disruption of academic processes. Read more

The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently held that the right of an accused for production and requisitioning of the call details and mobile tower location details of police officials prevails over their right to privacy. The court made the ruling in a case filed by an accused seeking call data records (CDRs) and mobile location data of police officials. The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the mobile tower location and call detail records of officials needs to be preserved so that the accused can defend his case. Read more