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Journalism of Courage
[Judiciary]
The year 2014 saw three Chief Justices of India — P Sathasivam, R M Lodha and H L Dattu — all of whom showed a strong inclination to push for corrections and improvements on the administrative side, including setting up of Constitution benches to decide legal issues awaiting adjudication for long, expediting hearing of cases of sexual assaults and cases involving women, children and senior citizens, regular hearing of environment-related matters by the Green Bench, and earmarking days for hearing long pending criminal appeals.
In a first, a Social Justice Bench was set up in December to deal with issues faced by the common man.
2014 was also the year in which the SC, through its judgments, orders and oral observations, repeatedly appeared in the headlines. The first of these came on January 3, when the court censured union ministers for speaking out against its verdict on re-criminalising homosexuality. CJI Sathasivam said the statements were “not in good taste”, and “not acceptable”. A week later, the SC ruled that every criminal case ending in acquittal will have to be examined by state governments to ascertain whether there were lapses by the prosecution.
In January, the court also took up three other issues that dominated headlines all year round: the coal blocks allocation, delay as ground to commute the death penalty, and Subrata Roy’s alleged contempt in the Sahara case. There was a second historic judgment on the rights of prisoners: the SC ruled that review pleas of death convicts must be heard in open court by at least a three-judge bench.
Besides Subrata Roy, another individual came under close scrutiny by the court: BCCI president N Srinivasan. SC said his continuance at the post was “nauseating”, compelling him to step aside.
The court was active on the matter of black money stashed overseas, repeatedly slamming the UPA government over its “inaction”.
In April, the court granted constitutional recognition to transgenders as a separate “third gender”.
The court’s first run-in with the new government came on the matter of elevating former Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium as an SC judge.
In July, the SC ruled the fatwa has “no place in independent India”. In August, the SC declared allocation of 218 coal blocks as “illegal and arbitrary”, and quashed allocation of 214.
On the judicial side, the court agreed to take up a petition by a former additional district judge of Gwalior alleging sexual harassment by a sitting Madhya Pradesh High Court judge, resulting in the first-ever verdict by the SC on validation and functioning of its “in-house” inquiry mechanism.
In November, the court, in an unprecedented directive, ordered the removal of CBI director Ranjit Sinha from the 2G probe.
The court ordered immediate release of all undertrial prisoners who had served half of their maximum sentence. The SC also ended the tradition in the film industry that barred women from obtaining a make-up artist card.
WATCH
Validity of Sec 66A of the IT Act
Challenge to NJAC that replaces Collegium system to appoint judges
Fate of N Srinivasan and management of BCCI
Selection process of Lokpal and Central Vigilance Commissioner
Social Justice Bench, which will hear all PILs
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