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New Delhi: Justice T.S. Thakur was sworn in on Thursday as the 43rd Chief Justice of India.
President Pranab Mukherjee administered the oath of office.
Thakur succeeded Chief Justice H.L. Dattu who demitted office on December 2.
Chief Justice Thakur will have a tenure of 13 months as he is slated to retire on January 3, 2017.
(IANS)
New Delhi: Miffed over scheduling of three-day long judges conference during the holy period for Christians, a sitting Supreme Court judge has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and declined a dinner invitation, scheduled to be held on Saturday.
In his letter dated April 1, Justice Kurian Joseph wrote: “Your good self would kindly appreciate that no important programmes are held during sacred and auspicious days of Diwali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid, Bakrid, etc, though we have holidays during that period as well.”
Underlining that the Indian model of secularism is based on the principle of sarva dharma sambhava, Justice Joseph cautioned that the country needs to safeguard its credentials.
Justice Joseph added that though it is “too late to reschedule the events. But being the guardian of Indian secularism, I request your honour to kindly have in mind these concerns while scheduling events and benevolently show equal importance and respect to the sacred days of all religions which are also declared as national holidays. I have shared these concerns with the honourable Chief Justice of India as well.”
The apex court judge has also written a letter to Chief Justice of India HL Dattu objecting to the holding of the conference of 24 high court chief justices from Good Friday to Eastern Sunday.
“I may with deep anguish bring to your kind notice that such an important conference should not have been held when some of us, otherwise expected to be part of the event, or otherwise committed on account of the holy days when we have religious ceremonies and family get-together as well,” he said in his letter to CJI HL Dattu.
Maintaining that he was not striking a communal note, Justice Joseph said such serious programmes were not held during Diwali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid, etc.
However, Justice Dattu hit back, saying the question the justice had to ask himself, as he cannot ask the judge, is “whether it is institutional interest or individual interest that one should preference to”.
Justice Dattu, in a letter to Justice Joseph, said assuming that religious ceremonies and family get-togethers were important, then he could ask his family to join him in Delhi.
“Several other participants are coming from distant places, leaving behind families,” the CJI said.
The CJI got support from a former apex court judge Justice KT Thomas asking why Christians cannot work on Good Friday.
“In America, where 98 percent are Christians, Good Friday is a working day. Christians can attend Church service and go to work. But in India we are obsessed with holiday culture. I am totally opposed to this holiday mania that we suffer from,” Justice Thomas said.
Chief Ministers of various states would join the judges on third day of the conference when Prime Minister Narendra Modi would address them and the legal luminaries.
Top judges from across the country led by Chief Justice of India HL Dattu on Friday began brainstorming to find solutions to critical problems like ensuring speedy trials to tackle over three crore pending cases and lack of infrastructure in courts.
(Agencies)
New Delhi: The Supreme Court slammed the Union government today for spending crores on the Republic Day parade but delaying the payment of compensation to farmers for land acquired from them.
“You spend Rs. 100 crores on Republic Day parade but when it comes to payment of compensation to farmers, you file appeals,” Chief Justice HL Dattu told the Centre.
The court’s observation came during a hearing of the Defence Ministry’s appeals relating to compensation to farmers on land acquisition in cantonment areas in Punjab.
The Punjab and Haryana high court had awarded a substantial compensation to farmers and the ministry had appealed against it.
But the Supreme Court declined to interfere, saying, “farmers are deprived of reasonable compensation”. The government, the court said, spends “so much money on litigations” but “takes a different stand” when it comes to paying farmers.
The Chief Justice also criticised the Union government for not creating enough infrastructure for the functioning of tribunals. “If you are unable to provide accommodation, why create such tribunals?” the court said.
Justice Dattu said recently, a retired Supreme Court Judge who was appointed on a tribunal, was not provided accommodation.
“I am anguished that you are pushing them (Judges) to Commonwealth village. Why different treatment for them? You must create infrastructure before creating tribunals,” the court said.
(Agencies)
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the central and state governments and the union territory administrations on a PIL seeking the framing of “rules, regulations and the guidelines” for protection of school-children from the menace of sexual and mental abuse in the educational premises.
“It is a good cause,” said a bench of Chief Justice H.L.Dattu and Justice A.K.Sikri issuing notice on the PIL as advocate J.P.Dhanda, appearing for petitioner Vineet Dhanda, addressed the court on the issue.
Referring to numerous newspaper reports about drastic rise in cases of sexual abuse of children within the educational institutions, school transports and boarding houses, the petitioner has sought directions for the framing of strict guidelines for educational institutions to ensure the safety and protection of the students from any sort of “physical and mental abuse”.
Vineet Dhanda has also sought the laying down of the rules for penalising the educational institutions where the incidents of sexual abuse take place.
Dhanda, who is also an advocate, has also sought police intervention for safeguarding the school children from any kind of violence and abuse.
Referring to the reports of sexual abuse of children staying in boarding schools away from their parents, the petitioner said: “The more disturbing part besides the gory crime of child sexual abuse is that the educational institutions have no liabilities whatsoever fixed by law in case of such offences in their premises.”
He said that schools were charging exorbitant fees and other charges but were not discharging their elementary responsibility of securing the lives of children when they are in schools.
“Even the police administration goes out of its way to protect such educational institutions for their own vested interests,” Dhanda told the court.
The petition said that “to protect the precious lives of children from being scared as a result of such dastardly acts is the prime duty of the schools as well as prime duty of the government and administration”.
(IANS)
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the central government and the election commission on a BJP plea challenging the Delhi High Court order that the contribution to its coffers by the Indian subsidiary of an overseas-based company amounted to foreign contribution.
An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu while issuing notice on Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) plea, tagged it with an earlier Congress plea on the same issue.
The Delhi High Court had ruled that the funding for the Congress and the BJP by the Indian subsidiary of an overseas company amounted to foreign contribution which is prohibited and has urged the Election Commission (EC) and the central government to proceed against them.
(IANS)