The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain pleas seeking a direction to the Centre to frame religion and gender-neutral uniform laws governing subjects like marriage, divorce, inheritance and alimony, saying it cannot direct Parliament to "enact the law".
The observation came when Upadhyay, a lawyer, said since population comes under the concurrent list of the Constitution state governments can also make laws to control it.
The states have outstanding liabilities of a whopping Rs 59,89,360 crore as on March 31, 2021, and the new sources of risk have emerged in the form of rising expenditure on non-merit freebies, the Supreme Court was told on Thursday by a PIL petitioner opposing irrational handouts.
The remarks by Naidu in his last address as the country's Vice President came even as Telangana's ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi RS said the welfare of poorer sections of society is not a freebie and that welfare measures taken by governments should continue.
The bench asked the petitioner to withdraw the petition and termed it dismissed as withdrawn.
The plea said there should be a total ban on such populist measures to gain undue political favour from voters as they violate the Constitution and the ECI should take suitable deterrent measures.
The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach the marginalised sections of the society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also from community point of view.
Names of CMs of Punjab and Karnataka along with a former CM found mention in the list.
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