The Allahabad high court on Friday ordered authorities to determine the age of the Shivling-like structure inside the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi using modern technology.
Terming as "not correct" the Allahabad high court order that prohibited all media reports related to troop movements, Press Council of India Chairman Justice Markandey Katju on Thursday said that the Council would soon challenge it in the Supreme Court. "The Press Council of India will be challenging the order of the Allahabad high court in the Supreme Court of India very shortly," the PCI chief, who is a former Supreme Court judge, said in a statement.
While that created a stir so did the decision on his penultimate day at work with the Supreme Court rechristening its summer vacation "partial court working days", an issue that has led to criticism that the apex court judges enjoyed long breaks.
"Interim orders wherever granted shall continue. Re-list in first half of April, 2024," the bench said in its order and directed the parties to complete the pleadings by then.
A committee has been set up to look into complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace in Allahabad high court, its bench in Lucknow and district courts across the state.
The court said the parties shall give an affidavit to keep the report with them and not make it public after getting the report.
The Supreme Court on Monday suggested that a former high court judge monitor the ongoing probe by the Uttar Pradesh police into the October 3 Lakhimpur Kheri incident in which eight people, including four farmers, were killed in violence during a farmers' protest, saying the investigation was not going the way it expected.
Supreme Court judge, Justice R V Raveendran, gave this order while hearing the petition filed by retired bureaucrat Ramesh Chand Tripathi to defer the title suit verdict.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath said all aspects related to the death are being investigated and the guilty will not be spared.
A three-member judicial commission set up by the Uttar Pradesh government to investigate the Maha Kumbh stampede will visit the site on Friday. The commission, headed by retired Allahabad High Court judge Harsh Kumar, has a month to complete its investigation but will try to expedite it. The commission members will also interact with media and examine the causes and circumstances surrounding the incident, focusing on understanding the causes and proposing preventive measures for the future.
Advocate Madan Mohan Yadav, who is representing the Hindu petitioners, said, "The report in sealed cover was placed before the court by the ASI's standing counsel Amit Srivastava."
The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday appointed Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court, to supervise the Uttar Pradesh SIT's probe on day-to-day basis into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which eight people including four farmers were killed on October 3.
The hearing came nearly a month after the apex court had sent a stern message to the Centre over non-execution of collegium's decision to transfer and appointment of Chief Justices and judges in high courts.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the oath taking of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairperson-designate Justice (retd) Umesh Kumar, while deciding to examine the constitutional validity of a provision of the Centre's recent ordinance governing such an appointment.
In its order on March 22, the court said the Hindu Marriage Act merely provides for saptpadi (seven steps or saat pheras) as an essential ceremony of a marriage.
The committee had filed the petition in the high court against the order of the district judge of Varanasi in September last year that turned down its objections on the maintainability of the suit filed by the five Hindu women.
The Anjuman Intezamia Committee Thursday filed a counter-affidavit before the Allahabad HC in the matter seeking a survey of the Wazukhana (or ablution area) by the ASI.
The sacrament based Hindu marriage may be dissolved (in law), in limited circumstances and too only on the strength of evidence led by the parties, it said.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear on Friday a plea challenging the Allahabad high court order of conducting a 'scientific survey', including carbon dating, to determine the age of a 'Shivling' which was said to have been found at the Gyanvapi mosque complex in Varanasi.
Meanwhile, the court also rejected a plea by the centre and AMU seeking permission to move the SC in the matter.
The apex court rejected an appeal challenging a July 10 decision of the Allahabad high court which had also dismissed the plea finding no error or illegality in the order of a Mathura civil judge who had decided to first hear the issue of maintainability of the suit as raised by management committee of the mosque.
Here is the chronology of events in the Ayodhya Ram temple issue.
The ASI, which was to submit the report of the survey by October 6, now has time till November 6 to do so.
Justice Chandrachud will serve as the CJI for two years till November 10, 2024.
The ASI told the court on November 2 that it might take some more time to compile the report, along with the details of the equipment used in the survey work, following which additional time till November 17 was granted for the submission of the document.
The Allahabad high court on Monday deferred till October 31 the hearing of an appeal challenging the acquittal of all 32 accused, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani and the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, in the Babri mosque demolition case.
Self-styled godman Bhole Baba's lawyer A P Singh alleged on Sunday that witnesses told him some people opened cans containing a poisonous substance in the crowd during the July 2 Hathras 'satsang', triggering the stampede.
Prayers were performed in a cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi on Wednesday night following court orders allowing the resumption of a practice said to have been discontinued three decades back, Kashi Vishwanath temple trust president said.
The Allahabad high court had in January 2006 struck down the provision of the 1981 amendment Act by which the university was accorded the minority status.
The Allahabad high court on Friday ruled that delivering the azaan on loudspeakers is not a fundamental right.
District Judge A K Vishvesh ordered that it would continue to hear the petition seeking the right to worship in the temple.
The three judges of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court will give separate judgments in the Ramjanma bhoomi-Babri Masjid case at 3.30 pm on Thursday. Lucknow District Magistrate Anil Kumar Sagar told reporters that three synopses of the judgment of the three judges will be given to the media immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict. It will also be put up on the website of the court on the internet, he said.
The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the stampede at Allahabad Railway Station that left 37 people dead.
Former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar has argued for replacing the existing collegium system for judicial appointments, asserting that public sentiment leans toward an alternative mechanism, potentially resembling the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). He believes that the government has the authority to propose a revised constitutional amendment for judicial appointments that would withstand judicial scrutiny. Kumar also urged the Supreme Court to establish a robust internal process to address concerns within the judiciary, including allegations against judges.
A vacation bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Bela M Trivedi said that prima facie the Allahabad high court's bail condition imposed on Khan is disproportionate and sounds like a decree of a civil court.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the plea of Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee.
The bench, which also comprised justices AS Oka, JB Pardiwala, Pankaj Mithal and Manoj Misra, pronounced two separate but concurring judgements in the matter.
The CJI said the higher judiciary is getting 'flooded' with bail matters because of the reluctance at the grassroots level to grant bail.
In a relief to the Hindu side, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the Allahabad high court order allowing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a scientific survey at the Gyanvapi mosque complex to determine if the 17th-century structure was built upon a pre-existing temple.
Mishra said that the court has fixed July 7 for the next hearing.
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