'It would have been much more appropriate if a law such as this, which all of the civilised world has given up, was struck down through democratic politics rather than five individuals sitting in judgement,' says Aakar Patel.
Verdicts paving the way for construction of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya and India's multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France were 2019's landmark imprints of the Supreme Court, which also found itself at the centre of a controversy with then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi being accused of sexual harassment before getting the clean chit.
She visited her husband M Natarajan, who underwent liver and kidney transplantation at a hospital in Chennai, on all five days of her parole period.
The AIADMK leader's car briefly halted in front of a Ganesha temple in Kotturpuram and she prayed from inside the vehicle as used to be done by Jaya.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
While there is likely no bar on Jayalalithaa meeting with Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his cabinet colleagues, she may not see senior government officials or see official files.
Looking back at the history of the Memon family from March 12, 1993 to July 30, 2014
Former Delhi University lecturer SAR Gilani was on Saturday granted bail by a Delhi court in a sedition case related to an event conducted at the Press Club last month.
Allegations against ex-Delhi university lecturer SAR Gilani, arrested under sedition charges in connection with a Press Club event in New Delhi, are "grievous" and whatever he has purportedly said is against the country, the police told a Delhi court on Friday.
Pakistan on Monday executed former police commando Mumtaz Qadri, who brutally assassinated former liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer for seeking reforms in the country's controversial blasphemy laws, triggering nation-wide protests by Islamists who called it a "black day".
The action against Geelani, who was acquitted in the Parliament attack case, comes even as Delhi Police on Thursday registered a case of sedition in connection with a Tuesday event at JNU campus.
Rediff.com takes a look at some cases from the recent past where the courts awarded the capital punishment for horrific crimes that fall under the rarest of rare category.
'My enduring memory of Lula is personal,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, our former envoy in Brazil. 'He was visiting India after retirement to accept an award.' 'At a private dinner in the Brazilian ambassador's residence, where I too was present, he was missing at the end of the evening.' 'We all went looking for him in the sprawling house to find him eventually in the kitchen talking happily to the cooks and servers.' 'He was thanking them for the excellent meal and service!'
'Once such conduct becomes legitimate through political and popular sanction, then the ordinary citizen will have no defences left,' warns Shyam Saran.
The following are the members of the Memon family who faced trial.
The arrest of an Indian Army Major for allegedly killing a fellow officer's wife he was "obsessed" with is not the first incident of alleged inappropriate conduct in the history of the country's armed forces. In the past, a number of such cases have hogged the limelight at different points in time. Here are some of such cases.
Modelled loosely around the National Highway System of the US, he in 2001 launched the Golden Quadrilateral and the North-South & East-West Corridor projects to build 4/6 lane highways between four top metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata as well as from Srinagar to Kanyakumari and Porbandar to Silchar.
The various theories and statements about the culpability/innocence of 1993 blasts accused Yakub Memon present him with a Rashomon act, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The Babri Masjid wasn't just a mosque, it was a test of our secularism,' says Jyoti Punwani.
Former Delhi University lecturer SAR Gilani, arrested on sedition charges, was remanded to judicial custody till March 3 by the magistrate.
"Nobody is talking about the police's role and how the case was investigated well," ex-Delhi police commissioner said.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, one the seven Pakistani nationals accused of planning and abetting the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was granted bail on Thursday by the anti-terrorism court in the country.
Real estate baron Gopal Ansal will have to surrender to serve the remaining period of the one-year sentence in the Uphaar fire tragedy case with the Supreme Court on Thursday dismissing his plea for parity with his elder brother Sushil Ansal.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
The sea training also included 'how to fish', something that made Kasab think that 'he had got a job and he could earn a respectable living'.
In a fresh development in the Nithari serial murder cases, Ghaziabad sessions court has issued death warrant against Surinder Koli in connection with the brutal killing of 14-year-old Rimpa Halder. Central Bureau of Investigation sources said that a death warrant was issued by additional sessions Judge Atul Kumar Gupta in the name of Koli that he should be hanged to death after the convict exhausted all his legal remedies in this case.
Kanth has challenged the 2010 trial court order summoning him for allowing extra seats in Uphaar cinema hall where 59 people died in a blaze in 1997.
Turkish side Fenerbahce will be unable to compete in the Europa League this season after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld a UEFA-imposed two-year ban from European competition over a match-fixing scandal on Wednesday.
A new political crisis is brewing in the VK Sasikala camp in Tamil Nadu -- differences between Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and party general secretary Sasikala.
Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, serving a five-year sentence at the Yerwada central prison in Pune was released early on Thursday morning.
Acquitting a rape convict, the Bombay high court has held that it would not amount to rape if the consent of the girl in a sexual relationship with her partner was voluntary.
A new video purportedly of the test conducted on Krishna has surfaced on social networking site YouTube which is 58.55-minute long. CBI sources claimed the agency, in its records, has only about 45 minutes of video of the test conducted on Krishna at Forensic Science Laboratory, Bengaluru.
Government on Thursday accused Congress of being "irresponsible" for not allowing Home Minister Rajnath Singh to make a statement in Rajya Sabbha on the Gurdaspur terrorist attack, which it said had originated from Pakistan.
Stoking a controversy, Congress leader Digvijay Singh on said the credibility of government and judiciary was at stake after the "urgency" shown in Yakub Memon's case while his party MP Shashi Tharoor questioned the efficacy of death sentence in serving as a deterrent.
The court held that Salman was driving under the influence of alcohol and also did not have a driving license.
The court granted bail to Advani, Joshi and Bharti after they appeared before it.
'He can install OPS as chief minister and ask him to do the floor test later.'
An accused D G Vanzara gets bail months after Modi emerges as PM and hails it is as a return of 'Achche Din' while the blind-folded lady justice, almost mocks the rest of us, by suggesting that nobody is guilty for the cold blooded killing of Ishrat Jahan, Kauser Bi and the 2,000 odd innocent people in Gujarat, says Shehzad Poonawala.
The curative petition and other legal remedies still available to Yakub Memon are part of his rights as a prisoner condemned to death. Does the Maharashtra government want to deprive him of these rights, asks Jyoti Punwani.
The only thing more dangerous than a killer who thinks he is acting to protect his faith or community is the killer who knows he is acting with the sanction of his faith or community
