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Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

When Congress MP Shashi Tharoor complained about his party being ‘rudderless’ after the resignation of Rahul Gandhi as the party president, it was taken as another manifestation of his penchant for the using the ‘right’ words. Tharoor himself has claimed that he chooses his words “because they are the best ones for the idea” he wanted to convey.

Over 1,000 members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the fastest growing and largest socialist organization in the United States, convened their 2019 National Convention in Atlanta over the weekend. Their goal: To forge a path forward for 2020 and beyond. DSA has seen dramatic growth since Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, growing from a few thousand members then to over 56,000 now.

Undoubtedly the time when the bill scrapping Article 370 and declaring the state of Jammu and Kashmir as Union Territory was introduced in the parliament has been really a momentous occasion in the Parliamentary democracy.

The Unnao gangrape case is classic example of the politician-police-criminal nexus, and it is no surprise that it happened in Yogi’s Uttar Pradesh, which has seen a 26 per cent rise in rape cases and a 33 per cent increase in crime against women; it also stands third in the list for child rape, after Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The Yogi Government, despite its tall claims of action on molesters after constituting anti-Romeo squads, has failed to protect girls and women. One can see the brazen thwarting of law and order in UP, as the Unnao gang rape victim battles for life on a ventilator. The girl went missing on 4th June 2017. A missing report was filed but clearly the police was conniving in the case, and so there were no efforts to trace the girl. Maybe, the police was aware of her whereabouts, since the rapist MLA, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who belongs to the same village, notorious for his criminal antecedents, has made the police department an appendage of his political-criminal nexus.

Once there was a state in the Union of India named Jammu & Kashmir. It remained so after its accession in 1947 until August 5, 2019 when the state was abolished after a presidential order revoking Article 370 of the constitution of India, reducing it to mere a territory held by the Union, and a significant area carved out to make another territory named Ladakh. It was done by applying brute force in the state silencing the voice of its citizens and by the majority in the parliament without discussion on the matter. Opinions are divided. Some say the action and the manner in which it was done was immoral, unethical, unwise, and unjustified while majority of non-Kashmiri Indians hailed the action bold and historic. Kashmiris termed the fateful event as ‘black day’. We, both Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri Indians, will have to face the consequences whatever may come.

Boris Johnson’s pledge that the UK will fiercely pursue his Brexit policy and leave EU on 31 October, “no ifs or buts”, has not only put the British polity in a blind alley but has created a piquant political situation in the European Union. Apparently Brussels is not against the Brexit and allowing the UK to walk out of the Union, there is lurking fear that it would jeopardise Union’s interest at the global level.

The world could never imagine the aftermath that happened after atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August 1945 respectively. The two cities were left with over 2 lakh people dead and several times more injured. The effects continued for long as a result of radiation leakage from these bombs which caused acute radiation sickness in the form of burns and bleeding from various organs of the body. The chronic effects of the radiations led to anomalies in the next generation born to the people who survived the catastrophe. Dr Marcel Junod, first foreigner from Red Cross to reach there moved around the blighted city, pieced together what had happened from various first-hand accounts:

The Director General Central Reserve Police Force vide their letter dt 23rd July 2019 addressed to one of their Sector commanders appears to be committing contempt of the court by giving an entire new interpretation to the order of Delhi High Court affirmed by the Supreme Court in the matter of grant of OGAS status and NFFU to the CPMF. They have introduced a totally new dimension to the meaning of “Organised Group ‘A’ Service” (OGAS) which doesn’t find mention either in the Delhi High Court Order or in the order of Supreme Court.

The attack on Article 370 — the most contentious and sensitive article of the Constitution of India — was complete when the Modi government on Monday, August 5, 2019 introduced in the Parliament a draft resolution recommending to the President its abrogation along with a bill to reorganize the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It did not give the MPs adequate time to study and critique the proposals.