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Apex Court Directs Compulsory Registration Of Marriages

In a ruling, having far reaching consequences, the Supreme Court has directed that all the marriages, irrespective of religion, will be compulsorily registered. The Court gave a time of three months to the centre and the state governments to frame and notify the rules in this regard.

The Court gave clear directions to incorporate the ‘consequences of non-registration’ in such rules. The Court also directed all such laws to be placed before the Court for scrutiny to ensure that the objective is not diluted at any stage.

Section 8 of the Hindu Marriage Act enables the state government to make rules with regard to the compulsory registration of marriages. At present, only four states viz. Maharashtra, Gujrat, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh have rules providing for compulsory registration of marriages.

The Court accepted the contention of the National Commission for Women (NCW) that non-registration of marriages affected women the most. Enumerating the benefits of the registration, NCW submitted that it would help prevent child marriages, check bigamy/polygamy, help women exercise their matrimonial rights, enable widows to claim inheritance and deter men from deserting their wives.

Solicitor General G E Vahnavati, who assisted the Court as ‘amicus curiae’ received appreciation from the Court for providing valuable data regarding the laws relating to Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Parsi marriages.

No Reply to SC Notice, says Speaker

The Loksabha Speaker Sh. Somnath Chatterji has categorically stated that he would neither accept a notice from Supreme Court nor would appear before the Court to explain the expulsion of some MPs, found guilty in the cash-for-query scandal.

The Speaker said this after an all-party meeting urged him to ignore the notices. The speaker expressed his highest regard for the Court, but opined that the Apex Court should have examined if it had any authority to look into a matter belonging to the exclusive domain of Lok Sabha. The Speaker also referred to the observations of the Apex Court in the JMM case that no court could take away the right of the House to decide on the conduct of the members.

105:- Powers, privileges, etc. of the Houses of Parliament and of the members and committees thereof:

(1) Subject to the provisions of this constitution and the rules and standing orders, regulating the procedure of Parliament, there shall be freedom of speech in Parliament.

(2) No member of the Parliament shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in the Parliament or any committee thereof, and no person shall be so liable in respect of the publication by or under the authority of either House of the Parliament of any report, paper, votes or proceedings.

(3) In other respects, the powers, privileges and immunities of each House of the Parliament, and of the members and the committees of each house, shall be such as may from time to time be defined by the Parliament by law, and, until so defined shall be those of that House and of its members and committees immediately before the coming into the force of Section 15 of the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act 1978.

(4) The provisions of clauses (1), (2) and (3) shall apply in relation to the persons, who by the virtue of this constitution have the right to speak in and otherwise to take part in the proceedings of, a House of Parliament or any committee thereof, as they apply in relation to members of Parliament.

Specifically, it is the sub-section 2 of the Article-105 that provides complete protection to any thing said or the vote given in the Parliament or to any committee thereof.

The speaker said that as the Parliament had decided the expulsion of the members by vote, Article-105(2) would specifically exclude any intervention of the Court.

It may be recalled that the punishment of expulsion was given to the MPs caught in cash-for-query scam .The speaker had received thousands of letters and e-mails, hailing the decision, to take tough stand against the corrupt MPs.

Free Ship For single Child put on hold

The Delhi High Court granted a stay on the CBSE circular for granting free education to the single girl child.

The circular made it compulsory for all the affiliated schools to provide free education, from class VI onwards, to every single child. The circular was issued at the direction of the Human Resource Development Ministry. The circular was objected to by many Principals, as they felt that this would put a lot of financial burden on the schools, which would be ultimately passed on to the other students.

The petition said that as the schools were not receiving any aid from the government, it would be extremely difficult for them to bear this burden. The Court issued notices to the centre, CBSE and the Director of Education, Delhi. The case would come up for next hearing on March 27.

“AMU - not a minority institution” HC

The Allahabad High Court has termed granting of minority status to Aligarh Muslim University as unconstitutional. The court, therefore, declared the reservation of the seats for Muslims and 50% quota, approved by the AMU medical council in the Post- Graduate medical courses, as illegal. However, the court allowed the students, already admitted on the basis of reservation, to continue.

The High Court referred to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Aziz Basha case in 1968 holding that AMU was not a minority institution, and hence, could not claim the benefit of Article-30 of the Constitution.

Art - 30 of the Constitution is reproduced below:

“30. Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions.-

(1)All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.

(1A) In making any law, providing for the compulsory acquisition of any property of an educational institution established and administered by a minority, referred to in clause (1), the State shall ensure that the amount fixed by or determined under such law, for the acquisition of such property, is such as would not restrict or abrogate the right guaranteed under that clause.

(2) The state shall not, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, based on religion or language”.
This article in Fundamental Rights ensures the freedom to a minority institution to administer its affairs.

SC quashes UP government order

The Apex Court, in a severe blow to the UP govt., quashed its order for the withdrawal of POTA charges against the controversial minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiya.

The Court further directed that the case against him will be transferred to the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. The Court also directed the minister to surrender before the special court within 7 days. The order also applied to his father and his cousin. The Court, however, gave liberty to all the accused to file fresh bail application before the special Court.

The direction of the Court to transfer the case outside UP made amply clear the opinion that the Apex Court has about the fairness of trial in UP.

Following the order, Raja Bhaiya resigned from the Mulayam Singh Ministry. However, he said that he did not have a guilty conscience and was resigning to uphold the democratic values.

Strictures passed against petitioner on PIL(Public Interest Litigation)

The Panjab and Haryana HC on 10th November came down heavily on a petitioner, who had filed a PIL, seeking a CBI enquiry into the alleged encroachment of public land. Not only did the Court dismiss the PIL, but also directed registry not to entertain any PIL filed by the petitioner in the future.

The petitioner had sent a letter, saying that he ‘lacked confidence’ in Mr. Justice Hemant Gupta and hence, he must not hear the case.

The petitioner was dubbed as “busybody” and a “masked phantom working for the personal gains and meddling in the judicial process.”

The Bench said that it was refraining from initiating the contempt proceedings against the petitioner, so as not to give him the publicity that he assiduously seeks.

Reiterating the view of the Supreme Court with regard to the PILs, the Bench held that there must be a genuine public interest involved in the litigation.

Justice Y K Sabharwal —The New Chief Justice of India

Justice Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal took over as the new Chief Justice of India on the Diwali Day, 1st November, 2005. Expressing sympathy for the Delhi blast victims, he said that it would be the endeavour of the judiciary to expeditiously try such cases, despite the large noumber of witnesses involved.

Justice Sabharwal, after his appointment as CJI, favoured abolition of the death penalty. He said that as a judge of the apex court he was not against the capital sentence in rarest of rare cases, but personally he wanted the capital punishment to be erased from the penal code. However, he emphasized that it was upto the legislature to decide whether to retain the death penalty on the statute book or not. He sounded very optimistic when he attributed the delay in the cases to the high filing rate, rather than the slower disposal.

Born on January 14, 1942 Justice Sabharwal mainly practised in civil and constitutional cases and was elevated as an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on November 17, 1986 and became its permanent judge on April 29, 1987.

He was elevated as the judge of the Apex Court on January 28, 2000, the golden jubilee day of the Supreme Court. As a judge of the Apex Court, Justice Sabharwal delivered several important judgements dealing with the constitutional matters, including the recent verdict on the dissolution of Bihar Assembly, holding the dissolution unconstitutional. Justice Sabharwal dealt with the politically-sensitive JMM bribery case, medical scam and unauthorised constructions in the capital.
His 14 months term would expire on January 14, 2007, on the attainment of 65 years of age.