SC’s challenges in 2016: Filling up vacancies and SIT on black money

With about 400 vacancies for judges in the high courts remaining unfilled for almost one year, the new Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur faces a daunting task to fill these posts.

With the revival of the collegium system of judicial appointments, the CJI and his team of judges in the collegium is expected to make the appointments in a more transparent manner. There are now five vacancies in the top court to be filled immediately.

Under the present system the high court collegium will select the names and seeks comments from the state government. But the new memorandum of procedure contemplates that eligibility criteria such as the minimum age may be indicated for the guidance of the collegium (both at the level of the high court and the Supreme Court) for appointment of judges, after inviting and taking into consideration the views of the state government and the Government of India (as the case may be) from time to time.

Since the top court has asked the Union law ministry to come out with a revised MoP, law minister Sadananda Gowda has written to all the chief ministers seeking the views of the respective state governments, which will help in finalising the MoP in consultation with the CJI. The CJI, who has a 13-month tenure, is also expected to take steps to clear some 60,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court and three crore cases in all the courts across the country.

There has been a lot of criticism that the Supreme Court-appointed SIT has not been able to bring back the black money stashed abroad. With the implementation of various steps suggested by the SIT, including amending various provisions of law, the common man can expect that the Narendra Modi government will be able to fulfil its promise.

With a view to reducing the pollution level in the capital, the Supreme Court has banned registration of diesel vehicles of 2,000 cc and above and SUVs which are generally used by more affluent sections of our society as they more prone to cause higher levels of pollution. The court is expected to take up the matter this month to find out ways and means to reduce air pollution in Delhi.

In 2015, the top court ruled that even death-row convicts have right to life and personal liberty and no one can be hanged without following the due procedure. Taking this analogy to the logical end, it gave ample opportunity to Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon to opportunity to knock the doors of the top court in the early hours of July 30 seeking stay of his execution. After a full hearing, the court dismissed his plea and he was executed in the early morning.

The Supreme Court, which is monitoring the CBI probe in the Saradha chit fund scam, entrusted the Madhya Pradesh Vyapam recruitment scam to the CBI. Curiously, soon after the CBI took over the probe, the number of suicides of those involved in the scam has come down.

The death row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case did not get relief as the top court held that they cannot be released by the Tamil Nadu government without the approval of the Union government. It also held that life sentence will mean life sentence till the end of the life.

The court played a role in religious matters as well when it held that appointment of archakas in the temples in Tamil Nadu under the control of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board has to be made strictly in accordance with agama shastras governing such appointments. It did not express any opinion on the validity of a GO which provided for appointment of all Hindus as archakas after proper training.

In a judgment with political overtones, the Supreme Court held that politically organised classes like the jats cannot be included in the Other Backward Classes list to confer reservation benefits to that community. The decision of the UPA government taken on the eve of the elections was supported in the court by the Narendra Modi government. Rejecting the Centre’s stand, the court held that inclusion of the politically organised classes (such as Jats) in the list of backward classes mainly, if not solely, on the basis that on same parameters other groups who had fared better had been so included could not be affirmed.

With stiff resistance for omnibus use of Aadhaar card for all purposes, the Supreme Court has to a limited extent extended the usage of Aadhaar card for availing benefits under MGNREGA, all types of pensions, employees provident fund and for opening of Jandhan Yojana, viz opening of zero balance bank accounts. By earlier orders in September 2013 and March this year, the Supreme Court had restricted the use of Aadhaar to avail services under the LPG, public distribution system and for the purpose of getting kerosene.