New Delhi: High-profile politicians such as Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, MPs Shashi Tharoor and Subramanian Swamy were the newsmakers of 2017 in the Delhi high court. The court also tightened its noose around a fake spiritual guru whose activities were akin to incarcerated Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.
The incident, similar to Haryana’s Dera Sacha Sauda where girls and women were sexually exploited, surfaced from an ashram in north-west Delhi run by Virender Dev Dixit under the garb of spiritual university after which the high court swung into action this month to order a CBI probe.
The agency, which has been tasked with tracing Dixit, has been directed to reach to the bottom of the crime.
However, before this late development of the year, the Jaitley-Kejriwal defamation cases hogged the limelight with both leaders trading charges against each other. The matter reached the crescendo when noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani appearing for the Aam Aadmi Party supremo, hurled abusive words at the BJP leader, who promptly filed a second libel suit against the Delhi chief minister.
Realising the damage caused to him, Mr Kejriwal not only disowned the statement made on his behalf by Mr Jethmalani, but also distanced himself from the jurist, who stuck to his guns that it was Mr Kejriwal, who instructed him.
Mr Tharoor also had a tiff with a newly-launched TV channel and its senior journalist on how the mysterious death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar in 2014 was being aired or broadcast.
While the high court refused to restrain the channel and its scribe from airing news or debates relating to Ms Pushkar’s death, it, however, said the reporting has to be “tempered and balanced” and Mr Tharoor’s “right to silence” be respected. Her death was the subject matter of BJP leader Mr Swamy’s plea for a SIT probe into the incident, but his PIL was junked by the HC which termed it as a “textbook example of a political interest litigation”.
Amid these development, the high court is considering laying down norms to regulate the media coverage.
The high court on its administrative side was also active on the issue of alleged corruption in the lower judiciary as several judges were axed or suspended.
Besides all these sensitive matters, the Sharad Yadav-led faction of JD-U and T.T.V. Dhinakaran-V.K. Sasikala faction of the AIADMK rushed to the high court to retain the original party symbol without success.
Mr Yadav along with his party colleague, Anwar Ali, challenged their disqualification from the Rajya Sabha after they parted ways with the parent party led by CM Nitish Kumar.
