The Week That Was: The Supreme Court of India

This week at the Apex Court stretched over into the weekend, with a special hearing of Nirbhaya scheduled for Saturday. However, the days leading up to it were quite routine, with not much happening, apart from the much-publicised order on the National Anthem..Read the highlights from the week below..Monday, November 28.Status Quo on Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal.Status quo has been directed on land acquired for the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal’s stretch in Punjab. In addition, the Court has sought a report from the receivers by December 15 on the present status of the land..Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy, however, made it clear that the Union Home Secretary, Chief Secretary of Punjab and the Director General of Punjab Police, who have been made receivers, will not be taking over the possession of the land meant for the SYL canal project. They have been made receivers only for the purposes of submitting a report on the ground situation..Earlier this month, a five-judge Constitution Bench had set aside the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, which unilaterally terminated the 1981 water-sharing pact with Haryana..Tuesday, November 29.BJP, Congress withdraw appeals on foreign funding.Both, the BJP and the Congress withdrew their respective appeals from the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court verdict holding them prima facie guilty of violating the law on foreign funding..The Finance Act 2016 made an amendment in Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), due to which both the parties informed the court that if an Indian holds majority of shares in a company then it would not be considered as a foreign company under FCRA. The new provision is retrospective, and is with effect from 2010, when the FCRA was introduced..After receiving instructions from both the parties, their respective counsels informed the apex court that in view of the 2010 amendment, they cannot be held liable for receiving alleged foreign funds in violation of the law..Senior Advocates Shyam Divan and Kapil Sibal, represented the BJP and the Congress respectively.Wednesday, November 30.Court ordered protocol for National Anthem.All Indians will now compulsorily have to stand up and listen to the National Anthem before they can watch a movie in a theatre is one of many directions issued by the Apex Court..When the National Anthem is being played or sung in a cinema hall, its doors must remain locked so that no one can create any kind of disturbance that will amount to disrespect to the National Anthem, a bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy noted..Read the full story here, and here..Thursday, December 1.Maintainability of Swaraj Abhiyan petitions to be debated.Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy have agreed to hear the issue of maintainability of the plea filed by Swaraj Abhiyan, a former non-profit organization, seeking an SIT probe into alleged irregularities in the purchase of an Augusta Westland helicopter for VVIP use by the Chhattisgarh government..Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi mentioned that Swaraj Abhiyan has applied for registration as a political party, due to which its intentions in filing petitions was seriously under question..Friday, December 2.Pollution control to get a makeover in Delhi NCR.Chief Justice TS Thakur, and Justices AK Sikri and SA Bobde, in a batch of PILs filed highlighting the deteriorating air quality in Delhi, has okayed the Centre’s graded response action plan to tackle different levels of pollution and asked the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to upgrade its existing infrastructure and set up additional monitoring stations in Delhi-NCR within six months..It also mentioned that the odd-even rule might kick in if the air quality fails to improve..Kapil Sibal appears for journalists in Kerala’s Media versus Lawyers dispute.Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for the Kerala Union of Working Journalists in the case relating to entry of media personnel in the courts of Kerala. Senior Advocate V Giri appeared for the Kerala High Court..The matter was heard by a Bench of Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose and UU Lalit, and adjourned the case for the second week of January. The petition relates to the alleged unofficial restrictions placed on journalists from entering courts in the State..These restrictions themselves were a fallout of the violence between the media and lawyers a few months ago, which the Chief Justice TS Thakur had agreed to resolve. Interestingly, the Kerala High Court had recently framed guidelines for accreditation of journalists for reporting from the High Court..Saturday, December 3.Special Hearing for Nirbhaya.The Supreme Court held a special hearing of the Nirbhaya gang rape case, where Amicus Curae Sanjay Hegde argued that the accused had been convicted on the basis of flimsy evidence, raising strong doubts on the police investigation..Before a Special Bench presided by Justice Dipak Misra, Senior Advocate and Amicus Raju Ramachandran, had also asked the apex court to set aside the order on sentencing.