JUDICIARY PAVES THE WAY FOR A NEW INDIA

A slew of landmark orders that made history, an unprecedented press conference by four senior Supreme Court judges who questioned a Chief Justice’s style of functioning, and efforts to tackle the pendency of cases — 2018 was a remarkable year for the top

the sale of only “green and improved” fireworks mandatory in NCR.

And then there were the landmark orders.

In March, it reversed a Kerala high court order that annulled an interfaith marriage it felt was a sham. “Marriage and personal relations are the core of plurality of India. We must do everything to protect it,” the top court said, ruling that consenting adults have the right to choose whom they wed.

In September, it ruled that gay sex between consenting adults is not an offence, reading down the British-era Section 377 of the penal code. “Any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates fundamental rights,” said then CJI Dipak Misra.

In a September judgment that balanced the needs of the marginalised and the privacy of individuals, the top court upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar project, but with riders.

And again in September, an archaic patriarchal legislation that treated women as the “chattel of husbands” was cast aside by the court when it scrapped the adultery law. In practice for 158 years, the law dented a woman’s individuality, denied her the right to equality and promoted ownership of one gender over the other, the top court ruled. Adultery, however, remains grounds for divorce.

That women’s rights are strongly embedded in the Constitution was the principle that guided the top court to open the doors of the Sabarimala temple in Kerala to women of all age groups in September, and in November the court agreed to reconsider the judgment while refusing to stay the operation of the verdict.