TN contempt plea against Centre in SC

With the Tamil Nadu government set to press ahead on Monday with its contempt application against the Centre for not constituting the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) within the stipulated period of six weeks, the Supreme Court’s coming week will be lined up with several important cases.

Accusing the Centre of refusing to act to protect the interests of farmers and the state, Tamil Nadu said contempt proceedings should be initiated against cabinet secretary PK Sinha and Union water resources secretary UP Singh for their ‘willful disobedience’ of the apex court’s February 16 judgment mandating the Centre to frame a scheme for allocation of the river water among Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.

The application will be heard by a bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra. The bench will also take up the Centre’s plea to give it more time to work out a mechanism. In its application, the Centre wants to delay the implementation of the SC verdict in view of the upcoming assembly elections in Karnataka where Cauvery dispute is a sensitive issue.

The question whether former Presidents and Prime Ministers should be entitled to government bungalows after leaving office will be examined by a bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi this week.

The public interest litigation (PIL), filed by Lucknow-based NGO Lok Prahari, would come up for hearing on April 11. Originally, the petition was specifically filed against the Uttar Pradesh government for allotting government flats to former chief ministers. This policy was introduced despite a verdict of the SC in August 2016 holding such a scheme as “bad in law”. Later, the court expanded the scope of the PIL after senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, as amicus curiae, suggested the SC to do so.

Justice Gogoi’s bench will also get an update on how many special courts have been established to exclusively hear cases registered against sitting members of Parliament (MPs) and members of legislative assembly (MLAs). The SC had in December given a green signal for the Centre’s scheme to set up 12 fast-track courts to exclusively prosecute and dispose criminal cases pending against the lawmakers within a year. The order came on a PIL filed to impose a lifetime ban on convicted politicians from contesting elections.

The top court’s Constitution Bench will continue to hear petitions against Aadhaar law. The SC had in the last hearing disagreed with the Centre’s argument that Aadhaar is an effective tool to detect bank frauds. Attorney general KK Venugopal has been asked to establish how the scheme fulfils the test of proportionality and does not violate an individual’s privacy.

NEW DELHI: THE SC WILL ALSO TAKE UP THE CENTRE’S PLEA TO GIVE IT MORE TIME TO FIND A MECHANISM WITH REGARDS TO SETTING UP THE CAUVERY BOARD NEWDELHI:Justice