Key verdicts before CJI retires to change socio-politico landscape

Over a dozen key verdicts of the Supreme Court are in the pipeline over the next 17 days before Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra retires on October 2. Many of them have the potential to change the course of socio-political landscape of India.

There are half a dozen judgments by the Constitution Benches he presided while the same number of judgments are due from a 3-judge Bench he chaired with Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud. In most of the cases, the verdicts have been reserved like one on Aadhar that the Constitution Bench reserved on May 10.

The cases before the Constitution Bench the CJI headed are on the validity of the Aadhaar Act, disqualification of charge-sheeted politicians from contesting elections, SC/ST reservation in promotion, decriminalisation of adultery (Section 497 of IPC) and homosexuality (Section 377 of IPC) and entry of women in Sabarimala Temple.

The Bench held a marathon hearing for 38 days on Aadhaar, the longest in the top court after the famous Kesavanand Bharati case in which a 13-judge Bench propounded the basic structure of the Constitution in 1973.

Its verdicts on decriminalisation of adultery and homosexuality are likely to have far-reaching socio-legal consequences. The Centre opposed decriminalisation of adultery on the ground that it is necessary to protect the institution of marriage while it took no stand on the issue of the gays, leaving it to the wisdom of the top court. The Constitution Bench had reserved verdict on adultery on August 8.

Matters to be decided by the 3-judge Bench presided over by Chief Justice Misra include reconsideration of a 1994 verdict of a 5-judge Bench in Ayodhya case that had held Mosque as not central to Islam, ban on legal practice by MPs and MLAs, dilution of anti-dowry law, validity of the practice of female genital mutilation among the Vohra Muslims, making the RTI Act disabledfriendly and live webcast of the CJI court's proceedings on a pilot basis.

The hearing on the Ayodhya title suit before a 3-judge Bench is stalled as the CJI has to rule whether the 1994 judgment comes in is way and whether this judgment need to be re-examined by a larger Bench. The 5-judge Bench had held that a losque is not an "essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam" and so "its acquisition (by the State) is not prohibited by the provisions of the Constitution."

Every CJI delivers some of the verdicts just before demitting the office. CJI's Misra's predecessor Justice J S Khehar too had delivered two landmark verdicts days before his retirement in August last year. One declared the right to privacy as a fundamental right and another that banned the instant triple talaq among the Muslims.