Just four days left, CJI has to deliver eight judgments

With just four working days left after Tuesday before retirement, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra has to deliver eight crucial judgments, many of them crucial to the citizens’ rights and daily life. Three verdicts by a 3-judge Bench he headed are listed on Tuesday but none of the important judgments.

Five of the verdicts are to be delivered by the Constitution Benches while three others are awaiting judgment by the 3-judge Bench of the CJI with Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud as the two other judges.

The most important of all is the Aadhaar case before a 5judge Constitution Bench which to decide the constitutional validity of Aadhaar scheme.

The NDA government has made the Aadhaar mandatory for claiming all welfare benefits and the government services, that made a score of petitioners rush to the Court to challenge the scheme as an infringement on the citizens’ fundamental right to privacy.

The second case before the Constitution Bench relates to the promotion quota in which it has to review the ruling of another 5-judge bench in 2006 that Dalit and Tribal employees are not entitled to reservation in promotions unless the government furnishes data to show that they are inadequately represented in the higher posts.

Another Constitution Bench has to decide whether persons facing criminal charges but not yet convicted can be debarred from contesting the elections or brought under some other restrictions. Two other cases before the Constitution Bench relate to the constitutional validity of ban on women in the ‘menstrual age from 10 to 50 years from entering the famed Sabarimala Temple in Kerala and a petition on adultery that punishes a man up to five years of jail for having sex with another man’s wife while the adulterous woman goes free.

Three other cases before the 3-judge Bench of the CJI relates to the constitutional validity of the practice of the female circumcision among the Muslim Bohras and a plea to refer to a constitution bench the 2010 Allahabad High verdict dividing the disputed Ayodhya Land among a Hindu group, a Muslim group.

The Bench has to also decide whether the Pune Police was justified in arresting five rights activists on the charge of Maoist links last month in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case.

The Supreme Court sources said the Bench headed by the Chief Justice will also have to decide some other cases pending before it before he retires on October 2.