Draft EIA: Contempt plea in Delhi HC against govt
The Delhi High Court asked the Centre on Tuesday to reply to a plea seeking contempt action against it for alleged "wilful disobedience" of a judicial order to ensure the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification of 2020 is published in all the 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution within 10 days from June 30.
Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva issued notice to the Environment Ministry, which was directed by the high court on June 30 to ensure the draft EIA 2020 is published in all 22 Indian languages within 10 days, and sought its response to the contempt plea by August 17. The order came on the plea by environmental conservationist Vikrant Tongad who has alleged "wilful disobedience and deliberate defiance" by the ministry as it neither published the translated versions of the draft EIA nor did it seek more time from the court to do so.
Goa Speaker again ducks: Defection hearing now on August 28
Goa Assembly Speaker Rajesh Patnekar has ducked again in the case of two petitions against him before the Supreme Court for delaying the decision sought on disqualification of the MLAs who defected to the ruling BJP, many became the ministers.
A Bench headed by CJI Sharad Arvind Bobde on Tuesday reluctantly allowed him two more weeks to reply and postponed hearing on both the petitions clubbed together to August 28. Two other judges on the Bench were Justices
AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.
He was given ample time of 4 weeks originally to file a reply to the petition filed by Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar on June 6 against 10 Congress MLAs defecting to the BJP to gain plump posts. He made an excuse of Corona virus because of which his staff is not coming to office and so he could not get ready the affidavit in reply.
Meanwhile, hearing in case of another petition on disqualification of six BSP MLAs to the Congress in Rajasthan before another Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra was adjourned to Thursday to await decision of the pending petition before the High Court in Jaipur.
Lawyer pulled up for questioning bonafide of ex-judge heading probe into Vikas Dubey encounter
CJI Bobde on Tuesday reprimanded advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay questioning appointment of retired Justice BS Chauhan as the head of a 3-member commission set up by SC to probe into the alleged fake encounter to bump off dreaded criminal Vikas Dubey in Kanpur last month.
The CJI flared up when the lawyer argued his petition to remove Justice Chauhan since his brother is an MLA in UP and his daughter is married in a political family in MP. He snubbed the lawyer Justice Chauhan is a respected judge and aspersions on him cannot be tolerated.
When the lawyer referred to many articles written on the former SC judge, CJI shot back the court does not decide on the basis of the media reports. Asking him if any of his relative is related to the incident, the CJI said there are many judges whose brothers or fathers are MPs but it does not affect their impartiality.
SC allows Centre to continue construction work of India-MyanmarThailand Trilateral Highway Project
The SC allowed the Centre to continue the construction work of the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway Project even as the Manipur HC is hearing the dispute over the contract between the government and a construction firm.
An SC bench, headed by CJI Bobde, said it opined the work should go on with regard to the importance of the project. “However in the interest of justice, we request the Manipur High Court to expeditiously dispose of the matter within a period of two weeks,” the bench said.