‘Let's not bring morale down,' says SC on women short service officers
'In the prevailing situation let's not bring their (Short Service Commission women Army officers) morale down. They are brilliant officers, you can use their services somewhere else. This is not the time that they are asked to roam around in the Supreme Court. They have a better place to be and serve the country,' said, a two-judge bench of the apex court,
The court, which was hearing a batch of pleas filed by 69 officers challenging the denial of PC , fixed the matter for further hearing to August.
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Mint
3 minutes ago
- Mint
SC orders eateries, hotels on Kanwar Yatra route to comply with licensing, refuses to stay QR code directive
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the "QR" code directive for eateries along Kanwar Yatra route in UP, Uttarakhand and directed all hotel owners along the route to display their licences and registration certificates in line with the statutory requirements. A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh said it was not going into the other issues over display of names of the hotel or dhaba owner and the QR code, Tuesday being the last day of the Kanwar Yatra. "We are told that today is the last day of the yatra. In any case it is likely to come to an end in the near future. Therefore, at this stage we would only pass an order that all the respective hotel owners shall comply with the mandate of displaying the licence and the registration certificate as per the statutory requirements," the bench said. The top court was hearing a plea filed by academician Apoorvanand Jha and others. Senior advocate Singhvi submitted that the UP government should have sought the modification of the court's 2024 order before issuing the QR code directives. Singhvi argued the state government was trying to ostracise and exclude minorities by its QR code directive for eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route. "This is the most divisive initiative, to ostracise people during the yatra, as if these people are untouchables. Will my surname ensure that 'kanwariyas' receive good quality food not menu card? This is the most divisive initiative possible," the senior lawyer submitted. Referring to news reports over the alleged attacks on certain shops by kanwariyas, the senior lawyer said, 'When you sow the seeds of divisiveness, the rest is taken care of by the populace.' Responding to his submission, Justice Sundresh said people had different food choices and a vegetarian may choose to go to only a place serving exclusively vegetarian food, especially during a religious pilgrimage. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, said directions were issued in line with the requirements of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India regulations. "There are people in this country who will not eat in there brother's house if meat is cooked. There are sentiments of devotees," Rohatgi said, 'and as per the regulations under the Act they require photo identity. Why are you scared of showing your name? I don't understand.' Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, representing other petitioners, said the eateries along this route only sold vegetarian items during this period according to local regulations. Justice Sundresh observed a customer must have the choice of knowing if a place was exclusively selling vegetarian items throughout. "If a hotel is running as a vegetarian hotel all through, then the question of indicating names and other things will not arise. But if only for the purpose of yatra, somebody stops serving non-vegetarian and starts selling vegetarian, the consumer should know," the judge remarked. He continued, "To that extent, consumers should have that flexibility. If one hotel was earlier serving non-vegetarian, and for the purpose of better business they serve only vegetarian during the yatra, it will be an issue for the consideration of the consumer. The choice is of the consumer. Consumer is the king." The bench further said it was not inclined to examine the petition as the issue was infructuous considering it was last day of the yatra. The Supreme Court last year stayed similar directives issued by Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh governments, asking eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of their owners, staff and other details. Referring to a press release issued by the UP government on June 25, Jha, said, "The new measures mandate the display of QR codes on all eateries along the kanwar route which reveal the names and identities of the owners, thereby achieving the same discriminatory profiling that was previously stayed by this court." The petitioner said the state government's directive asking stall owners to reveal religious and caste identities under "lawful license requirements" breaches the right to privacy of the shop, dhaba and restaurant owners. A large number of devotees travel from various places with "kanwars" carrying holy water from the Ganga to perform "jalabhishek" of Shivling during the Hindu calendar month of "Shravan". Many believers shun the consumption of meat during the month and even avoid meals cooked with onion and garlic.
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First Post
3 minutes ago
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Mumbai train blasts: Maharashtra challenges 2006 terror case verdict, Supreme Court to hear plea on July 24
The Supreme Court has agreed to urgently hear the Maharashtra government's plea challenging the acquittal of all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings case. The hearing is scheduled for July 24, following a Bombay HC verdict that raised serious questions over investigation and prosecution. read more A view of Supreme Court of India building in New Delhi. PTI The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to urgently hear the Maharashtra government's appeal against the Bombay High Court's decision to acquit all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. The hearing has been scheduled for July 24. A bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai, along with Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria, listed the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state, sought an early hearing, citing the case's gravity and urgency. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Bombay High Court, in a stunning verdict delivered on Monday, set aside the convictions, ruling that the prosecution had 'utterly failed' to prove its case. The court noted it was 'hard to believe the accused committed the crime.' The serial blasts on Mumbai's suburban rail network during rush hour on July 11, 2006, killed over 180 people and injured hundreds—marking one of India's worst terror attacks. 'Inhuman, barbaric torture by ATS': Bombay HC slams probe In a damning critique of the investigation, the High Court found that the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) subjected the accused to 'most inhuman and barbaric' torture, leading to forced confessions that were later retracted. Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak, who delivered the verdict, observed that the accused were kept in police custody for up to 76 days and withdrew their confessions immediately upon being presented before a magistrate. The court noted that such confessions, obtained under duress, cannot be considered admissible evidence. 'It is well known that, in most cases, police are in the habit of extorting confessions through illegal means, including torture,' the court said, quoting established legal principles that dismiss statements extracted under fear or coercion. The court further highlighted inconsistencies in the prosecution's claim that the accused were uncooperative—an assertion made just before their confessions were recorded. The 7/11 Mumbai train blasts The 7/11 attacks refer to a series of seven coordinated bomb blasts that tore through first-class compartments of Mumbai's suburban trains on July 11, 2006. The explosions, timed within 11 minutes during peak evening hours, caused mass casualties and widespread panic. Over 180 people were killed and more than 800 injured in what remains one of India's deadliest terror attacks. The Maharashtra ATS had arrested several suspects, alleging cross-border links and a larger terror conspiracy. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Indian Express
31 minutes ago
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Ten years after US Supreme Court's ‘Obergefell' judgment legalised same-sex marriage, an erosion of LGBTQIA+ rights
Written by Kanav N Sahgal June 26 marked the 10-year anniversary of Obergefell vs Hodges — the landmark US Supreme Court ruling that legalised same-sex marriage in the country. While some activists celebrated the anniversary, others decried how drastically the legal and political landscape has regressed for LGBTQIA+ people since that historic victory. Backlash against the LGBTQIA+ community, especially transgender individuals, is on the rise across the United States. But more tellingly, the US Supreme Court's jurisprudence in the years since Obergefell has shifted sharply to the right — limiting rather than expanding LGBTQIA+ rights in a range of arenas: Education, public accommodation law and, more recently, healthcare access. During this time, the Court has also routinely upheld religious objections to LGBTQIA+ equality in four separate cases — most recently, just days ago, in the case of Mahmoud vs Taylor, where the Court ruled that parents have the right to opt their children out of public-school instruction involving LGBTQIA+-themed storybooks based on religious free exercise rights. Two previous cases — one in 2018 (Masterpiece Cakeshop vs Colorado Civil Rights Commission) and another in 2023 (303 Creative LLC vs Elenis) — involved business owners who operated public accommodations and approached the Court seeking permission to deny same-sex couples' access to services. In both cases, the Supreme Court sided with the business owners, holding that enforcing anti-discrimination laws in these contexts would violate their First Amendment rights. In another case from 2021, Fulton vs City of Philadelphia, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favour of a Catholic foster care agency that refused to certify same-sex couples as foster parents. This list is not exhaustive — and does not even include the Court's recent rulings that have sharply curtailed legal protections for transgender people. But why this shift? One obvious reason is that the composition of the US Supreme Court has changed drastically over the past decade. During his first term as president, Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Court — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — giving the nine-member bench a comfortable conservative supermajority. These three joined three other conservative-leaning justices already on the bench, forming a solid conservative bloc of six. This left only three Democratic appointees on the Court, unable to influence outcomes unless at least two conservative justices defected to their side. Also, unlike in previous decades, it has now become increasingly rare to find justices who cross ideological lines or serve as moderating influences. In the past, several justices — though appointed by Republican presidents — maintained a degree of independence in their rulings. Take, for example, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, both of whom, despite being Republican appointees, did at various times cast decisive swing votes in landmark LGBTQIA+ rights cases. Justice Kennedy famously authored the majority opinion in Obergefell and provided the crucial fifth vote that allowed the decision to take effect. Yet, just a few years later, he ruled against LGBTQIA+ plaintiffs in Masterpiece Cakeshop, authoring the majority opinion there as well. Similarly, Justice O'Connor cast the fifth and deciding vote in Bowers vs Hardwick (1986), a case that upheld laws criminalising sodomy. But in 2003, she joined the majority in Lawrence vs Texas, which overturned Bowers and effectively decriminalised consensual same-sex intimacy nationwide. It would be difficult, if not downright impossible, to imagine or expect the current crop of conservative justices to display that kind of openness to LGBTQIA+ issues today. But a second, less frequently discussed reason for the weakening of jurisprudence on LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States comes from the Obergefell decision itself. While Obergefell legalised same-sex marriage nationwide, it also included a carveout that acknowledged the rights of individuals with 'decent and honourable religious or philosophical' objections to continue holding dissenting views on same-sex marriage. Ironically, this one sentence — arguably obiter dicta, and therefore not necessarily binding precedent — has since been repeatedly invoked by the Supreme Court's conservative majority again and again. In Mahmoud, for instance, the conservative bloc relied on Obergefell to explicitly justify parents' religious objections to LGBTQIA+ themed story books being read to their children. In a similar vein, the conservative bloc's resistance to substantive due process claims in the context of LGBTQIA+ rights has also intensified in recent times, most notably since the reversal of Roe vs Wade (1973) in Dobbs vs Jackson Women's Health Organisation (2022). There, in his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly called for the Court to reconsider Obergefell, suggesting rather unequivocally that if the logic employed in Dobbs were to be applied consistently, then the constitutional foundation for same-sex marriage may also fail to survive renewed judicial scrutiny. Ten years after Obergefell, therefore, same-sex marriage remains a legal right — but the broader legal framework supporting it has been deeply eroded by the US Supreme Court, and there appears to be little hope for reversal in the near future. The writer is a researcher at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and visiting faculty at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru
