The Court’s back!

The Supreme Court resumed operating in full capacity this Monday. Since the last week of May, the Court was working partially with 21 Benches of two or three judges hearing cases in rotation.

The post-vacation inbox overload is real. The Court came back to a whopping 86,000+ pending cases and got to work right away. The official website of the Supreme Court showed over 50 judgements delivered in its first week, with many making headlines for having impacted scores of important stakeholders.

On Monday, the Supreme Court held that a company can now be considered as a “victim” under criminal laws. A two-judge Bench permitted Asian Paints to pursue criminal action after it “suffered financial loss and reputational injury,” due to the sale of counterfeit products. The counsel for Asian Paints explained that the judgement changes the game for FMCG, pharmaceutical, electronics and fashion companies suffering from “modern corporate harms” of intellectual property violations.

The same day the Court held that secret recordings of phone calls between spouses do not violate privacy and can be used as evidence in marital disputes under the Evidence Act, 1872. When parties argued that such an approach might “encourage snooping on the spouse,” the Bench wrote that snooping was an effect of an already broken relationship and a lack of trust—the law had nothing to do with it. 

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reversed its own judgement in a custody case. The Court had previously endorsed a High Court decision which granted custody of a 12-year old child to the father because the mother wanted to move abroad. The High Court had reasoned that the shift would disrupt the boy’s life. After the child showed mental distress at the thought of leaving his mother, the Court allowed him to stay with her. 

On Wednesday, the Court commuted two death sentences in separate cases. In one, a man killed his wife, her sister and his three children out of suspicion that the wife was being unfaithful. The other case involved the rape and murder of a 10-year-old child. The Supreme Court took note that the Trial and High Courts “have only commented on the brutality of the crime…to hand down the death penalty” and did not take into account the full extent of the mitigating factors. A three-judge Bench reiterated that the death penalty could only be awarded in the “rarest of rare” cases. 

On Thursday the Court upheld the rights of inheritance of women belonging to Scheduled Tribe communities. Male heirs had argued that custom dictated the woman had no claim to their maternal grandfather’s property. The Bench found no proof of such custom. More importantly, it found that even if such proof existed, it would have been deemed unconstitutional. “Customs too, like the law, cannot remain stuck in time” it said. 

Justice Yashwant Varma approached the Court on Thursday against the three-judge inquiry committee report. The committee had found “strong inferential evidence” that the Judge had control over the unexplained amounts of cash found in his house. He submitted that the Committee had glossed over key facts and that he was not heard properly during the inquiry. The petition comes just before the Monsoon Session of Parliament where the issue of his impeachment will be discussed. 

The other big news to come out this week was the RTI filed by India Today on the costs incurred in installing and later removing the glass partitions at the front facade of the Supreme Court. Reportedly, former Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s initiative to install tinted glass and air conditioning for the corridors cost nearly ₹2.6 crore of tax payer money. His successor, CJI B.R. Gavai’s decision to remove the panel cost an additional ₹8.6 lakh. We’d written about what the move meant, here. 

For us at the Supreme Court Observer, the end of Court vacation marked a huge milestone—we finished publishing ALL the Issues of the Supreme Court Observer Law Reports (SCO.LR) from January to now! This means that you have a resource of 130 important Supreme Court judgements. Decluttered, summarised, made easy. This is also what we’ll do for the rest of the Court’s term. Meanwhile, check out our latest issue. Stay tuned!

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