Vikram Hegde @vikramhegde@mastodon.social

31.Last year the conviction and death sentence to the Nirbhaya killers had been upheld. As I was tweeting this thread, a review petition by one of them, Akshay Kumar Singh, was dismissed.

30. Mani Pushpak Joshi v. State of Uttarakhand Supreme Court quashed proceedings against a man in a POCSO case on the basis that to summon a person who had not been initially accused, the evidence had to satisfy a standard more than prima facie case.

29.In Satish Ukey v. Devendra Fadnavis Court held that Fadnavis had knowledge of 2 criminal cases pending against him but did not disclose in his election affidavit. Clean chit given to him was set aside and criminal proceedings were initiated against him.

28.UoI v. Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India: Supreme Court refused to change the definition of AGR in Clause 19.1 of the license agreements. This resulted in liability of thousands of crores for telecom providers like Airtel and Vodafone-Idea.

27. UoI v. State of Maharashtra: Last year in Subhash Kashinath Mahajan, the court had diluted certain provisions of the SC/ST POA Act. The Court has now set aside that judgment in S.K. Mahajan in all aspects apart from the direction on anticipatory bail.

26. Every public authority is required to give information under the Right to Information Act. Is the CJI himself required to give information? 10+ years after the Delhi HC said CJI should, the SC agreed in Central Public Information Officer v. Subhash Chandra Agrawal.

25. Last year, the Court had opened the doors of Sabarimala temple to all women. This year, in Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young Lawyers Association the Court kept the matter pending till issues of essential practices are decided by a larger bench. 2 judges dissented.

24.M. Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das (Ayodhya)Possessory claims of Hindus & Muslims were both accepted. Somewhat. But Hindus were held to have better claim &were given disputed property. Muslims were given 5 acres of land elsewhere. A trust was to be set up for a temple in the land.

23.In Poona Ram court said a person claiming possessory right must have undisturbed possession. Later in Ravinder Kaur held that adverse possession can be used as a sword & shield.Banal issues you say.But importance of these areas of law was highlighted later in

22.End of last year, the Court had declined to order an investigation into the Rafale issue. The review petitions, finally dismissed in Yashwant Sinha v. CBI took an additional political dimension around election time when contempt proceedings were initiated against Rahul Gandhi.

21.In P. Chidambaram v. ED the Court declined to grant anticipatory bail stating that in complex economic offences grant of AB would hamper effective interrogation. After 105 days of jail & another round of litigation, he was released on regular bail.

20.Another keenly watched political case was that of P. Chidambaram v. CBI on the one hand and ED on the other. The anticipatory bail plea in the CBI case became infructuous as he was arrested in the pendency of the case.

19.Another crisis, another state. Post election results, pre election allies had a break up and a strange set of musical chairs with president's rule and early morning swearing in ensued till in Shiv Sena v. UoI. Court stepped in to direct floor test.

18. In Shrimanth Balasaheb Patil v. Speaker the Court upheld the Speaker’s disqualification order but permitted the disqualified MLAs to contest the resultant by-polls.

17. Two important orders came out of the Karnataka MLA crisis. In Pratap Gouda Patil v. State the Court directed the Speaker to take a decision on resignation submitted by the MLAs. The Speaker went ahead and disqualified the parties.

16.SC dealt with mess of collapse of a large developer, Amrapali, in Bikram Chatterjee v. UoI. The judgment also gave a helicopter shot to a famous cricketer with auditor observing that money homebuyers' money was diverted to the companies linked to cricketer.

http://15.In 2017Court struck down a Karnataka law for promotion reservation saying such a law has to be based on data of inadequacy of representation. This year in BK Pavitra Court upheld a fresh legislation which avoided the pitfalls of the previous legislation.

14. Indibility Creative Pvt. Ltd. v. Govt. of West Bengal: West Bengal police attempted to stop the release of a movie that had been certified by the CBFC. Court imposed a fine of Rs. 20 Lakhs. Monetary compensation for arbitrary state action. Imagine.

13. A case which cast a long shadow upon the Sup Crt itself. Allegations of sexual harassment against the CJI were made by a Court staffer in In Re: a matter of great public importance... Then an advocate claimed there is a conspiracy to defame the CJI.

12. Pattu Rajan v. State: The multi-millionnaire owner of the Saravana Bhavan chain of restaurants was convicted for the abduction and murder of an employee in a bid to marry his wife, who according to some astrologer was to bring him great(er) riches.