It was the year of judgments with great political ramifications – from demonetisation to the appointment process of the chief election commissioner (CEC) and election commissioner to same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court decided a number of important cases and also delivered some important judgments.
Let’s take a look at some of these judgments:
Demonetisation
2023 started with the constitution bench of the Supreme Court upholding the demonetisation of banknotes valued at Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, which took place in November 2016 by a 4:1 majority. While Justices S Abdul Nazeer, BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian upheld the central government’s move, Justice BV Nagarathna disagreed with the “reasoning and conclusions” in the majority judgment.
“Merely because the central government has advised the central board to consider recommending demonetisation and that the central board, on the advice of the central government, has considered the proposal for demonetisation and recommended it and, thereafter, the central government has taken a decision, in our view, cannot be a ground to hold that the procedure prescribed under Section 26 of the RBI Act was breached,” the SC observed.
Election Commission
On March 2, in the Anoop Baranwal versus Union of India, the constitution bench comprising Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravi Kumar had ruled that the election commissioners (EC) shall be selected by a committee comprising the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and the Chief Justice of India till the parliament frames a law prescribing the selection process. The Lok Sabha, however, on December 21 passed the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Bill, 2023, which aims to regulate the appointment, conditions of service, and term of office for the CEC and other ECs and dropped the CJI from the selection committee.
Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified in accordance with Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution read with Section 8 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, after his conviction in a defamation case in March. He was sentenced to two years in jail. But, on August 4, the Supreme Court stayed his conviction.
In its judgment, the court observed: “The sentence for an offence punishable under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code is a maximum of two years of sentence or fine or both. The learned trial judge, in the order passed by him, has awarded the maximum sentence of two years. Except the admonition to the petitioner by this court in a contempt proceeding, no other reason has been granted by the learned trial judge while imposing the maximum sentence of two years. It is to be noted that it is only on account of the maximum sentence of two years imposed by the learned trial judge that the provisions of Section 8(3) of the Representation of Peoples Act came into play. Had the sentence been a day lesser, then the provisions would not have been attracted.”
Same-sex marriage
The Supreme Court on October 17 delivered its verdict on the legal recognition of same-sex marriages. The hearing for the case took place in April and the five-judge constitution bench had reserved its judgment for May 11.
The constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, and comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha gave a split verdict.
There were four judgments: one by CJI Chandrachud, one by Justice Kaul, one by Justice Bhat and another by Justice Narasimha. And by 3:2, the majority that included Justices Bhat, Kohli and Narasimha, the court ruled against legalising same-sex marriage or approving civil unions.
Article 370
On December 11, the SC upheld the validity of the Centre’s 2019 decision to repeal the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370. The apex court held that the state had no internal sovereignty and the concurrence of the state government was not required to apply the Constitution to the state of J&K. It was held that Article 370 was a temporary provision.
Human rights, justice delivery
Apart from these constitutional cases, there were judgments important from the perspective of human rights and the justice delivery system. In one such case, the SC released a death row prisoner after 28 years on finding him to be a juvenile at the time of the offence but tried as an adult. The case was titled Narayan Chaudhary versus State of Maharashtra.
In March, in two different cases, the SC acquitted two men of the murder of their wives. In the first case, Nikhil Chandra Mondal was convicted by the high court for the murder of his wife on March 11, 1983, in the Burdwan district of West Bengal.
Mondol was initially acquitted by the trial court in March 1987, but later convicted by the HC on December 15, 2008. However, the SC set aside the conviction, which was based on extra-judicial confessions and cannot be sustained as it is a weak piece of evidence. In the second case, the conviction of a man named Guna Mahto was set aside by the apex court.
In October, the SC delivered judgment in a civil appeal in which the litigation started in the trial court in 1982 and dragged on for 41 years. In this case, the court issued certain directions to expedite the judicial process.
“Even after 41 years, the parties to this are still groping in the dark and litigating as to who should be brought on record as legal representative of the sole plaintiff Mrs Urmila Devi… This is a classic case and a mirror to the fact that litigant public may become disillusioned with judicial processes due to inordinate delay in the legal proceedings, not reaching its logical end, and moving at a snail’s pace due to dilatory tactics adopted by one or the other party,” the court observed in its order.
While constitutional cases have wider social and political ramifications and are widely reported and talked about, cases like that of Urmila Devi or Mondal are the ones that speak volumes about our justice delivery system.
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