Expanding the scope of POCSO
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Reforming the law is necessary to account for the reporting of historical child sexual abuse
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Reforming the law is necessary to account for the reporting of historical child sexual abuse
Over the last nine years, India has sought to “protect children from offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography” through the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). But POCSO has not been without controversy or deficiency. Recently, the Supreme Court had to injunct an interpretation of ‘skin-to-skin contact’ given by the Bombay High Court. Another fundamental defect of POCSO is its inability to deal with historical cases. With growing international jurisprudence around these issues, and in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, India must revise its legal and procedural methods to deal with historical child sexual abuse.
SCâs Covid Meddling May Be A Violation Of Basic Features Doctrine And Damaging To Democracy
by R Jagannathan - May 10, 2021 06:09 AM
The Supreme Court of India. (SAJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)
Snapshot
What we are seeing is increasing encroachment of the higher judiciary in executive domains.
This cannot be in consonance with the basic features doctrine that the courts have lived by since 1973.
Once this Covid wave is behind us, though there are no early signs of that happening, we need to ask ourselves one big question: are our courts damaging democracy more than our politicians?
A corollary: are they not riding roughshod over the same basic features judgement that a 13-judge constitutional bench verdict in the Kesavananda Bharati case in April 1973?
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The Supreme Court on Monday passed a slew of guidelines regarding the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution.
A bench comprising
Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant passed the judgment in the case
Lok Prahari vs Union of India. Lok Prahari, an NGO, had approached the Top Court through a PIL filed under Article 32 seeking the invocation of Article 224A to tackle the problem of mounting case arrears in High Courts.
CJI SA Bobde said that the bench has passed a 64-paragraph judgment, broadly accepting the discussions held during the hearing. The CJI did not read out the guidelines and said that the judgment will be released soon during the course of the day.
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Ad-hoc appointments are intended to hear old pending cases; such appointments cannot be a substitute for regular appointment.
The Supreme Court has laid down guidelines for the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution of India.
Article 224A enables a Chief Justice of a High Court, with the previous consent of the President, to request a former High Court judge to sit and act as a judge of the High Court to hear cases. The provision has been invoked very rarely in the judicial history of India.
A bench comprising the
The bench said there are certain recommendations which are pending for a year and half. (File photo)
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to apprise it of a reasonable time frame within which it can respond to the recommendations made by its collegium for appointment of judges as the government said that it will adhere to the timeline fixed in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP).
The government blamed the delay on clearing of names on High Courts for not sending the recommendations on time and said that many of them have not sent the names for the last five years against the existing vacancy.