Live Law. Let us start with today’s top headlines. The Gyanvapi Mosque Committee has approached the Supreme Court against striking down of the Places of Worship Act and it says that the consequences are bound to be drastic. Saying that no such provision exists in the Constitution,

the Union Law and Justice Minister has denied for any cooling-off period for judges before post-retirement appointments.

* The Supreme Court has granted bail to Uttar Pradesh police officers convicted for the Hashimpura massacre of 1987. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has confirmed death penalty of a man convicted for rape and murder of a minor girl.

In the Wayanad landslides matter, the Kerala High Court has asked the state to furnish details regarding availability and utilization of funds in the State Disaster Relief Fund.

The Apex Court has dismissed a plea that politicians should not become office bearers of bar bodies. And the Parliament has cleared the Vayuyan Vidheyak to replace the Aircraft Act of 1934. I’m your host Urvashi Chauhan with your daily roundup of legal updates from across the country.

the gyanwabi mosque committee has filed an intervention before the Supreme Court in the pleas that challenge validity of the Places of Worship Act. This act aims to maintain the status quo of religious structures as they were on 15th August 1947 and prohibits legal cases seeking their conversion.

Various petitions are pending in the top court which challenge the act as arbitrary, unreasonable and infringing the fundamental right to practice religion. The late petition here has been filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and the court issued notice on it in the year 2021. Despite several time extensions given by the Supreme Court, the Union government is yet to file its counter-affidavit in the matter.. Well now the managing committee of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi has intervened in the matter.

You are aware that the Gyanvapi matter is also pending where a suit has been filed by devotees of the Kashi Vishwanath temple alleging that the mosque was built after Lord Vishweshwar temple was destroyed by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. According to the committee, at present, 20 civil suits have been filed in the Varanasi district court seeking to nullify the protection of the mosque under the 1991 Act and remove it.
The committee says that such litigations against the mosque and several other mosques and dargahs across the country are being done upon a misinterpretation of the 1991 act and if the act is held to be unconstitutional its consequences are bound to be drastic the petitions are listed for hearing before a bench of cji sanjeev khanna and justice pv sanjay kumar on 12th december stay tuned responding to the suggestions by member of parliament Raghav Chadha on the cooling off period for judges post retirement, the Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal
told the Rajya Sabha that Indian Constitution does not mention anything about the cooling off period for judges. A cooling off period let me tell you for public servants or judges basically means a mandated period of time during which judicial officers or public servants are prohibited from engaging in certain activities such as contesting election on political party tickets immediately after leaving their government positions or accepting post-retirement cinches many times potential conflicts of interest undue influence or perception of bias arises which in
the past has led to criticism. For example, former Supreme Court Judge S. Abdul Nazir was appointed as Andhra Pradesh’s governor last year. He was a member of the benches that delivered two crucial yet controversial constitution bench judgments that is in the Babri-Masjid-Ramjan Bhoomi dispute and the challenge against the 2016 demonetization of high-value banknotes by the central government.

Similarly, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the 46th Chief Justice of India, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2020. This decision came shortly after his retirement from the Supreme Court. This led to many questions raised at judicial independence. MP Raghav Chaddha had expressed concern over the trend of Supreme Court and High Court judges being appointed to executive positions after retirement.
(05:11) He suggested a two-year cooling-off period for judges before taking up executive, political or committee roles after retirement, increasing judges’ pensions to discourage post-retirement positions and appointing judges to roles based on merit. But the Law and Justice Minister responded that the constitution does not mention the cooling period.
(05:32) Meghwal also pointed out that statutory bodies and tribunals require retired judges with the necessary qualifications to function properly. He said that these bodies would not work if their posts were not filled. In the next update,

the Supreme Court has granted bail to the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel who were convicted by the Delhi High Court in the 1987 Hashimpura Massacre case.
For those of you who do not know, the massacre took place in May 1987 during communal riots in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut. Members of the pack allegedly abducted 42 to 45 Muslim men. Of these, around 35 were reportedly killed and their bodies were dumped in a canal. In 2015, a trial court acquitted all the accused.
But in October 2018, the Delhi High Court bench comprising Justices S. Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed the acquittals and sentenced the 16-pack personnel to life imprisonment, calling the massacre a targeted killing of unarmed and defenseless individuals by the police.
Criminal appeals were filed against the Delhi High Court’s order, which are still pending before the Supreme Court. Senior Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, representing the convicts, argued that the Delhi High Court had erroneously reversed the acquittals. The Supreme Court has now granted bail to 10 convicts, noting that they had been imprisoned for over six years since November 2018.
A bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oak and A.G. Massey has directed the convicts to be produced before the trial court within a week to execute the bail bonds.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has confirmed death sentence of a man convicted for the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl in the year 2018.
The court observed that the gruesome murder after committing rape upon her is an example of monster-like conduct of the convict. The body of the minor girl, let me tell tell you was found bleeding on the road in a naked condition. The convict was the neighbor of the victim who committed rape and murder upon her. A special court under the POXO Act had sentenced him to death.
The high court was hearing the state’s plea for confirmation of the death sentence and the convict’s plea against the conviction order. The high court observed that the convict in this case had signed a disclosure statement, confessed to committing the rape and detailed how the crime was actually carried out.

The court noted that only the convict knew where the weapons used were hidden which were later recovered. Also, the DNA report confirmed the blood stains and other swabs matched the convict. A division bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice is Sudipti Sharma agreed with the reasoning given by the trial court in its February order where it opined that the case falls in the rarest of the rare category and therefore confirmed the death sentence and now let me tell you the Kerala High Court has orally directed the state government to provide clear details regarding the availability and utilization of funds in the state’s disaster response fund. The court has also sought information

regarding funds required for future expenses such as for rehabilitation and construction. 782.99 crore is available in the SDRF. The state government informed the court that they are unable to use approximately 153 crores allocated by the central government unless it is demonstrated that 50% of the funds in the SDRF have been utilized.
The council on behalf of the central government submitted before the court that Kerala has been allotted 291.20 crores as central share which was released in two installments following the landslide incident it was also stated that an additional allocation of approximately 153 crores has been made to the state government which can be accessed on the condition that I just mentioned the division bench comprising justice ak jai sankaran Nambiar and justice mohammed Naya cp stated that lack of clarity in accounts could result in unnecessary bickering and create misinformation. So the court has asked the state government to

clarify the current funds available in the SDRF and the expected future expenses. The matter will now be taken up tomorrow. Stay tuned. The Supreme Court has today dismissed a petition that sought directions that persons who are members of political parties should not become office bearers of bar associations and bar councils.

The petitioner’s argument was that the independence of bar bodies would be compromised if persons with political ideologies became their elected leaders. But a bench comprising Justice Suryakant and Justice Ujjal Bhaiyaan orally observed that there was nothing wrong in persons with political ideologies holding positions in the bar bodies.

Justice Kant cited the example of Senior Advocate Ramjit Malani, who had served as the Chairman of the Bar Council of India, as well as President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, even while he was active in politics. Bar Association even while he was active in politics even today senior advocate couple Sybil who is the president of Supreme Court Bar Association Mr Manan Kumar Mishra the chairman of Bar Council of India and many more are quite active in politics and lastly yesterday the Raja

Sabha passed the Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidhayak 2024 replacing the nearly 90-year-old Aircraft Act of 1934. The Lok Sabha had already cleared the bill in August this year. The new Act retains most of the provisions of the Aircraft Act but introduces several updates to modernize aviation regulations in India.

It governs key aspects of aviation including the design, manufacture, operation, sale, export and import of aircraft. It adds new offences and stricter penalties, including imprisonment of up to 3 years or a fine of up to 1 crore for violations such as flying aircraft dangerously, failing to comply with directives from the Director General of Civil Aviation or Bureau of Civil Aviation Security or carrying restricted articles on board another significant change is the introduction of a second appeal system previously penalties were reviewed by an

appellate officer now a second level of appeal is available before a second appellate officer who is higher in rank providing a more robust mechanism for dispute resolution thank you for watching for more information on the cases that i discussed here you can visit our website at robust mechanism for dispute resolution.