High Courts

The Collegium has criticised the Centre for delaying appointments and departing from procedure, yet its own record on both counts is no better.

In quashing the NSA order against student activist Akriti Chaudhary and censuring the officials responsible, the Allahabad High Court reaffirmed that civil servants owe their allegiance to the Constitution, not to political masters, echoing the founding vision of Sardar Patel and Ambedkar on the character of India’s civil services.

A Division Bench found the grounds for detaining student activist Akriti Chaudhary under the National Security Act to be speculative and evidence-free, noting the arrest date itself appeared fabricated, and directed the compensation be recovered from the salaries of the District Magistrate and other officers involved.

The State Government alleges the Centre notified the appointment without waiting for its views, even as the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association calls the objection political interference in judicial independence.

The appointments, made on Collegium recommendations, include Justice Sanjay K. Agarwal as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court amid the ongoing controversy over Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, and bring the number of High Courts headed by judges from the Allahabad High Court to five.

In an unusual move, the Collegium made two separate recommendations for Justice Agarwal, one to transfer him and another to appoint him Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court, amid the row over Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, even as it named new Chief Justices for the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Courts.

Overturning a seven-year-old trial court acquittal, the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court sentences Tejpal to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment, ruling his apology emails were admissions of guilt and the prosecutrix’s statement needed no corroboration beyond her own testimony

Conflicting High Court rulings on police protection for live-in couples and mandatory registration laws in Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Assam reveal a country-wide drift toward State surveillance of intimate life.