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A PIL filed in the Delhi High Court has sought urgent steps to control hazardous air pollution levels in the national capital. The plea said over the past several years, the ambient air quality in Delhi has deteriorated drastically, with AQI frequently entering the 'very poor', 'severe' and 'hazardous' categories, especially during winter. The increased pollution has resulted in persistent and serious health issues among residents, including children, senior citizens and persons with pre-existing ailments, it said. The petition has been filed by Greater Kailash-II Welfare Association, which has urged the court to order urgent, effective and scientific measures, both immediate and long-term, to control the city air pollution. The plea said the authorities, which remained "virtually inactive" as the air quality steadily deteriorated, chose to issue "Stage III - steps to be taken" only after the AQI had crossed its critical level. The government confined itself to merely prescribing
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a fresh PIL by a wellness expert seeking urgent judicial intervention to tackle a "persistent and systemic failure" in addressing the country's rising air pollution levels. The top court, however, allowed holistic health coach Luke Christopher Coutinho to withdraw the PIL and file an intervention plea in a pending case filed by environmentalist M C Mehta on pollution. "The petitioner seeks liberty to withdraw the plea to file an intervention in pending proceedings in the MC Mehta case," the CJI said. The court is scheduled to hear the main plea on pollution on Wednesday. Coutinho had filed the plea on October 24 and made the Centre, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), several Union ministries, NITI Aayog, and the governments of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra as parties. The plea said the current air pollution crisis has reached proportions of a "public
The Supreme Court on Thursday transferred from high courts to itself, four PILs seeking a ban on opinion trading platforms for allegedly promoting illegal betting and gambling activities. A bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan passed the order in a transfer petition of Probo Media Technologies Pvt Ltd, a firm which operates one such opinion trading platform. The bench, in its order, noted the factual position with regard to petitions pending in different high courts. Senior advocate Abhishek M Singhvi, appearing for the petitioner, said there were two petitions in the nature of PIL pending before the Bombay High Court. He said the third PIL is pending before the Gujarat High Court and the fourth before the Chhattisgarh High Court. Singhvi said the PILs from other high courts could be transferred to the Bombay High Court. Rejecting the submission, the bench said, All these four PILs should be heard by this court...we direct the High Court of Bombay, High Court o
The Gujarat High Court has imposed a collective cost of Rs 1.4 crore on a group of seven unscrupulous litigants for filing a PIL seeking to cancel the development permission granted to a builder out of personal vendetta without disclosing their credentials. The division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice D N Ray dismissed the writ petition with exemplary cost of Rs 20,00,000, which is to be paid by each of the (seven) petitioners. The amount will go to the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority, which shall be utilised for the benefit of orphan children, it said in its order uploaded on its website on Monday. During the hearing of the matter last Friday, the court orally observed that there is no place for such unscrupulous litigants who have not disclosed their credentials in the writ petition. Who are these people, nobody knows. What business they are doing, what their occupation is, nothing. They are all independent persons, so (a cost of) Rs 20 lakh each, the cour
The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre's response on a PIL seeking to regulate all online and offline betting applications. A bench of justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh issued the notice on a plea filed by K A Paul, who claimed that many children committed suicide after getting involved in online betting and gambling applications. The petitioner also alleged that a lot of online influencers, actors and cricketers were promoting these online apps due to which children were getting lured to betting. Paul, who appeared in person in the court, said, "I am here on behalf of millions of parents whose children have died in the past couple of years. More than 1,023 people committed suicide in Telangana, as 25 Bollywood and Tollywood actors/influencers played with the lives of the innocents." He also claimed that an FIR was lodged in Telangana against the influencers, as the matter violated fundamental rights. The bench said it cannot do much as these were aberrations of soci
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed before the Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench on Wednesday seeking a directive to its Chief Justice to refrain from administering the oath to Justice Yashwant Varma, court sources said. The PIL cited the ongoing in-house inquiry ordered by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) into the recovery of "four to five semi-burnt sacks" of Indian currency notes from the residence of Justice Varma following after a fire incident last month. Justice Varma was recently transferred from the Delhi High Court to the Allahabad High Court in the midst of the cash stash row. The PIL, filed by Vikash Chaturvedi, is expected to be heard on April 4, the sources said. Advocate Ashok Pandey, representing Chaturvedi, argued that since the CJI has reportedly "directed the Allahabad High Court Chief Justice not to assign any judicial work to Justice Varma during the ongoing inquiry, there is no justification for proceeding with the oath ceremony". The petitioner h
A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court against the constitutional validity of a provision of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which mandates maintaining the religious character of a place as it existed on August 15, 1947. The plea, therefore, sought the top court's directions allowing courts to pass appropriate orders to ascertain the original religious character of a place of worship. The petition claimed to have challenged only Section 4(2) of the Act that barred proceedings to change the religious character, aside from prohibiting filing of fresh cases on the same issue. "The Centre has transgressed its legislative power in barring the judicial remedy, which is a basic feature of the Constitution. It is well established that the right to judicial remedy by filing suit in a competent court, cannot be barred and the power of courts cannot be abridged and such denial has been held to be violative of basic feature of the constitution, beyond legislative power,
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Railways to examine the fixing of maximum passengers and sale of platform tickets -- issues raised in a PIL over the recent stampede at the New Delhi Railway Station. A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhayaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela asked the authorities concerned to state in its affidavit, the details of its measures on the issues. "Let the issues raised in the petition be examined, as suggested by the solicitor general, at the highest level at the Railway Board and thereafter an affidavit be filed by the respondent giving details of the decisions which might be taken by the Railway Board," the court ordered. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said the matter was not taken in an adversarial manner and the Railways was bound to follow the law. He said there was an "unprecedented" situation and assured the court that the issues raised in the PIL would be considered at the highest level. The court said the PIL was not confined to the recen
In a relief to BSP supremo Mayawati, the Supreme Court on Wednesday disposed of a petition filed in 2009 seeking a probe into the alleged spending of more than Rs 2,000 crore from the Uttar Pradesh government's budget on installing elephant statutes and personal glorification, when she was the chief minister of the state. A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma disposed of the petition filed by two lawyers -- Ravi Kant and Sukumar -- after observing that most of the prayers had become infructuous. It noted that the Election Commission (EC) has already issued guidelines on the issue and that a stay on the installation of the statues cannot be granted as those have already been installed. The public interest litigation (PIL) matter filed by the lawyers had alleged that a total amount of about Rs 2,000 crore was used from the state's budget for 2008-09 and 2009-10, when Mayawati was the chief minister, for installing her statues and the Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Centre on a PIL alleging an "enormous rise" in cyber crimes and "nuisance" of unsolicited calls in the country. Observing government agencies were doing their bit, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar issued a notice to the Department of Telecommunications. "Yes, we understand the problem is there. Let the Centre respond, the bench said, noting the PIL of one Gowrishankar from Bengaluru. The plea sought a direction to telecom network operators to implement the calling name presentation service (CNAP). The service, which facilitates identification of the caller's name and is usually displayed in the caller ID section of the phone, may help recipients to make informed decisions about calls and combat spam calls.
A PIL filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday sought to scrap the TDS system calling it "arbitrary and irrational" and violative of various fundamental rights, including equality. The PIL challenged the tax deducted at source or TDS framework under the Income Tax Act, which mandates the deduction of tax at the time of payment by the payer and its deposit with the income tax department. The deducted amount is adjusted against the payee's tax liability. The plea filed by lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay through advocate Ashwani Dubey, made the Centre, ministry of law and justice, law commission, and NITI Aayog as parties. It sought a direction to "declare the TDS system manifestly arbitrary, irrational and against Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (right to practice profession) and 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution, hence void and inoperative". The plea further sought directions to the NITI Ayog to consider contentions raised in the plea and suggest necessary change