This was a year of legal landmarks. There were many firsts: the Supreme Court of India opened its doors at 3am to hear a final plea against the execution of Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon. It also quashed the government’s attempts to curtail its power to appoint judges in high courts and the Supreme Court. The apex court was hailed for scrapping Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which threatened the right to expression. It was also a year when Parliament approved amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, lowering the age of juveniles from 18 to 16 so that they could be tried as adults for serious crimes. Smitha Verma looks back at a year of ups and downs

SCRAPPING SECTION 66(A) of IT ACT 

In March, 2015, the Supreme Court struck down a provision in India’s cyber law which gave the police the power to arrest a person for posting “offensive” content on the Internet. The court ruled that liberty of thought and expression was “cardinal” and that the provision affected the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined under the Constitution. The stand was unanimously welcomed by netizens and activists. “It was a welcome judgment and a major one with implications for the future as Section 66A was being misused tremendously,” says Pavan Duggal, a  legal expert on cyber laws. 

Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde believes that with this move, the Supreme Court showed “the breadth of the court’s power and its respect for fundamental rights”. But Duggal also points out that the judgment has led to an increase in cyber bullying and targeting of people on the Internet.  “It is time the government brought in a law that would address some of the parameters that 66A originally addressed without violating the rights of freedom of thought and expression,” he adds.

YAKUB MEMON SENTENCE 

On the morning of July 30, Yakub Memon was hanged for his role in serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993. The verdict came into effect despite a last-minute effort by human rights activists and lawyers who had filed a plea at midnight asking for relief. The court heard the arguments till 3.30am and at 4am passed a verdict rejecting Memon’s plea for a stay on his execution. “The rejection of the mercy petition was one of the landmark judgments of the year,” says Anup Surendranath, professor, National Law University, Delhi. Surendranath, who is against the death penalty, was one of the key members associated with the filing of the petition.

NJAC ACT SCRAPPED 

In October, the Supreme Court held that a law passed by Parliament to replace the over two-decade-old collegium system of appointing judges in the higher judiciary was illegal.  Quashing the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act in a unanimous verdict, the court rejected the government’s attempt to include two “eminent persons” to the NJAC which includes the Chief Justice of India, the two senior-most judges of the apex court and the Union law minister.

Supreme Court lawyer Hegde believes that the NJAC Act was an attempt by the government to have a “sympathetic” judiciary. “Any government will now think many times before they attempt to exercise some degree of control and influence over judicial appointments,” Hegde says.

The Supreme Court has now restored the collegium system where the judiciary will decide the appointments. “Even in the collegium system we need to lay down some guidelines so that there is no place for favouritism or people do not adopt unfair means to get appointed as judges,” says senior advocate M.N. Krishnamani. “There should be some basic criteria, such as a lawyer should have fought at least 500 cases and should have published works in journals, to become a judge,” he adds. 

HARYANA PANCHAYATI RAJ ACT 
INTACT 

On December 10, the Supreme Court upheld the amendment to the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015, which makes education compulsory for anyone contesting polls. A male candidate has to clear matriculation and a woman candidate Class VIII to be able to contest in a panchayat election. A Scheduled Caste woman has to complete Class V to be able to contest for the post of panch.

“This prevents illiterate people from participating in the functioning of democracy,” rues lawyer Prashant Bhushan. “One can understand this if the law was made for the post of a member of Parliament but it is unfair at the panchayat level. It unnecessarily deprives Dalits and women from contesting. The judgment needs to be reviewed,” Bhushan adds. 

The other grounds for disqualification from contesting polls under the act are the failure to pay arrears to any primary agriculture co-operative society or agriculture co-operative banks, failure to pay electricity bill arrears and not having a functional toilet at home.  

AMENDMENT TO JUVENILE ACT 

According to the amendment in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, juveniles aged 16 to 18 can now be tried as adults for heinous crimes. The law was passed as the parents of the December 16 Delhi gang rape and murder victim watched from the visitors’ gallery in the Rajya Sabha. 

“We seem to be approaching the issue from a rather primitive ‘revenge’-based lens, where revenge and retribution are our predominant motivators for advocating that even children under the age of 18 face the full fury of criminal punishment without exception,” says Professor Shamnad Basheer of Nirma University, Ahmedabad. “While we may need to constantly evaluate as to who qualifies as a ‘juvenile’ (given that the cognitive development of a child is different today than what it was 50 years ago), imposing a harsh criminal penalty only to satisfy our blood lust seems wrong.”

Senior advocate Kirti Singh agrees. “The amendment to the JJ Act which allows a child in the age group of 16 to 18 to be treated as an adult provided he has a mature mind leaves much to be desired. It takes the child out of the purview of the act,” she says. “Research has shown that the frontal lobe of 16-year-olds is not fully developed and they can’t foresee the consequences of their actions. Increasing the reformatory period in a confinement home should have been an option instead of sending a child to jail,” she adds.

Additional reporting by V. Kumara Swamy in New Delhi