Supreme Court hears the writ petition filed by CPI Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam @BinoyViswam1 seeking data protection measures for Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Supreme Court takes up the suo moto case on 'remediation of polluted rivers'.

Meenakshi Arora (amicus curiae) : The water quality level as on January 18 was excellent. Ammonium levels were in control. If that can be maintained, it will be good.

Arora submits that the NGT has appointed a river monitoring committee for Yamuna river and requests court to call for a report from the committee.

"They could assist us in a big manner", Arora submits.

#YamunaRiver #RiverPollution

Arora : Haryana has said they are in the process of upgrading certain STPs and CETPs.
#YamunaRiver #RiverPollution

CJI : Alright. Today we will pass an order calling for a report from the committee you mentioned.

TATA Sons v Cyrus Mistry

Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India assembles to hear the appeals filed by Tata Sons Pvt Ltd against the NCLAT direction to reinstate Cyrus Mistry as Company Chairman.

Senior Advocate Harish Salve starts submissions for Tata Sons.

@RNTata2000 @TataCompanies

Salve : This(Chairmanship) is not a post as understood in service law. In Company Law, this is designation.

#TatasCyrusMistryDispute

Salve : Tata Sons Ltd is a company of considerable vintage. It was created in 1917.

CJI : Was it a public limited company?

Salve : Never. It has always been a private company.

#TataSons
#CyrusMistry

Salve : The curious thing which has happened in the case is that there is a provision in Tata Son's Articles which restricts the transfer of shares. It also has a remarkable feature that the Board could direct a shareholder to sell shares.

#TataSons
#CyrusMistry

Supreme Court resumes hearing in the Tata Sons v Cyrus Mistry case.

Day 4 of the arguments.

Mistry's counsel C A Sundaram, Senior Advocate, making submissions.

CJI tells : I discovered during the weekend that my son, who is practicing in Bombay, has been appearing for 2 years for a subsidiary of Shapoorji Pallonji Group in a matter related to slum rehabilitation.

I must disclose this to you all.

#TataSons

Salve : I think I also have appeared in that matter. I have no objection.

CJI : So can we record no objection.

Salve : Yes.

#TataSons #CyrusMistry

CJI records in the order that parties have no objection to this bench hearing the matter.
#TataSons #CyrusMistry

CJI : This might otherwise create problems later on.

C A Sundaram : Most young lawyers appear for companies of Tata group or SPG.
In England, there have been instances where sons have appeared before their fathers.

CJI : Justice P N Bhagwati has done that.

[WEBINAR]
Topic- Keys to Governance: Independence of Judiciary
The Webinar is being organized by India International Centre and D.S. Borker Memorial Foundation.
-Thursday 07 at 6:00PM-

Key Speakers:
1. Rtd. Justice Madan B Lokur, Former SC Judge
2. Tarunabh Khaitan, Vice Dean Faculty of Law, Oxford University
3. Maneka Guruswamy, Senior Advocate
4. N Ram, Former Editor in Chief, The Hindu
Moderator: Suhas Borker, Managing Trustee, DS Borker Memorial Foundation

The webinar has started.
Critical questions to be addressed in the webinar:
1. Is the SC performing its functions to defend the constitution satisfactorily?
2. Has the SC become an executive court?
3. Does the collegiums system ensure independence of judiciary?

4. Are post retirement benefits for judges compromising our judicial system?
5. Is there a need to increase the retirement age of judges?
6. Should there be a bar for restricting the post retirement jobs to judges?

7. How do you keep the government of the day at bay from exercising interference on the court?

SSR Case Media Trial : Bombay High Court to pronounce verdict at 11 AM today on the PILs seeking regulation of 'media trial'. The PILs were filed in the context of reportage of Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

#BombayHighCourt
#SSRCase #MediaTrial

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice GS Kulkarni had reserved verdict on the PILs on November 6.
During the hearing, the bench made several sharp oral observations criticizing the media reports on #SSRCase.

Here is a recap :

#SushanthSinghRajput

(From October 29, 2020)

'Asking Public About Who To Be Arrested Is Investigative Journalism?' Bombay HC Asks Republic TV In SSR Media Trial Case -

@republic


(From October 21, 2020)

'If You Become Investigator, Prosecutor & Judge, Why Are We Here?' Bombay HC Expresses Concerns Over Media Trial

#SushanthSinghRajput
#SSR

(From October 23, 2020)

Media Highly Polarized Now; Journalists Were Responsible & Neutral In Past, Bombay High Court Says While Hearing SSR Media Trial

Let’s talk about this story. It discusses a NJ bill that is designed to make sentencing less harsh. The bill is being held up because a lawmaker introduced an amendment that would eliminate the mandatory minimum for one type of corruption.

First, let's talk about the framing of the story. The lede is about how the lawmaker who introduced the amendment has a girlfriend whose son is facing corruption charges. The story minces no words: It says the amendment was added specifically to help that man.

The idea of powerful people helping each other escape punishment is a powerful one. It is the stuff of headlines and outrage, and so I'm not surprised that this is how the story is being framed.

But there is also another way to frame this story--that most people only appreciate the harshness and injustice of the criminal justice system once they or someone they love have been swept up in it.
We've seen the story before, and it sends us a different message.

The "powerful people get off" framing tells us to be suspicious of leniency & not to trust criminal justice reform.

The "I only realized when" framing tells us that we aren't paying enough attention to harshness & more reform is probably needed.

Today someone showed me an INCREDIBLE piece of evidence that #CraigWright is Satoshi.

This image, sourced from metanet-icu was shared with me.

It appears to be one of Satoshi’s earliest emails to Hal Finney, screen grabbed by Craig when he wrote it.

But, on closer inspection all is not as it seems.

This email was made public by journalist and can be found in a pdf of lots of emails from Satoshi to Hal Finney spanning 10-24 Jan 2009.

I’m not making any claim whether these are or are not

But, the most glaring and immediate problem with the metanet-icu screenshot of the draft email is in the top right hand corner of the image, where the user’s membership expires on 13th of March 2019.

Anonymousspeech is a paid service. The web archive of their product page shows that going back to the earliest snapshots they have never offered a package that lasts more than 2 years.

So the earliest this screenshot could have been made was March

But there’s something else strange about this image as well, and that’s down in the bottom left hand corner.

Anonymousspeech allows a maximum of 50000 characters in an email and has a counter of spare chars at the bottom.

This email has 48932 chars left.

Of all the things that confuse me (there are easily 3k this morning) this stumps me most: When did we decide that saving an 80-year-old's life is worth sacrificing a child's? Or that the value of their lives are exactly comparable? I could've sworn we'd agreed to something else.

We have special provisions for children. In court, they're treated differently. We've agreed they shouldn't have to work. They need public school (or so I thought). They cannot consent to sex. We have a set of laws that protects them.

I thought this was understood, and enacted by the thousands of examples we can gin up of adults running into traffic to save a child - not necessarily their own - or stopping a bullet. Remember those heroic teachers in Newtown in Parkland who shielded their students? That.

And we derided adults who USED children as shields, or failed to protect them. The mother who lets her husband beat her child because otherwise he'd turn on her. Society abjures such a person. The guard who hid instead of rushing the shooter in Parkland? Hated.

But now, with Covid is is simply disallowed to claim that we should prioritize, say, a 10-year-old school child over an 84-year-old in assisted living. Where the hell did this attitude come from and why does half of my social circle seem to believe it's right?