The Evening Wrap: SC agrees to consider petition to hear same-sex marriage review in open court

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to look into a request for an open court hearing of a petition seeking a review of its majority judgment in October refusing to legalise same-sex marriage. Appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Menaka Guruswamy, advocates Arundhati Katju and Karuna Nundy urged the court to post the review in open court rather than by the usual way of circulation in judges’ chambers. Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, who headed the majority opinion, has already retired. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who was part of the minority opinion, is set to retire on December 25, 2023. The review petition said the top court verdict compelled queer couples, who wished the joys of a real family, to remain in the closet and lead dishonest lives. The judgment had acknowledged that queer partners suffered from the indignity of discrimination in their everyday lives, but denied them any judicial relief, choosing to leave the community at the mercy of government policy and legislative wisdom. On October 17, the Supreme Court had said it did not want to leave the constraints of judicial power to encroach into the legislative domain of the Parliament. It said the Parliament was the ideal forum to debate and pass laws, or not, on the question of conferring legal status to same-sex marriage. A majority of the three judges on the Constitution Bench had disagreed with the view of Chief Justice Chandrachud that the government should at least grant a ‘civil union’ status to same-sex partners, saying such a concept was not backed by statutory law. The review petition has contended that the majority judgment contradicts itself in several fronts. For one, the Constitution Bench had said the Parliament conferred social status for marriage as an institution under the Special Marriage Act of 1954. But, despite this finding, the Bench had finally settled on the opposite premise that the terms of marriage were largely set independent of the state, and the status of marriage was not conferred by the state. The petitioners had urged the Constitution Bench to include same-sex marriage within the ambit of the 1954 Act. The review petition emphasised that the right to marry was a fundamental right. “No contract or forceful state action can curtail an adult’s fundamental right to marry,” the review petition has said. The review plea pointed out that the 1954 Act excluded same-sex marriages from its ambit at a period when homosexuality was a “vice” and a crime. The petition noted that it was the Supreme Court itself which had decriminalised homosexuality. The majority judgment, the plea said, has fallen short of the constitutional obligations of the top court towards queer couples. It said ideals of equal participation, dignity, fraternity remained fallacious for the queer community unless the judicially intervenes to review its own judgment. Panauti remark against PM Modi: Election Commission issues notice to Rahul The Election Commission of India (ECI) on November 23 issued a notice to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for using the words “Jebkatra (pickpocket)“ and “Panauti (Jinx) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his campaign in Rajasthan. The BJP on November 22 approached the ECI to demand that action be taken against Gandhi for calling Modi a panauti during an election rally in Rajasthan. The BJP on November 21 slammed as “shameful and disgraceful” Gandhi’s remarks insinuating that Modi had brought ill luck to India’s cricket team in the World Cup final, which he attended in Ahmedabad on November 19. At an election rally in Rajasthan, Gandhi had said, “PM means Panauti (jinx or ill omen) Modi”, suggesting that the Prime Minister’s presence in the Ahmedabad stadium named after him during the final match between India and Australia had brought bad luck to the Indian side. Addressing the rally in Baytoo in Balotra in Rajasthan, Gandhi had alleged that the Prime Minister “comes on TV and says ‘Hindu-Muslim’, and sometimes goes to a cricket match. It is a different matter that the match was lost. Panauti... PM means Panauti Modi.” Gandhi alleged Modi diverts people’s attention while industrialist Adani picks their pockets. The Congress leader also alleged that Modi waived loans of big industrialists and gave them all advantages. PMLA hearing | Special Bench dissolves as Justice Kaul to retire in December A Special Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on Thursday decided to not continue hearing petitions challenging amendments made to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The sudden twist in events came at the end of the second consecutive day of hearing. The decision to dissolve the Bench was prompted by the fact that Justice Kaul was retiring on December 25 and the case required detailed hearing and there would not be enough time for drafting a judgment. Justice Kaul said the decision to withdraw from the case was made with a “heavy heart” and he had very few days left on the Bench. The case has been scheduled after two months to be heard by an appropriate Bench of the court. The Chief Justice of India would constitute the new Bench. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who is part of the three-judge Bench with Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Kaul, said the case raised complex questions which need to be gone into thoroughly. One of them was whether a mere invocation of conspiracy (Section 120B of the India Penal Code) would bring an alleged crime under PMLA even if the substantial offence was not part of the schedule of offences under the 2002 Act. Justice Khanna asked whether the mere registration of the Enforcement Case Investigation Report (ECIR) would make a person an accused. Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, for the petitioners, said the case goes right into the heart of the question of liberty. The Special Bench was hearing a series of petitions which have questioned the correctness of the apex court’s judgment on July 27, 2022 in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case. The judgment, delivered by a Coordinate Bench of three judges led by Justice (now retired) A.M. Khanwilkar last year, had upheld core amendments to the PMLA which gave extensive powers to the Enforcement Directorate and shifted the burden of proof of innocence onto the accused rather than the prosecution. The judgment had hailed the PMLA as the law brought to end the “scourge of money laundering”. However, discontent over the July 2022 judgment had translated into more writ petitions being filed in the apex court. They challenged the impact of the PMLA on personal liberty, procedures of law and the constitutional mandate. Review petitions were also filed against the judgment. BJP planning to expel Mahua Moitra from Lok Sabha, says West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on November 23 said that the BJP leadership is planning to expel her party MP Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha. “Their (BJP leadership) plan is to expel Mahua (Moitra). This will only make her more popular. For three months she will say what she was saying inside the Parliament to the media outside. How does it matter? Only those who are stupid can make such an attempt,” Banerjee said addressing a gathering of Trinamool Congress leaders in Kolkata. A few weeks ago the Trinamool Congress leadership had appointed Moitra as the president of the party’s Krishnanagar organisational district. Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had also come in support of the Krishnanagar MP, who is embroiled in cash for query controversy, by saying that Moitra was capable enough of defending herself. Earlier this month, the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee had recommended expulsion of Ms. Moitra. The Trinamool Congress chairperson also came to the defence of the party’s scam tainted leadership. “I don’t believe that they are thieves,” the Chief Minister said addressing party rank and file at Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor Stadium. Several leaders of Trinamool Congress including four MLAs and a sitting Minister are behind bars for their alleged involvement in scams which are being probed by central investigating agencies. “Four of our MLAs are being put in prison. They think by doing this they will reduce our numbers. From the party I am making this announcement that if they arrest four we will arrest eight of their leaders,” Banerjee said. Among those arrested from the Trinamool is sitting Minister Jyoti Priya Mallick, former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and MLAs Manik Bhattacharya and Jiban Krishna Saha. Another key Trinamool leader behind bars is Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal. “Partha (Chatterjee), Manik (Bhattacharya) Kesto (Anubrata Mondal) and Balu (Jyoti Mullick Malliack) are all behind bars. This cannot go on,” the Chief Minister said. The Trinamool Congress chairperson while setting the pitch for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls cautioned her party supporters to keep an eye on the situation on the ground. She also sounded a caution to her political opponents that they will have to suffer the same fate once they are out of power.“What you are doing against Trinamool Congress, Arvind Kejriwal and son of Ashok Gehlot you will suffer the same fate. It will be same officers (of agencies) who will come after you” the Chief Minister said. Rules coming soon on deepfakes, says Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on November 23 said the government would make rules around deepfakes, synthetic media that mimics authentic images, video and audio, and set out rules to prevent their dissemination online. Vaishnaw met with representatives from social media and technology firms on the day on the subject, and said the companies were all of the view that action was warranted. The action follows a furore over the subject after a deepfake of actor Rashmika Mandanna went viral on Instagram and elsewhere earlier this month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke briefly on the dangers of deepfakes at a Deepavali event. While advisories to social media firms have been sent warning them that the law already prevents impersonation online, the IT Ministry is saying that it will now move swiftly to address the issue more comprehensively. “Within 10 days, we will come up with clear actionable items on four pillars,” Vaishnaw said. They are: improving the detection of deepfakes; preventing them from spreading rapidly; improving content reporting mechanisms on social media for synthetic media (timelines currently prescribe a 72-hour limit for removing them, beyond which firms lose legal protections for such content); and building greater awareness on deepfakes among the public. Vaishnaw did not specify what legal instrument would be used for this upcoming regulation, saying there had not yet been a decision on whether the rules would come as a subordinate legislation to an existing law, whether a fresh law would be passed, or an existing Act would be amended. Labelling or watermarking AI-generated content figured majorly in the discussion with social media platforms, Vaishnaw said. “Free speech and privacy are both constructs that are important for us. And these constructs will be undermined by deepfakes,” he said. It is unclear if the draft of the upcoming rules will be published before they are finalised, but Vaishnaw said the government would conduct an open consultative process beforehand, and take inputs from the public. In Brief: Anti-EU, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders seeks to form Dutch Govt after shock election win Dutch anti-EU far-right populist Geert Wilders will start looking for coalition partners on November 23 after a massive election win that is set to have wide repercussions in the Netherlands and Europe. With 98% of the votes counted, his Freedom Party (PVV) won 37 seats out of 150, well ahead of 25 for a joint Labour/Green ticket and 24 for the conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “The Rutte era ends with a right-wing populist revolt that shakes (The Hague) to its foundations. The historic election victory that the PVV achieved on November 22 exceeded all expectations,” Dutch centre-right daily NRC said. Israel confirms it has received initial list of hostages to be released Israel has received an initial list of hostages to be released from Gaza, planned to take place after a ceasefire with Hamas takes hold on November 24, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said. Meanwhile, a Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Gaza truce and hostage release will start on November 24 morning. “The pause will begin at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) on Friday... and the first batch of civilian hostages will be handed over at approximately 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) on the same day,” Majed Al-Ansari said. Thirteen people would freed initially, all women and children from the same families, Ansari said. The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also confirmed that a truce with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip would “begin on Friday at 7:00 am”. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 23 November 2023 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Supreme Court agrees to consider petition to hear same-sex marriage review in open court [The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to look into a request for an open court hearing of a petition seeking a review of its majority judgment in October refusing to legalise same-sex marriage.]( Appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Menaka Guruswamy, advocates Arundhati Katju and Karuna Nundy urged the court to post the review in open court rather than by the usual way of circulation in judges’ chambers. Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, who headed the majority opinion, has already retired. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who was part of the minority opinion, is set to retire on December 25, 2023. The review petition said the top court verdict compelled queer couples, who wished the joys of a real family, to remain in the closet and lead dishonest lives. The judgment had acknowledged that queer partners suffered from the indignity of discrimination in their everyday lives, but denied them any judicial relief, choosing to leave the community at the mercy of government policy and legislative wisdom. On October 17, the Supreme Court had said it did not want to leave the constraints of judicial power to encroach into the legislative domain of the Parliament. It said the Parliament was the ideal forum to debate and pass laws, or not, on the question of conferring legal status to same-sex marriage. A majority of the three judges on the Constitution Bench had disagreed with the view of Chief Justice Chandrachud that the government should at least grant a ‘civil union’ status to same-sex partners, saying such a concept was not backed by statutory law. The review petition has contended that the majority judgment contradicts itself in several fronts. For one, the Constitution Bench had said the Parliament conferred social status for marriage as an institution under the Special Marriage Act of 1954. But, despite this finding, the Bench had finally settled on the opposite premise that the terms of marriage were largely set independent of the state, and the status of marriage was not conferred by the state. The petitioners had urged the Constitution Bench to include same-sex marriage within the ambit of the 1954 Act. The review petition emphasised that the right to marry was a fundamental right. “No contract or forceful state action can curtail an adult’s fundamental right to marry,” the review petition has said. The review plea pointed out that the 1954 Act excluded same-sex marriages from its ambit at a period when homosexuality was a “vice” and a crime. The petition noted that it was the Supreme Court itself which had decriminalised homosexuality. The majority judgment, the plea said, has fallen short of the constitutional obligations of the top court towards queer couples. It said ideals of equal participation, dignity, fraternity remained fallacious for the queer community unless the judicially intervenes to review its own judgment. Panauti remark against PM Modi: Election Commission issues notice to Rahul The [Election Commission of India (ECI) on November 23 issued a notice to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi]( for using the words “Jebkatra (pickpocket)“ and “Panauti (Jinx) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his campaign in Rajasthan. The BJP on November 22 approached the ECI to demand that action be taken against Gandhi for calling Modi a panauti during an election rally in Rajasthan. The BJP on November 21 slammed as “shameful and disgraceful” Gandhi’s remarks insinuating that Modi had brought ill luck to India’s cricket team in the World Cup final, which he attended in Ahmedabad on November 19. At an election rally in Rajasthan, Gandhi had said, “PM means Panauti (jinx or ill omen) Modi”, suggesting that the Prime Minister’s presence in the Ahmedabad stadium named after him during the final match between India and Australia had brought bad luck to the Indian side. Addressing the rally in Baytoo in Balotra in Rajasthan, Gandhi had alleged that the Prime Minister “comes on TV and says ‘Hindu-Muslim’, and sometimes goes to a cricket match. It is a different matter that the match was lost. Panauti... PM means Panauti Modi.” Gandhi alleged Modi diverts people’s attention while industrialist Adani picks their pockets. The Congress leader also alleged that Modi waived loans of big industrialists and gave them all advantages. PMLA hearing | Special Bench dissolves as Justice Kaul to retire in December [A Special Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on Thursday decided to not continue hearing petitions challenging amendments made to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)](. The sudden twist in events came at the end of the second consecutive day of hearing. The decision to dissolve the Bench was prompted by the fact that Justice Kaul was retiring on December 25 and the case required detailed hearing and there would not be enough time for drafting a judgment. Justice Kaul said the decision to withdraw from the case was made with a “heavy heart” and he had very few days left on the Bench. The case has been scheduled after two months to be heard by an appropriate Bench of the court. The Chief Justice of India would constitute the new Bench. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who is part of the three-judge Bench with Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Kaul, said the case raised complex questions which need to be gone into thoroughly. One of them was whether a mere invocation of conspiracy (Section 120B of the India Penal Code) would bring an alleged crime under PMLA even if the substantial offence was not part of the schedule of offences under the 2002 Act. Justice Khanna asked whether the mere registration of the Enforcement Case Investigation Report (ECIR) would make a person an accused. Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, for the petitioners, said the case goes right into the heart of the question of liberty. The Special Bench was hearing a series of petitions which have questioned the correctness of the apex court’s judgment on July 27, 2022 in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case. The judgment, delivered by a Coordinate Bench of three judges led by Justice (now retired) A.M. Khanwilkar last year, had upheld core amendments to the PMLA which gave extensive powers to the Enforcement Directorate and shifted the burden of proof of innocence onto the accused rather than the prosecution. The judgment had hailed the PMLA as the law brought to end the “scourge of money laundering”. However, discontent over the July 2022 judgment had translated into more writ petitions being filed in the apex court. They challenged the impact of the PMLA on personal liberty, procedures of law and the constitutional mandate. Review petitions were also filed against the judgment. BJP planning to expel Mahua Moitra from Lok Sabha, says West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee [West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on November 23 said that the BJP leadership is planning to expel her party MP Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha.]( “Their (BJP leadership) plan is to expel Mahua (Moitra). This will only make her more popular. For three months she will say what she was saying inside the Parliament to the media outside. How does it matter? Only those who are stupid can make such an attempt,” Banerjee said addressing a gathering of Trinamool Congress leaders in Kolkata. A few weeks ago the Trinamool Congress leadership had appointed Moitra as the president of the party’s Krishnanagar organisational district. Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had also come in support of the Krishnanagar MP, who is embroiled in cash for query controversy, by saying that Moitra was capable enough of defending herself. Earlier this month, the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee had recommended expulsion of Ms. Moitra. The Trinamool Congress chairperson also came to the defence of the party’s scam tainted leadership. “I don’t believe that they are thieves,” the Chief Minister said addressing party rank and file at Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor Stadium. Several leaders of Trinamool Congress including four MLAs and a sitting Minister are behind bars for their alleged involvement in scams which are being probed by central investigating agencies. “Four of our MLAs are being put in prison. They think by doing this they will reduce our numbers. From the party I am making this announcement that if they arrest four we will arrest eight of their leaders,” Banerjee said. Among those arrested from the Trinamool is sitting Minister Jyoti Priya Mallick, former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and MLAs Manik Bhattacharya and Jiban Krishna Saha. Another key Trinamool leader behind bars is Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal. “Partha (Chatterjee), Manik (Bhattacharya) Kesto (Anubrata Mondal) and Balu (Jyoti Mullick Malliack) are all behind bars. This cannot go on,” the Chief Minister said. The Trinamool Congress chairperson while setting the pitch for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls cautioned her party supporters to keep an eye on the situation on the ground. She also sounded a caution to her political opponents that they will have to suffer the same fate once they are out of power .“What you are doing against Trinamool Congress, Arvind Kejriwal and son of Ashok Gehlot you will suffer the same fate. It will be same officers (of agencies) who will come after you” the Chief Minister said. Rules coming soon on deepfakes, says Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Minister for Electronics and Information Technology [Ashwini Vaishnaw on November 23 said the government would make rules around deepfakes]( synthetic media that mimics authentic images, video and audio, and set out rules to prevent their dissemination online. Vaishnaw met with representatives from social media and technology firms on the day on the subject, and said the companies were all of the view that action was warranted. The action follows a furore over the subject after a deepfake of actor Rashmika Mandanna went viral on Instagram and elsewhere earlier this month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke briefly on the dangers of deepfakes at a Deepavali event. While advisories to social media firms have been sent warning them that the law already prevents impersonation online, the IT Ministry is saying that it will now move swiftly to address the issue more comprehensively. “Within 10 days, we will come up with clear actionable items on four pillars,” Vaishnaw said. They are: improving the detection of deepfakes; preventing them from spreading rapidly; improving content reporting mechanisms on social media for synthetic media (timelines currently prescribe a 72-hour limit for removing them, beyond which firms lose legal protections for such content); and building greater awareness on deepfakes among the public. Vaishnaw did not specify what legal instrument would be used for this upcoming regulation, saying there had not yet been a decision on whether the rules would come as a subordinate legislation to an existing law, whether a fresh law would be passed, or an existing Act would be amended. Labelling or watermarking AI-generated content figured majorly in the discussion with social media platforms, Vaishnaw said. “Free speech and privacy are both constructs that are important for us. And these constructs will be undermined by deepfakes,” he said. It is unclear if the draft of the upcoming rules will be published before they are finalised, but Vaishnaw said the government would conduct an open consultative process beforehand, and take inputs from the public. In Brief: Anti-EU, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders seeks to form Dutch Govt after shock election win [Dutch anti-EU far-right populist Geert Wilders will start looking for coalition partners on November 23 after a massive election win]( that is set to have wide repercussions in the Netherlands and Europe. With 98% of the votes counted, his Freedom Party (PVV) won 37 seats out of 150, well ahead of 25 for a joint Labour/Green ticket and 24 for the conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “The Rutte era ends with a right-wing populist revolt that shakes (The Hague) to its foundations. The historic election victory that the PVV achieved on November 22 exceeded all expectations,” Dutch centre-right daily NRC said. Israel confirms it has received initial list of hostages to be released [Israel has received an initial list of hostages to be released from Gaza]( planned to take place after a ceasefire with Hamas takes hold on November 24, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said. Meanwhile, a Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Gaza truce and hostage release will start on November 24 morning. “The pause will begin at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) on Friday... and the first batch of civilian hostages will be handed over at approximately 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) on the same day,” Majed Al-Ansari said. Thirteen people would freed initially, all women and children from the same families, Ansari said. The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also confirmed that a truce with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip would “begin on Friday at 7:00 am”. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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