The chief instrument through which judicial activism has flourished in India is public interest litigation (PIL) or social action litigation (SAL). It refers to litigation undertaken to secure public interest and demonstrates the availability of justice to socially-disadvantaged parties and was introduced by Justice P. N. Bhagwati and Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer. It is a relaxation on the traditional rule of locus standi. Before 1980s the judiciary and the Supreme Court of India entertained litigation only from parties affected directly or indirectly by the defendant. It heard and decided cases only under its original and appellate jurisdictions. However,the Supreme Court began permitting cases on the grounds of public interest litigation,which means that even people who are not directly involved in the case may bring matters of public interest to the court. It is the court's privilege to entertain the application for the PIL.
Section 377 is a British colonial penal code that criminalized all sexual acts "against the order of nature". The law was used to prosecute people engaging in oral and anal sex along with homosexual activity. As per a Supreme Court Judgement since 2018,the Indian Penal Code Section 377 is used to convict non-consensual sexual activities among homosexuals with a minimum of ten years’imprisonment extended to life imprisonment. It has been used to criminalize third gender people,such as the apwint in Myanmar. In 2018,then British Prime Minister Theresa May acknowledged how the legacies of such British colonial anti-sodomy laws continue to persist today in the form of discrimination,violence,and even death.
Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal was the 36th Chief Justice of India.
Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is an Indian jurist,who is the 50th and current chief justice of India serving since November 2022. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of India in May 2016. He has also previously served as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court from 2013 to 2016 and as a judge of the Bombay High Court from 2000 to 2013. He is ex-officio Patron-in-Chief of the National Legal Services Authority and the de facto Chancellor of the National Law School of India University.
Ananga Kumar Patnaik is an Indian jurist and a former judge of the Supreme Court of India.
Sarosh Homi Kapadia was the 38th Chief Justice of India. He was the first chief justice born after the partition of India.
Altamas Kabir was an Indian lawyer and judge who served as the 39th Chief Justice of India.
The 2G spectrum case was a political controversy in which politicians and private officials of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government India were allegedly involved in selling or allotting 122 2G spectrum licenses on conditions that provided an advantage to specific telecom operators. A. Raja,then Telecom Minister,was accused of selling 2G spectrum licenses at a very low cost which resulted in the loss of ₹1,760 billion in government revenue. Raja was also accused of not following rules and regulations as well as not recognizing any advice from the Ministries of Finance and Law and Justice of India while allotting 2G spectrum licenses to telecom operators. Series of allegations were made on allotting 2G spectrum licenses including allegations from Central Bureau of Investigation after investigating the case alleging Raja for intentionally advancing the cut-off date to favour some specific firms,which were allegedly ineligible for applying for telecom licenses,in return for bribes.
In India,a binding decision of the Supreme Court/High Court can be reviewed in review petition. The parties aggrieved on any order of the Supreme Court on any apparent error can file a review petition. Taking into consideration the principle of stare decisis,courts generally do not unsettle a decision,without a strong case. This provision regarding review is an exception to the legal principle of stare decisis.
G.S. Singhvi is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India. He retired on 11 December 2013.
Jagdish Singh Khehar is a former senior advocate and a former judge,who served as the 44th Chief Justice of India in 2017. Khehar is the first chief justice from the Sikh community. He has been a judge in Supreme Court of India from 13 September 2011 to 27 August 2017 upon superannuation. He served for a brief period but gave many landmark judgements such as the Triple Talaq and the Right to Privacy verdict. He was succeeded by Justice Dipak Misra.
Ranjan Gogoi is an Indian former advocate and judge who served as the 46th Chief Justice of India from 2018 to 2019,having previously served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a Member of the Rajya Sabha,having been nominated by President Ram Nath Kovind on 16 March 2020. Gogoi served as a judge in the Gauhati High Court from 2001 to 2010,and then was transferred as a judge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2010 to 2011 where he later was the Chief Justice from 2011 to 2012. He is also a member of the Committee on External Affairs in the Rajya Sabha.
Dipak Misra is an Indian jurist who served as the 45th Chief Justice of India from 28 August 2017 till 2 October 2018. He is also former Chief Justice of the Patna High Court and Delhi High Court. He is the nephew of Justice Ranganath Misra,who was the 21st Chief Justice from 1990 to 1991.
K. S. Radhakrishna Panicker is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Prior to that,he served as the Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court and Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court.
Uday Umesh Lalit is an Indian lawyer and former Supreme Court Judge,who served as the 49th Chief Justice of India. Previously,he has served as a judge of Supreme Court of India. Prior to his elevation as a judge,he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. Justice Lalit is one of the eleven senior counsels who have been directly elevated to the Supreme Court. He is currently ‘Distinguished Visiting Professor’at Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies,Indian Institute of Technology,Bombay and Distinguished Visiting Professor at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences.
John Michael D'Cunha is an Indian Judge elevated as a Permanent Judge in the Karnataka High Court on 1 November 2018.
The Yadav Singh corruption case is an alleged event of corruption in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Yadav Singh was the Engineer-in-Chief of the Noida Authority,Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).
Justice Chinnaswamy Swaminathan Karnan is a retired Indian judge. In May 2017,he was sentenced to six months of imprisonment by the Supreme Court of India,holding him guilty of contempt of court. He was the first Indian High Court judge to be punished for contempt while in office but was arrested and jailed after retirement.
Suresh Kumar Koushal &Anr. v. NAZ Foundation &Ors.(2013) is a case in which a 2 judge Supreme Court bench consisting of G. S. Singhvi and S. J. Mukhopadhaya overturned the Delhi High Court case Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and reinstated Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The Supreme Court of India decided to revisit this judgement after several curative petitions were filed against it,in 2017. Thereby in 2018,Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, a 5 judge bench of the Supreme Court overturned this judgement,decriminalizing homosexuality. Portions of Section 377 relating to sex with minors,non-consensual sexual acts such as rape,and bestiality remain in force.
The High Court of Judicature at Madras is a High Court located in Chennai,India. It has appellate jurisdiction over the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is one of the oldest high courts of India along with Calcutta High Court in Kolkata and Bombay High Court in Mumbai. The Madras High Court is one of four charter high courts of colonial India established in the four Presidency Towns of Madras,Bombay,Allahabad and Calcutta by letters patent granted by Queen Victoria,dated 26 June 1862. It exercises original jurisdiction over the city of Chennai,as well as extraordinary original jurisdiction,civil and criminal,under the letters patent and special original jurisdiction for the issue of writs under the Constitution of India. Covering 107 acres,the court complex is one of the largest in the world,second only to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The four-storey administrative building attracts hundreds of litigants every day.
