The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi lauded the Supreme Court and Chief Justice DY Chandrachud for the onboarding of the Supreme Court data on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG). Stating that the harnessing of technology would further transparency, the Prime Minister took to his twitter account to state–
Laudatory step by the Supreme Court and CJI DY Chandrachud Ji. Such harnessing of technology will further transparency and enhance the justice delivery system in our country.
Laudatory step by the Supreme Court and CJI DY Chandrachud Ji. Such harnessing of technology will further transparency and enhance the justice delivery system in our country. https://t.co/oAGZ03eOHY
This morning, the CJI had announced that the Supreme Court is officially ‘onboard’ with the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) now. The CJI described the onboarding of the Supreme Court data on NJDG portal under the court’s ‘open data policy’ as a step “to bring transparency and accountability in the judicial domain.”
Jaising wrote a letter to CJI DY Chandrachud suggesting that the Supreme Court release handbooks to address gender stereotyping in the Bar, as well as in pleadings and arguments before courts.
Senior Advocate Indira Jaising has written to Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud raising concerns regarding lack of gender sensitivity amongst members of the Bar.
In a letter addressed to the CJI, Jaising drew the attention of the CJI to the treatment meted out to women lawyers in courtrooms by their male colleagues.
She praised the Supreme Court for recently releasing the ‘Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes’ but suggested that additional handbooks be released to address gender stereotyping in the Bar as well as in pleadings and arguments before courts.
“I am constrained to write to you with the request that the Court issue a handbook on gender stereotyping of lawyers who are women, which will provide guidelines to our male colleagues on how to deal with women at the bar and in law offices. While this Hon’ble Court provided guidelines on the ‘entrenched paternalistic and misogynistic attitudes’, these are often played out in day to day work in court,” Jaising’s letter said.
To drive the point home, Jaising cited her own varied experiences as a member of the Bar.
She says that the stereotyping is on a spectrum. On one end is the singling out and projecting of competent women lawyers as “empowered women” and calling women lawyers “delightful” in court.
On the other end is the stereotyping of women lawyers as “aggressive”, even though they are arguing just as their male colleagues do.
“I have been referred to by my male colleagues as ‘delightful’ during court hearings, something which I promptly objected to and which is recorded in a judgment of the court as a form of harassment in court. Significantly, at the other end of the spectrum, I get told by my male colleagues ‘Don’t raise your voice in court’,” she recounted.
Trump is already defending several other cases – just a year before he hopes to reclaim the presidency.
Pic: AP
A court in Georgia has charged Donald Trump with trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election.
Among the charges is ‘solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer’ in other words trying to persuade someone to betray their office.
It is the fourth set of charges against the former president.
Prosecutors brought 13 counts against Trump and his associates, including forgery and racketeering, which is most often used to target members of organised crime groups.
Ten other people have been charged including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s former lawyer and ex New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, another of Trump’s ex lawyers.
The court in Atlanta sat beyond usual working hours as a grand jury decided whether or not to charge the former president.
Trump narrowly lost to Joe Biden in Georgia and his lawyers, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, made false claims of election fraud.
Audio of a call by Trump to Georgia’s secretary of state also emerged in January 2021 in which he suggested election officials could “find” the votes he needed to win.
Trump is already defending several other cases – just a year before he hopes to reclaim the presidency.
The most serious concern allegations he plotted to overturn his election loss, laying the ground for the infamous US Capitol riots.
He denies the claims and says they are politically motivated.
In a statement, the Trump campaign said: “They could have brought this two and a half years ago, yet they chose todo this for election interference reasons in the middle of President Trump’s successful campaign.
The Court was of the view that it is the duty of every court to award proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was committed.
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court recently held that the quantum of punishment in a given case must depend upon the atrocity of the crime and therefore, it is the duty of every court to award proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was committed [State of Punjab v. Dil Bahadur].
A division bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar said that imposing inadequate sentence due to undue sympathy would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.
“We again reiterate in this case that undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law. It is the duty of every court to award proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was executed or committed,” the Court said.
Justice demands that courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime, the bench ruled.
“The court must not only keep in view the rights of the victim of the crime but the society at large while considering the imposition of appropriate punishment. The court will be failing in its duty if appropriate punishment is not awarded for a crime which has been committed not only against the individual victim but also against the society to which both the criminal and the victim belong,” the Court observed.
The Court was hearing an appeal against a decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had though upheld the conviction of respondent for the offence under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The High Court had, however, reduced the sentence from two years to eight months, subject to a prior deposit of ₹25,000 towards compensation to be paid to family/legal heirs of the deceased.
The respondent-accused was driving a Scorpio Car in a rash and negligent manner, due to which one person died while overtaking an ambulance from the left. The ambulance turned turtle due to the collision and two persons sitting in the ambulance also suffered injuries
The trial court convicted the respondent-accused under Sections 279 and 304A IPC and the same was confirmed by the sessions court. However, in revision, the High Court reduced the sentence.
Aggrieved, the State approached the Supreme Court by way of appeal.
The Supreme Court noted that while reducing the sentence, the High Court had not considered the gravity of the offence and the manner in which the accused committed the offence
“Cogent reasons were given by the trial court while sentencing the accused to undergo two years RI for the offence under Section 304A of IPC. From the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court, it appears that the case on behalf of the accused that he is coming from a poor family, is considered as mitigating circumstance,” the apex court said.
The Court then highlighted the nature of the IPC, which is punitive and deterrent in nature, with the objective to punish offenders for offences committed.
