Dr. Jaya Thakur has filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court seeking recall of the September 23 split verdict in the challenge to the 2023 law on the appointment of the CEC and Election Commissioners, contending that Justice Satish Chandra Sharma should not have heard the case because his son has been a standing counsel for the Election Commission of India before the Madhya Pradesh High Court since July 2024.
Two questions have become tangled in the debate over the Supreme Court’s September 23 order in Medha Roopam v. Akriti Chaudhary: whether Justice Satish Chandra Sharma ought to have sat on the matter, and whether the stay he passed was legally sound. The answers, this analysis argues, point in opposite directions, the propriety concern deserves an institutional answer, but the stay on the compensation and strictures was close to inevitable on settled precedent.
The Lawyers Association for Constitution has sought the recall of two Supreme Court orders passed on September 23 by benches comprising Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, the reference of the challenge to the 2023 Election Commissioners appointment law to a Constitution Bench, and the interim relief to Noida DM Medha Roopam, citing reports that the judge’s son is a standing counsel for the Election Commission. The Association says it raises concerns of perception, not of actual bias.
Questions of judicial propriety have been raised in legal circles after it emerged that the son of Supreme Court judge Justice Satish Chandra Sharma is empanelled as standing counsel for the Election Commission of India in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, even as Justice Sharma sat on two recent matters connected to the ECI and […]
The Supreme Court has stayed the operation of paragraphs 27 to 33 of the Allahabad High Court judgment that had directed the recovery of ₹5 lakh from the personal salary of Noida DM Medha Roopam, and recorded strictures against her, over a student’s quashed NSA detention. Issuing notice on her plea and a connected State petition, the Court stayed the strictures until the matter is heard on merits, and listed it for October 7.
In their opinion on the challenge to the 2023 law on the appointment of Election Commissioners, the two judges of the Supreme Court differed on the threshold question of whether the matter should go to a Constitution Bench. Justice Dipankar Datta held that the Centre’s prayer for a reference was unwarranted, while Justice Satish Chandra Sharma held that Article 145(3) made a five-judge Bench mandatory. By a joint order, they placed the matter before the CJI.
The Supreme Court has reserved orders on a plea by Noida District Magistrate Medha Roopam challenging the Allahabad High Court’s direction to recover ₹5 lakh from her personal salary as compensation to a student whose National Security Act detention, over the Noida workers’ protest, the High Court quashed as based on a ‘concocted’ story. The State and the DM argued that the personal strictures and cost were unwarranted, and pressed for a stay. The student’s counsel opposed the plea.
The Supreme Court urged IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri and IPS officer D Roopa Moudgil to resolve their long-running dispute through mediation, observing that continued litigation was harming both careers. The Court made the remarks while hearing Sindhuri’s challenge to criminal defamation proceedings.
The Supreme Court expressed concern over threats and attacks targeting retired Bombay High Court judge Justice Gautam Patel and his family, warning that such incidents threaten judicial independence and the administration of justice. The Court observed that fear and intimidation could discourage judges from delivering impartial judgments.
