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The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the Centre and the Attorney General for India on a plea by two gay couples seeking recognition of same-sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
The notice was issued by a two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on petitions filed by Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang, and Parth Phiroze Mehrotra and Uday Raj Anand.
At the outset, the bench, also comprising Justice Hima Kohli, pointed out that similar petitions were pending before the Delhi and Kerala High Courts.
Appearing for the petitioners, Senior Advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul said that in the Kerala High Court, the Centre had made a statement that it will take steps to get the matter transferred to the Supreme Court. On the matter before the Delhi High Court, he said it has been pending for two years. “These are valuable constitutional rights.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, also appearing for the petitioners, submitted that “ultimately this is a sequel to the judgment in Navtej Singh Johar (wherein the court decriminalised same-sex relations and Puttaswamy (privacy judgment).
These are live issues, not property issues. People are living, they are getting older and older. The impact is on succession, health…how it will work”.
The senior counsel said that “a plethora of issues arise by virtue of this”. “And we have taken care not to touch matters of marriage which deal with religion, like Hindu Marriage Act.
We are only talking about the Special Marriage Act. The Act starts by saying that you can have a marriage between two persons,” Rohatgi said.
Justice Chandrachud, however, pointed out that the Act also says “the male has completed the age of twenty-one years and the female the age of eighteen years”.
Govt & Politics
India correcting past mistakes by recognising unsung heroes: Modi (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 1, History)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India was correcting its past mistakes by celebrating its heritage and remembering its unsung heroes.
“For centuries, we have been told that the history of India is of slavery, and stories of resistance were deliberately suppressed but that mistake is now being corrected,” Modi said while speaking at the closing ceremony of the Assam government’s three-day-long celebrations of legendary Ahom general Lachit Barphukan’s 400th birth anniversary in Delhi. He also released a book ‘Lachit Barphukan – Assam’s Hero who Halted the Mughals’ at the event.
Lachit had led the Ahom soldiers to defeat Mughals at the Battle of Saraighat on the outskirts of Guwahati in 1671. Through this mega event that was attended by senior Union ministers, the BJP governments, in Assam and at the Centre, have been pushing for Lachit’s recognition as a national hero.
“For centuries, we were told that we were looted, beaten and defeated. But India’s history is not just a history of slavery. India’s history is a history of showing extraordinary valour and heroism against tyrants.
India’s history is of victory, of sacrifice, of bravery… of great traditions. But it’s unfortunate that even after Independence, we continued to be taught the history that was written as a conspiracy during the age of slavery.
After Independence, it was necessary to change the agenda of the foreigners who enslaved us, but that was not done. The stories of fierce resistance by Ma Bharti’s sons and daughters in all corners of the country have been deliberately suppressed.
No statutory bar on bodies with religious names to register as parties, EC tells SC (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Election Commission has told the Supreme Court that “there is no express provision which bars associations with religious connotations to register as political parties under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act-1951”.
The Commission said this in an affidavit filed in response to a PIL by former chairman of the Shia Waqf Board of Uttar Pradesh, Syed Waseem Rizvi, seeking cancellation of political parties having religious symbols and names.
The affidavit pointed out that a Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend the Act so that no association bearing religious name would be registered as a political party. However, it was not passed and consequently, lapsed with the dissolution of the then Lok Sabha in 1996.
The affidavit said political parties are required to abide by the principle of secularism as mandated by Section 29A of the Act. It added that a political party applying for registration with the EC “must bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India and the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy and to also uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India” and that if the memorandum or rules and registration of the party do not conform to these, it shall not be registered by should not be registered by the Commission.
The EC pointed out that in 2005, it had taken a policy decision to not register political parties that had religious connotations, under Section 29A.
It was submitted that since then no such party was registered and that “certain” political parties mentioned in the writ petition were registered prior to that.
The affidavit said the EC issued an order on May 19, 2014, directing that political parties seeking registration should not have religious connotation.
Express Network
Sangeet Natak Akademi announces 128 winners of Akademi Puraskar (Page no. 8)
(Miscellaneous)
The Sangeet Natak Akademi, on Friday, announced 128 winners of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (Akademi Puraskar) for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 for their significant contribution to the fields of music, dance, theatre, traditional/folk/tribal music/dance/theatre, puppetry and contribution/scholarship in the performing arts.
The General Council of the Akademi also announced 10 eminent personalities in the field of performing arts as Akademi Fellows. While the winners of the Akademi Puruskar will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, Akademi fellows will get Rs 3 lakh each and both will also receive a tamrapatra and angavastram.
Among the Akademi Fellows are Bharatnatyam exponent Saroja Vaidyanathan, Kerala-based Kathakali dancer Sadanam Krishnan Kutty, Manipuri dancer Darshana Jhaveri, Banaras-based Hindustani classical vocalist Chhannulal Mishra, Carnatic music clarinet player A.K.C Natarajan, Hindustani classical singer of Gwalior gharana Malini Rajurkar, two-time Grammy nominee and tabla maestro Swapan Chaudhuri and Cochin-based Hindustani and Carnatic music vocalist T. V. Gopalakrishnan, among others. With these 10 new Akademi Fellows, the tally of fellows has increased to 39.
Apart from these, the Akademi has also announced the names of 86 artists from the field of the performing arts who have won the one-time Sangeet Natak Akademi Amrit Award under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM), which commemorates 75 years of India’s independence.
These include artists above the age of 75 years who haven’t been accorded any national honour in their career. These artists will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.
Explained
The story of Millets (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Agriculture)
At a pre-launch celebration of the International Year of Millets 2023 organised by the Ministries of Agriculture and External Affairs, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar named “Covid, conflict, and climate” as the world’s main food security challenges, and placed the cultivation and popularisation of millets in the context of the wider imperative of “de-risking the global economy”. The event was attended by about a hundred foreign diplomats based in New Delhi.
The word millets is used to describe small-grained cereals like sorghum (jowar), pearl millet (bajra), foxtail millet (kangni/ Italian millet), little millet (kutki), kodo millet, finger millet (ragi/ mandua), proso millet (cheena/ common millet), barnyard millet (sawa/ sanwa/ jhangora), and brown top millet (korale).
Millets were among the first crops to be domesticated. There is evidence for consumption of millets by the Indus valley people (3,000 BC), and several varieties that are now grown around the world were first cultivated in India. West Africa, China, and Japan are home to indigenous varieties of the crop.
Millets are now grown in more than 130 countries, and are the traditional food for more than half a billion people in Asia and Africa. They require much less water than rice and wheat, and are mainly grown in rainfed areas.
Globally, sorghum (jowar) is the biggest millet crop. The major producers of jowar are the United States, China, Australia, India, Argentina, Nigeria, and Sudan. Bajra is another major millet crop; India and some African countries are major producers.
In India, millets are mainly a kharif crop. During 2018-19, three millet crops — bajra (3.67%), jowar (2.13%), and ragi (0.48%) — accounted for about 7 per cent of the gross cropped area in the country, Agriculture Ministry data show.
The Editorial Page
Securing the EC (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
A vital issue of national importance dominating the headlines for the last three days is the PIL in the Supreme Court regarding the autonomy and neutrality of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
This PIL was filed by a BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay in November 2018 but unfortunately, the Court did not give it the priority it deserved. When the five-judge Constitution Bench finally started hearing it, the importance of the subject became clear.
The Constitution intended the Election Commission to be fiercely independent and vested it with enormous powers of superintendence, direction and control over all elections.
The apex court has repeatedly adjudged these powers to be absolute and unquestionable. It has declared Article 324 to be the reservoir of all powers of the ECI and has repeatedly declared free and fair elections to be part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
Equipped with so much power and authority, it is only expected that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India would be fiercely independent and nonpartisan.
But is that the situation on the ground? For much of Indian democracy’s history, the ECI has performed very well, earning accolades not only from the citizens of India but the world.
The track record of most CECs was exemplary in displaying independence and neutrality, with the courage to stand up to the government of the day and it was hoped that this trend would continue. But hope can never be a strategy. There has to be an institutional mechanism to ensure the independence and neutrality of the ECI. Hence this PIL.
The root of the problem lies in the flawed system of appointment of the Election Commissioners. They are appointed unilaterally by the government of the day.
It’s important to recall B R Ambedkar’s statement to the Constituent Assembly that “the tenure can’t be made a fixed and secure tenure if there is no provision in the Constitution to prevent a fool or a naive or a person who is likely to be under the thumb of the executive” (emphasis added).
The Ideas Page
Sward and the shield (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Constitution)
Some dates are intractably linked with our life as a nation. Along with Independence Day and Republic Day, the day our Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly is one of those solemn occasions which have impacted our lives deeply.
On November 26, 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India, under the stewardship of B R Ambedkar, passed and adopted the Constitution of India.
Our life as a democratic republic may have begun on January 26, 1950, but the role of Constitution Day in clearing our path to become the polity we resolved to give ourselves remains indelible.
In this light, Constitution Day is both a conclusion and a beginning. On November 26, 1949, the great freedom struggle’s legacy and the aspirations of our people were united in a single document and thus began our national life towards the fulfilment of the ideals enshrined in the Constitution.
It is an irony of our times that a government moved by the ideology of the RSS, which is antithetical to the spirit of the Constitution, has started observing Constitution Day from the year 2015.
In January of the same year, the Planning Commission, a noble vehicle to further the values enshrined in the Constitution, was dissolved.
Subversion of the Constitution and trampling of the ideals of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity enshrined in it have been consistent features of theNarendra Modi years.
The situation reminds me of an observation made by Ambedkar when he moved the resolution to pass the draft Constitution. He said: “If things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that, Man was vile.” It is this “vileness” in the garb of the majority that we are to fight.
A rare, enduring document (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Constitution)
What is Constitution Day? On November 26, 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted our Constitution. Hence, every year we celebrate this day as Constitution or Law Day.
India’s Constitution has now endured for almost 73 years. An enduring constitution is a rare phenomenon, and acts as the soul of a nation or the defining identity of a country. While we celebrate Constitution Day, let us also remember how our drafters arrived at this enduring founding instrument.
Constitution-making itself is a relatively unexceptional endeavour. Ginsburg, Elkins and Blount note that in the period from 1789–2005, 806 national constitutions were promulgated.
Of the 148 cases, which were randomly chosen from 806, on average, the constitution-making process took 16 months. India’s constitution-making project took about three years from 1946 to 1949.
It was written under extraordinarily difficult conditions: The partition of India which resulted in the displacement of millions of people on both sides of the border.
Partition was accompanied by mass deaths, devastation, violence, and brutality. Amid all this, as refugees flowed into Delhi, our dual-purpose assembly — a parliament by morning and a constituent body in the afternoon drafted our enduring founding instrument.
One that would remain relevant not just for the turbulence of that present, but also would be meaningful for future generations to come.
Why must a people submit to a constitution? Richard Kay writes that a people would submit to a constitution, when the constituent assembly crafts a narrative about the creation of the body that is both politically acceptable and historically plausible.
It’s not only the text, but also the story crafted of the birth of a constitution that is critical in the internalisation of a constitutional order by a people.