DesiPundit

If Article 15(1) should give rise to the same deferential ‘reasonableness’ test that is used for Article 14, the Court is treating a distinction between men and women under Article 15 at par with a distinction between sellers of tea and coffee under Article 14 - this surely cannot be the correct constitutional position.

Tarunabh at Law and Other Things provide useful excerpts from Supreme Court Justices’ statements in the landmark case upholding reservations and examine grounds for strict scrutiny [via].

I was browsing through the pages of Mathrubhumi weekly (Malayalam) and I was stumbled upon their book reviews section. The reason was a cover picture of one book that they had reviewed in their literary review section which resembled a photo that I took back in 2006 in Nileshwaram, Kasaragod district. I was curious because it looked like an exact copy of the picture that I had taken.

Jo finds one of his images off Flickr plagiarized by a photographer. In spite of sending a legal notice, the publisher Pranatha Books had refused to credit him for the photo [hat tip: Mridula].

Because it takes a lot of effort to enforce drug laws, the legal system
cannot focus on other issues. So let us legalize drugs. Yeah, right! So
if you wanted to put the lawyers out of business, the way to do it is
to legalize all crime - drugs, prostitution, murder, theft.

Vijay Krishna begs to differ on the argument for legalization of drugs citing Jug Suraiya’s latest column in the ToI.

India’s Supreme Court yesterday ruled that customary payments by the bride’s family to the groom’s family cannot be categorized as ‘dowry’. That decision means a groom’s family that harasses their daughter-in-law and threatens her etc etc cannot and will not face dowry charges. The keyword, according to the Supreme Court, is, ‘customary payments’.

Indiatime is shocked by the Supreme Court decision and lists other ‘customs’ or ‘customary payments’ that can be overlooked under this decision.

State Human Rights Commission Chairperson,  Justice S.R.Nayak, states that immodest dressing is the cause of increasing crimes against women! Gawker reacts to these asinine comments.

Alright people, are you with me here? Did your jaw just drop to the floor? If not, then you probably weren’t paying attention. That was the Chairperson of the Karnatak State Human Rights Commission advocating the cessation of human rights. Call me greedy, but in my opinion, the right not to be imprisoned in your own house would constitute a fundamental human right. Or am I asking for too much? What next, a forest conservation commission chairperson blaming trees for getting cut due to their egregious act of casting shade and thus, advertizing their presence to illegal loggers?

Tuesday marked the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Nandita commemorates the occasion with a post on reproductive rights. [Hat tip: Pallavi]

And no, it’s not about being pro-abortion, it’s not about being stupid and requiring to have one performed due to sheer carelessness or negligence but about being able to make choices since no one can know what’s best in any particular situation but the people involved. Not government and not priests.

Dilip is encouraged by the judgment delivered by Judge Vinod Kumar in a case about a police encounter.

In other words, what I hope this judgement sheds light on is the whole sickening culture of police “encounters”, and the widespread societal approval for them. Dreaded gangsters or not, the police cannot be allowed to shoot them down, and cannot be allowed to get away with shooting them down. But once we do allow them to do those things, we had better be prepared for murders like on that day in 1997: murders of perfectly ordinary folks like you and me.

Rohit explains why.

… any restrictions on abortion–even those imposed in the name of societal goods–are violative of women’s autonomy. Further, the right to sex determination is intricately link to right to abortion. Almost every argument in favor of abortion would be equally applicable to sex-determination. Hence, those who favor abortion as a right rather than merely a privilege granted by the state in case of accidents cannot morally argue against sex determination even if leads to female â€?foeticideâ€?. It is plainly disingenuous to argue, as Pamela Philipose does, that the state has the right to interfere in plainly private matters in the name of ‘’societal demandsâ€? …

A civil society organization in Delhi accuses — with documentation — a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for not recusing himself from the ‘Delhi shop sealing’ case due to a conflict of interest. Rahul wonders why the press coverage of this important news has been so meagre:

The news conference was on August 3 (and was reportedly packed, with all major newspapers represented), and I found exactly one report dated August 4, which credits UNI; however, none of the newspapers seem to have carried that report, or if they did, they have prevented Google from indexing it. [...]

Why the silence? Is it a fear of our contempt laws? [...]

… when you think about the number people dead & those traumatized by the 1993 Bomb Blasts, 11 convicts handed with Death Penalties and others sentenced to Life Imprisonment – with just couple of years in prison (minus the 16 months off the 6 years), Dutt seems to have walked off very lightly.

Sakshi comments on the 6-year prison sentence handed out to Sanjay Dutt .