2015: Memon's pre-dawn hearing, NJAC made SC eventful

An unprecedented pre-dawn hearing sealing Mumbai blasts' convict Yakub Memon's fate, relief to ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in coalgate and ousting of cricket czar N Srinivasan hogged the limelight in 2015 in the Supreme Court where a historic bid of the Executive to wrest back primacy on judges' appointment got a drubbing.
Besides, the apex court in an activist mode dealt with the aspect of pollution and other issues of fundamental rights with path-breaking verdicts on freedom of speech by striking down controversial section 66A of the Information Technology Act that provided for arrest for posting allegedly "offensive" content on social networking sites.

However, the turf war between the legislative/executive combine and the judiciary over the NDA government's ambitious law -- National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) Act -- aimed at replacing the 22-year-old collegium system of judges appointing judges for higher judiciary -- was the cynosure of all eyes which ended with the legislation being dubbed as unconstitutional and compromising independence of judiciary.
The verdict by the five-judge Constitution Bench which revived the collegium system after almost a year culminated in guidelines to improve it, with the apex court at the fag end of the year asking the Centre to draft memorandum of procedures in consultation with the CJI.

Another setback the NDA government had was for defending the action of previous UPA regime over the cyber law curtailing the freedom of speech and expression of netizens.
The Supreme Court, whose path-breaking verdicts on the issue is almost unparalleled, lived up to its glorious past and in yet another legendary verdict held section 66A of IT Act as "unconstitutional" which had a "chilling effect" on freedom of speech and expression.

So was the case for Narendra Modi government on the issue of Jat reservation when its efforts to defend the pre-poll decision of the Manmohan Singh regime did not yield favourable result with the apex court saying earlier "possible wrong inclusions" cannot be the basis of further inclusions.

After the verdict on the cyber law, the top court again drew international attention for holding pre-dawn hearing when the last-ditch effort by human right activists to save 1993 Mumbai serial blasts master mind Memon from gallows failed.
He was hanged, hours after the apex court on July 30 passed the order of rejection of his plea just before 05:00 AM which was filed at midnight after dismissal of identical relief in the day.
Former Prime Minister Singh knocking apex court's door
against the summons issued to him as an accused by a trial court in one of the coal block allocations scam cases, kept all in suspense until a stay came in his favour.

However, his cabinet colleague Santosh Bagrodia was not so lucky as the top court did not grant him same relief on parity and asked him to appear before the special CBI court.
The coalgate also brought disgrace for former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha, whose meeting with high-profile accused at his residence was held improper by the apex court which appointed agency's former Special Director M L Sharma to probe into the alleged misdemeanour and ordered handing over of visitors' diary of Sinha's official residence to the Sharma panel.
While graft cases and other constitutional matters were hogging the limelight, the sporting world was keenly watching the developments evolving from the apex court's proceedings on IPL spot fixing and betting which not only engulfed Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals but proved to be the last nail in the coffin for Srinivasan who was ousted from the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

In between came controversies and one of them was about alleged bench hunting in the fund embezzlement case against social activist Teesta Setalvad lodged by Gujarat government.
Though she and her husband Javed Anand secured stay on their arrest for custodial interrogation, what was baffling was their legal team making successful complaint for recusal of the bench which was asking some searching questions during the proceedings.
They also succeeded in getting stay from arrest in the case of receiving of foreign funds by Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd, run by them, from Ford Foundation in violation of FCRA provisions.

(Reopens LGD8)
The court also provided relief to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, giving them exemption from personal appearance in the trial court in the National Herald case and expunging certain observations of the high court but refusing to interfere with the criminal proceedings before lower court.
However, another case which kept the apex court engaged on a day-to-day basis was of Jayalalithaa's disproportionate assets in which the Karnataka government had challenged her acquittal by the high court that had set aside her conviction by the special CBI court.
Now, the proceedings against the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister would be abated irrespective of the findings of the apex court which had reserved its verdict in the case months before her death.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had a major victory when the apex court brought smiles to the faces of Singur farmers by terming as "illegal and void" the acquisition of 1053 acres of their land by the erstwhile Left Front government for Tata Motors' Nano project.
Otherwise, one of the key verdicts, with which several politicians were connected, was upholding of constitutional validity of the 156-year-old penal law on defamation.
The apex court rejected the pleas of political bigwigs including Rahul, Swamy and Kejriwal, holding that "reputation of one cannot be allowed to be crucified at the altar of the other's right of free speech".

As an effect, the defamation case against Rahul, who had blamed RSS for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, took an interesting turn when the court warned him against resorting to "collective denunciation" of an organisation.
Initially, Rahul said he did not accuse RSS as a body and had, rather, accused a person associated with it. But later he stuck to his earlier controversial statement and decided to face trial in a Maharashtra local court.
Vexatious inter-state water disputes involving Cauvery, Satluj-Yamuna link canal and others hogged the limelight and consumed much of the judicial time in 2016, with the top court setting aside the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004 "unilaterally" terminating water-sharing pact with its bordering states.

Insufficient rainfall in the Cauvery basin re-ignited the monumental fight between Tamil Nadu and a defiant Karnataka over sharing of Cauvery water and the apex court passed various orders asking the Siddaramaiah government to release water, sparking violent protests in both the states.