Justices G S Singhvi and A k Ganguly are good listeners, and ask questions, too
MOST judges are good listeners fitting their solemn status, but they are not always articulate. But the Supreme Court bench consisting of Justice G S Singhvi and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly enlivens the proceedings by asking questions. Their questions became staple headlines for a whole week when they took on people at the highest level.
Both the judges are at the middle level and joined only two years before.
THE BENCH
The duo, sitting in a small and increasingly crowded Court Room Number 11, are among the slowest of the 14 benches. The two ask questions and give more time to the parties to present their cases than other benches. They sit longer than the other courts.
LAURELS
This bench hit the headlines recently when it discussed the status of live-in couples who did not get married. Breaking away from the traditional view that such relationships were illegal or immoral, it stated couples should be granted legal status, and the women concerned should be entitled to maintenance if theie stayed was long enough.
Another recent judgment from the bench referred to the right of hawkers in metropolitan cities. The judges asserted that hawkers had a fundamental right to their profession, but the right was not absolute. Therefore, the right to their livelihood should be regulated with the rights of other road users. They left the issue to the Delhi government, which set up a redressal machinery in the capital.
Dealing with the ticklish issue of land acquisitions in a case involving HPCL-Mittal Energy in Bathinda district of Punjab, the judges ordered a fresh consideration of the compensation issue, as the land owners were aggrieved by the meagre amount they were given in the 1999 acquisition of land for a refinery and power plant.
Recently, the bench dealt with two medical negligence cases, one in which gauze pieces were left near the liver in a botched-up gall bladder surgery nine years earlier. The claimant lost the case. In another case, the judges criticised the National Consumer Commission and the hospital which did not produce the treatment record for six years to verify the line of treatment.
In another judgment last month, the duo stated that public interest petitions could not be misused to get reservation in jobs. Some ex-servicemen had taken the PIL route to get reservation in appointment of teachers in Madhya Pradesh.
