SC reopens today, to hear triple talaq

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, June 28

The Supreme Court reopens tomorrow after the summer break. Among the cases listed for hearing on the first day are a batch of PILs against triple talaq and a plea for a ban on WhatsApp in view of its potential threat to national security. The apex court is also slated to deliver 25 judgments tomorrow.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur is expected to take up soon Haryana’s plea for relaxing the ban on mining. Just before the vacation, the Bench had accepted Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi’s plea for an urgent hearing on the issue in view of shortage of construction material in the National Capital Region (NCR) and other places of the region, which was impeding development work.

The apex court is also expected to deliver within a week or two its judgments on the recent political developments in Arunachal Pradesh, particularly the Governor’s power to summon the assembly session, and on the appeal against the acquittal of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in a disproportionate assets case. The court had concluded arguments and reserved its verdicts in both the cases before the vacation started on May 16.

The PIL against WhatsApp has been filed by RTI activist Sudhir Yadav, contending that the end-to-end encryption introduced by the message service provider was fraught with security concerns.