Judiciary — SC, HC, Tribunals, PIL

GS Paper: GS Paper II | Subject: Polity | Last updated: 2026-07-22

Prelims

(Key facts, data, schemes, laws, organizations — MCQ-ready points)

SC: Swear Words Are Vulgar, But Not "Obscene" in Law (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

A Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Sanjay Karol held that the use of a four-letter expletive and its variations may be "abusive, unpalatable or uncivil" but does not qualify as "obscene" in law
The holding, verbatim: "Use of mere swear words, profanities and vulgar expletives, however distasteful or uncivil they may be, cannot be equated with obscenity... Words which are merely vulgar or abusive may evoke a feeling of disgust, revulsion, or shock, but that by itself does not make them obscene in law."
Facts: a land dispute between neighbours in Tamil Nadu; during a 2017 altercation one party repeatedly flung the abuse at another. The question was whether this attracted Section 294(b), Indian Penal Code — obscene acts and songs. The now 70-year-old accused's words were held to be "at best, abusive or vulgar" and not to reach the obscenity threshold
The test applied — the "community standards test": to qualify as obscenity, the words must (a) be lascivious, (b) appeal to the prurient interest, and (c) provoke a tendency to deprave and corrupt those likely to see, hear or read them. The Court found nothing on record to show the test was met
The distinction the Court drew — likely MCQ material: vulgarity arouses disgust, revulsion and boredom but does not deprave, debase or corrupt morals; obscenity does. Justice Karol turned to Collins and Cambridge dictionaries for the meanings of "abusive" (extremely rude and insulting) and "vulgar" (rude and likely to upset or anger people, especially by referring to sex and the body in an unpleasant way)
Lineage: the community-standards approach follows Aveek Sarkar v. State of West Bengal (2014), which discarded the Victorian Hicklin test (R v. Hicklin*, 1868, adopted in Ranjit Udeshi, 1965) in favour of the contemporary community standards test*
Note on the successor provision: IPC §294 has been re-enacted as §296 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023; the IPC applied here because the incident was of 2017

Delhi HC Declines to Move Sonam Wangchuk from Safdarjung Hospital (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

Justice Mini Pushkarna of the Delhi High Court, in a special Sunday hearing, refused any interim order on a petition by Gitanjali J. Angmo seeking her husband's transfer to a hospital of his choice (Medanta, Gurugram)
Petitioner's argument (Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal): Mr. Wangchuk was neither under detention nor accused of any offence, and was therefore entitled to be treated at a hospital of his choice; the state cannot compel him to remain at a government hospital; his own doctors had no access to him
The Court's reasoning: the decision to shift him from Jantar Mantar to Safdarjung Hospital was taken in view of his deteriorating medical condition and could not be termed "arbitrary". Since Safdarjung doctors are closely monitoring him, "it cannot be said that any force is being used against him or that his bodily autonomy is being violated"
Government's submission (ASG Chetan Sharma): relied on the HC's own 16 July order directing necessary medical intervention as his health became "perilous"; his potassium level had fallen to 2.8; medicines were administered with his consent while IV fluids were declined by him and not given; family had unrestricted access
Notices issued to the Centre, Safdarjung Hospital and the police, returnable in three days; next hearing 24 July 2026

SC Strength Raised 34 to 38: The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2026 (The Hindu, 21-07-2026; Bill introduced 20-07-2026)

Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal introduced the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2026 in the Lok Sabha on 20 July 2026, the first day of the Monsoon Session, to replace an Ordinance promulgated in May 2026 by President Droupadi Murmu
The number — read this carefully, it is a classic Prelims trap. The parent Act fixes the number of judges other than the Chief Justice of India. So the Bill raises that figure 33 → 37, which means the total sanctioned strength including the CJI rises 34 → 38. Both formulations describe the same change; an MCQ may state either
Constitutional basis — the SC/HC asymmetry (high-yield): under Article 124(1) the Supreme Court consists of the CJI and "such number of other Judges as Parliament may by law prescribe" — so SC strength can be altered only by an Act of Parliament. For High Courts, by contrast, Article 216 lets the President determine the number of judges. This is why an Ordinance (and then a Bill) was the route here
Pendency justification: 92,101 cases pending as of 1 January 2026. In 2025 the Court registered 75,410 new cases while disposing of 65,615 — i.e. filings outran disposals, so pendency grew. The Court has functioned at nearly its full strength of 34 since 2019
Financial Memorandum: four additional judges plus supporting staff → ~Rs 10.56 crore annual recurring expenditure, plus Rs 3.47 crore one-time (official vehicles, furnishing of residences) = ~Rs 14.04 crore total initial cost
Already operative: because the Ordinance took effect in May, four judges have already been appointed against the enhanced strength; the Bill regularises this
Stated functional aim: a larger strength would let the CJI constitute Constitution Benches more regularly to hear cases involving substantial questions of law (Article 145(3) requires a minimum of five judges for such cases)

Ram Temple Donations: SC Proposes an SIT (The Hindu, 21-07-2026)

A three-judge Bench headed by CJI Surya Kant proposed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of senior police officers to probe alleged embezzlement of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust donations, while cautioning petitioners not to "play politics" with what is "a simple case of commission of offence"
Petitioners (through senior advocates Indira Jaising and Paras Nath Singh) sought a CBI probe and publication of complete financial details including foreign contributions. Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta replied that the State Police was already investigating under SIT oversight and that eight arrests had been made
The Bench suggested re-constituting the SIT, directed consultation with the State DGP, and listed the matter for orders on 27 July
The CJI flagged a practical risk in donations-in-kind: the scope to falsely claim donation of diamonds and so on — hence "an inventory of valuables must be maintained and accounted for"

APAAR Must Be Voluntary — SC to Direct CBSE Compliance (The Hindu, 21-07-2026)

The SC agreed to clarify that CBSE's implementation of the Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) across India must be voluntary, per an Orissa High Court judgment of 12 December 2025 in Rohit Anand Das v. State of Odisha, which directed a clear "opt-out/refusal option" in the consent form
A three-judge Bench headed by CJI Surya Kant said it would pass an order requiring CBSE to give effect to that judgment on a pan-India basis
APAAR = the "One Nation, One Student ID" registry under NEP 2020 — a lifelong digital academic account linked to DigiLocker. The voluntariness question makes it a live digital-rights and child-data-protection issue

Mains

(Analysis, dimensions, significance, critique, policy angles — for 10/15 mark answers)

Vulgarity, Obscenity and the Limits of Criminal Law (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

Why the distinction matters constitutionally: obscenity is one of the enumerated reasonable restrictions on free speech under Article 19(2) ("decency or morality"). Collapsing vulgarity into obscenity would let the criminal law police ordinary rudeness, converting a narrow speech exception into a general licence to prosecute offensive language. The judgment polices the boundary of a restriction on a fundamental right
The evolution of the test — a clean three-stage story for an answer: Hicklin (1868) judged obscenity by the effect on the most susceptible reader and permitted judging isolated passages → Ranjit Udeshi (1965) imported it into Indian law → Aveek Sarkar (2014) replaced it with the community standards test, judging the work as a whole by the standards of a reasonable, contemporary person. This judgment applies that settled test to everyday speech rather than to art or publication
The practical significance: §294 IPC (now §296 BNS) is a low-threshold, frequently-invoked provision used to criminalise everyday altercations — often, as here, as an add-on in private disputes (a neighbours' land quarrel) pursued for a decade. Reading it narrowly reduces docket burden, curbs misuse of criminal process in civil disputes, and reflects the principle that criminal law is a last resort (ultima ratio)
The counter-view to acknowledge: a permissive standard may weaken protection against verbal abuse in public spaces, which disproportionately affects women and marginalised groups. The answer is that such conduct is better addressed by targeted provisions (sexual harassment, insult to modesty, SC/ST Act, criminal intimidation) than by stretching obscenity — an argument for precision in criminalisation, not impunity
UPSC angle: Article 19(1)(a) and 19(2) restrictions, obscenity jurisprudence (Hicklin → Ranjit Udeshi → Aveek Sarkar), community standards test, over-criminalisation & misuse of criminal process, IPC-to-BNS transition, judicial interpretation of penal statutes

Protest, Bodily Autonomy and the State's Duty of Care (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

The genuine conflict of rights: a hunger strike sets the state's duty to preserve life (Article 21) against the individual's bodily autonomy and right to refuse treatment — also grounded in Article 21 after K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) and Common Cause (2018), which recognised decisional autonomy over one's body and the right to refuse medical treatment. Both claims invoke the same article against each other
The Court's chosen test — "arbitrariness", not consent: the Bench did not hold that the state may treat him against his will; it held that shifting him was not arbitrary given a documented medical emergency (potassium at 2.8), and stressed that medicines were given with consent while declined IV fluids were withheld. The reasoning therefore turns on continued respect for refusal within a protective custody of care — a narrower, and more defensible, position than a general power to compel treatment
The critique to state fairly: the petitioner's argument is not weak — a person neither detained nor accused being moved by police from a protest site and held in a government hospital he did not choose, with his own doctors denied access, has the practical effect of ending a protest through medical means. A letter to the editor in the same edition called it "deeply dehumanising towards a man engaged in a Gandhian-style satyagraha". Where the state's protective action reliably disables dissent, the effect matters even if the motive is care
The constitutional backdrop: the right to protest flows from Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b), subject to reasonable restrictions; prohibitory orders (here, against assemblies of five or more except at Jantar Mantar with permission) are the standard instrument. Anita Thakur (2016) and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (2018) require that restrictions be proportionate, and the latter directed a balance between protest rights and public order in Delhi's protest sites
The comparison worth drawing: the same weekend, Madhya Pradesh Police cleared a 14-day hunger strike by anti-Ken-Betwa tribal protesters and hospitalised its leader Amit Bhatnagar, citing rising river levels. Two protests, two states, the same instrument — medical/safety necessity as the mode of dispersal. Whether one reads this as coincidence or pattern is exactly the analytical judgement a Mains answer should make explicitly rather than assume
UPSC angle: Article 21 — right to life vs bodily autonomy, right to refuse treatment (Puttaswamy, Common Cause), right to protest & Article 19(1)(b), proportionality of restrictions, Section 163 BNSS (formerly §144 CrPC) prohibitory orders, satyagraha & civil disobedience in a constitutional democracy, judicial review of executive action (see class note lec16 — Article 21)