Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna has formed a three-judge special bench to address a series of petitions challenging the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, a law enacted to preserve the religious character of all places of worship as they stood on August 15, 1947. The bench, headed by CJI Khanna and including justices PV Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan, will hear the consolidated cases at 3.30 pm on December 12. The formation of this bench comes at a critical time, with Hindu groups initiating legal suits across the country to survey mosques and determine whether temple structures lie beneath them. Despite the significance of the issue, the matter has seen little progress in the Supreme Court over the last two years, even as such disputes have escalated in district courts and high courts, leading to a proliferation of conflicting and politically sensitive orders. The 1991 Act was enacted by the then Congress-led government to preserve the religious character of all places of worship as it stood on August 15, 1947. It prohibits the filing of fresh suits or legal proceedings to alter the religious status of such sites and makes it punishable to attempt to change its character. However, the Act exempted the contentious Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, where legal proceedings were already on. READ | CJI Sanjiv Khanna recuses himself from ECI chief appointment case Since its enactment, the Act remained largely unchallenged for several years, facing no substantial opposition until a deluge of petitions emerged following the Supreme Court’s 2019 Ayodhya judgment, which ruled in favour of the Hindu side and reignited demands to reclaim other religious sites, sparking arguments over the legislation’s constitutionality. Five such petitions contesting the validity of the Act will be taken up by the special bench on December 12. In March 2021, the court had admitted the challenge to the law and sought the Centre’s stand but despite the growing number of petitions, the Union government has yet to clarify its position on the Act. In July 2023, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Supreme Court that the Centre was prepared to file its response, and the court granted an extension until October 31, 2023. However, no affidavit has been submitted, leaving the government’s stance uncertain. If the Centre opts to defend the law as it is, it will have to justify the rationale behind the cut-off date and stop the reclamation of religious places allegedly destroyed by Muslim invaders, among others, raised by the petitioners. During a hearing in July 2023, the court declined to impose a blanket stay on lower courts from hearing-related cases, noting that there was no judicial order halting the operation of the Act. The court’s indisposition to issue an order came amid concerns expressed by Muslim litigants, who argued that the absence of clarity from the apex court had led to a mushrooming of cases in district courts and high courts. The origins of the current legal battle trace back to June 2020, when the Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Mahasangh, a Lucknow-based organisation, filed a petition challenging the Act. Represented by advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, the group sought to declare Section 4 of the Act unconstitutional, arguing that it barred Hindus from reclaiming their religious properties, including the disputed sites in Kashi and Mathura. The petition described the Act as an impediment to rectifying historical injustices and claimed it violated fundamental rights under the Constitution. Subsequently, several other petitions followed, including one from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy, who argued that the Act infringed upon his right to pray at temples forcibly converted during foreign invasions. Another prominent petition was filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay in October 2020, who contended that the legislation discriminates against Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs by curbing their right to restore religious sites destroyed before 1947. Upadhyay also argued that the Act violated the fundamental rights of these communities to manage and preserve their places of worship. Upadhya’s plea is currently the lead petition in the matter. In addition to these challenges, Kumari Krishna Priya, a member of the Kashi royal family, filed an application arguing that the Act was discriminatory for exempting the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute while not extending similar exemptions to other significant sites such as the Kashi Vishwanath temple and the Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura. The growing list of legal challenges prompted interventions from Muslim groups, including the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, which has opposed the petition, arguing that striking down the law would undermine the secular character of the Constitution and rekindle fears within the Muslim community about the safety of their places of worship. It referenced the Ayodhya dispute as a cautionary tale, warning that even issuing notices on such petitions could destabilise communal harmony. The 2019 Supreme Court verdict in the Ayodhya case, which granted the disputed site to Hindus for the construction of a temple, explicitly upheld the Places of Worship Act as a critical legislative safeguard for India’s secular framework. The judgment emphasised that “historical wrongs cannot be remedied by taking the law into one’s own hands” and underscored the principle of non-retrogression, which prohibits revisiting settled issues. The court also noted that the Act served as a constitutional commitment to preserve the religious character of all places of worship and promote equality among religious communities. However, remarks by former CJI Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud during the hearing of the Gyanvapi mosque dispute in May 2022 and October 2023, suggesting that the religious character of sites might need to be determined for the Act’s application, sparked controversy. Although these remarks were not part of a formal judicial ruling, Muslim organisations claim that they led to ambiguity that has allowed conflicting interpretations by subordinate courts. READ | SC sets aside NGT order imposing ₹ 3 crore fine on mining firm The December 12 hearing is expected to draw widespread attention, as the Supreme Court delves into the legal and constitutional complexities surrounding the Places of Worship Act. With the surge in disputes over historical religious sites raising questions about communal harmony and the secular framework of the Constitution, all eyes will be on the bench to provide much-needed clarity on the scope and validity of the 1991 law. The court’s deliberations are anticipated to have far-reaching implications for how the country navigates purported historical grievances while upholding the constitutional promise of equality and secularism.
HEL Partner Forum: Empowering smarter energy solutions for sustainable futureAaron Judge wins second AL MVP in 3 seasons. Shohei Ohtani expected to win NL honor
NDC’s Sammy Gyamfi Accuses NPP of Misinformation and Election Disruption Amid Rising TensionsA landmark study has found the virus that causes COVID-19 accumulates and persists in the body - especially the brain - for years after infection. The international team of scientists believe what they have discovered can help explain long COVID. The research builds on other studies showing the invasiveness of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the long-term implications. “Using optical clearing and imaging, we observed the accumulation of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the skull-meninges-brain axis of human COVID-19 patients, persisting long after viral clearance,” the study authors reported in leading biomedical journal Cell Host and Microbe last week. Meninges are three layers of membranes that cover and protect the brain and spinal cord. Infectious disease experts in Australia have acclaimed the peer-reviewed study. Professor Brendan Crabb, Director and CEO of the Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in Melbourne said the study underlined the need to treat COVID more seriously. “This work uses cutting edge imaging technology to see things (molecules and cellular structures) to a resolution not achieved before in and around the brains of people infected with SARS-Cov-2 and mice infected with a version of SARS-Cov-2 modified to (infect) mice. “The virus moves around the body, elegantly confirming what we already know. “This paper shows that the virus, and especially shed spike protein, can persist around the brain for a long period of time, driving a pathological inflammatory response. This is proposed as a likely cause of the neurological symptoms people with acute and long forms of COVID experience. “Although not without limitations, this works adds substantially to a large body of work that says COVID enters via the respiratory tract but goes into your bloodstream and so quickly moves around the body accessing many tissues, including the outer regions of the brain. “Virus in this brain region likely persists and seemingly sheds spike protein which can be further neuro-invasive and persist even longer, (for) years even. This spike persistence is pathological, driving inflammatory responses that have likely consequences for proper brain functioning, such as memory, cognition and neurodegenerative diseases.” “Next time you think of dismissing COVID as just another annoying common cold it may pay to visualise what you see so starkly in this paper, the virus moving freely around your body and finding a long-term home in all sorts of places where it can really cause trouble, including the brain and the heart,” Prof Crabb, who’s on the board of the WA-based Kids Research Institute Australia, added. “This work further emphasises the need for individuals, and societies as a whole to take this infection more seriously and try and reduce the amount of transmission using the tools we currently have, most especially vaccination, clean indoor air approaches and well-fitted masks in crowded and poorly ventilated indoor settings.” “It also showed mRNA spike-based vaccines are protective against spike accumulating in the brain periphery, consistent with what we already know about their protective effect in long COVID.” Perth long COVID sufferer Melissa Challenor has been sick for two years. “It’s not getting any better for me,” she said on Friday. “People like me are not making shit up. It’s in our brains, it’s in our bodies, it’s in our organs. “I’m still being seen by the senior neuro physio at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital who’s been amazing, but now he’s sort of going, ‘Well, where do I refer you? Do I refer you to the Parkinson’s people? Do I refer you to the dementia people?’ Because the neurological symptoms are really quite bad.” In a commentary published by the Medical Journal of Australia two weeks, researchers from the Burnet Institute said long COVID may be driven by “long infection” and that persistent replicating SARS‐CoV‐2 may be the “unifying driver for long COVID”. The institute’s Dr Michelle Scoullar said studies had found traces of the virus in many tissues, blood and the gut well after an initial infection. “We know vaccines can reduce the risk of long COVID, but if the virus continues to be active, antiviral treatments could be a potential treatment for long COVID and might even offer a cure,” she said. “By prioritising prevention, advancing treatments, and improving access to vaccines, we can take significant steps toward addressing the global challenge of long COVID.” In the United States, about 5.5 per cent of people infected with COVID experience long-term health effects, including fatigue, muscle pain, and impaired cognitive function. A recent study demonstrated a lowering of IQ by six points in individuals with long COVID relative to unaffected individuals. Individuals with mild acute infection showed a three‐point drop in IQ. Children can also get long COVID. A US study in August reported symptoms in 6-to-11 year-olds were different to those for adolescents. Researchers at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that “younger children were more likely to experience a cluster of symptoms relating to stomach and digestive problems, and another characterised by sleep and memory/focus issues, while adolescents had a cluster dominated by change in smell or taste.” Long COVID also carries an economic burden in terms of lost labour hours. It cost the Australian economy about $9.6 billion in 2022, a study by The Kirby Institute at the University of NSW, reported. John Flint
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has staggered from scandal to crisis but he surprised everyone this week by declaring martial law -- only then to survive an impeachment vote. The plunge back to South Korea's dark days of military rule only lasted a few hours, and after a night of protests and high drama Yoon was forced into a U-turn in the early hours of Wednesday. But polls show a huge majority of citizens want him out and lawmakers voted Saturday on an impeachment motion brought by the opposition, who control parliament. But even though only eight of them needed to support the motion for it to pass, all but three MPs from Yoon's People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote and it failed. This is despite the PPP's leader Han Dong-hoon -- allegedly on an arrest list the night of the martial law declaration -- saying Yoon's resignation was "inevitable". On Saturday before the vote, Yoon spoke publicly for the first time in days, apologising for the "anxiety and inconvenience" he caused, but stopping short of throwing in the towel. Instead the 63-year-old said he would "entrust the party with measures to stabilise the political situation, including my term in office". Born in Seoul in 1960 months before a military coup, Yoon studied law and went on to become a star public prosecutor and anti-corruption crusader. He played an instrumental role in Park Geun-hye, South Korea's first female president, being convicted of abuse of power, imprisoned and impeached in 2016. As the country's top prosecutor in 2019, he also indicted a top aide of Park's successor, Moon Jae-in, in a fraud and bribery case. The conservative PPP, in opposition at the time, liked what they saw and convinced Yoon to become their presidential candidate. He duly won in March 2022, beating Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party, but by the narrowest margin in South Korean history. Yoon was never much loved by the public, especially by women -- he vowed on the campaign trail to abolish the ministry of gender equality -- and scandals have come thick and fast. This included his administration's handling of a 2022 crowd crush during Halloween festivities that killed more than 150 people. Voters have also blamed Yoon's administration for food inflation, a lagging economy and increasing constraints on freedom of speech. He was accused of abusing presidential vetoes, notably to strike down a bill paving the way for a special investigation into alleged stock manipulation by his wife Kim Keon Hee. Yoon suffered further reputational damage last year when his wife was secretly filmed accepting a designer handbag worth $2,000 as a gift. Yoon insisted it would have been rude to refuse. His mother-in-law, Choi Eun-soon, was sentenced to one year in prison for forging financial documents in a real estate deal. She was released in May 2024. Yoon himself was the subject of a petition calling for his impeachment earlier this year, which proved so popular the parliamentary website hosting it experienced delays and crashes. As president, Yoon has maintained a tough stance against nuclear-armed North Korea and bolstered ties with Seoul's traditional ally, the United States. Last year, he sang Don McLean's "American Pie" at the White House, prompting US President Joe Biden to respond: "I had no damn idea you could sing." But his efforts to restore ties with South Korea's former colonial ruler, Japan, did not sit well with many at home. Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition Democratic Party won a majority in parliamentary elections this year. They recently slashed Yoon's budget. In his Tuesday night televised address to the nation, Yoon railed against "anti-state elements plundering people's freedom and happiness" and his office has subsequently cast his imposition of martial law as a bid to break through legislative gridlock. But to use his political difficulties as justification for imposing martial law for the first time in South Korea since the 1980s is absurd, an analyst said. "Yoon invoked Article 77 of the South Korean constitution, which allows for proclaiming martial law but is reserved for 'time of war, armed conflict or similar national emergency', none of which appears evident," Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told AFP. "Yoon's action is a damning reversal to decades of South Korean efforts to put its authoritarian past behind it," he said. burs-stu/ceb/mtp