BackLegal | SC declines to entertain PIL on quota for eunuchs
Legal | SC declines to entertain PIL on quota for eunuchs
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a petition seeking a direction to the Centre to provide reservation in Parliament and state assemblies for eunuchs.
The apex court said the issues raised in the PIL filed by Sonam Singh, a eunuch from Rajasthan, can be taken up at the government level.
“We cannot give directions on your prayers," a bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and justice P. Sathasivam said referring to PIL in which directions had been sought for their (eunuchs’) education, social and political rehabilitation.
The bench also said that it was required on the part of the petitioner to first approach the government with the grievances.
“You must show you have gone to the government," the bench said when Sonam’s counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi explained the plight of the transgender community, whose interests have been neglected by successive governments.
“In the past 60 years not a single question has been raised in Parliament with regard to development of the group (eunuchs). They are also paying tax but there is no employment for them," the counsel said adding that a majority of them depend on begging for earning a living.
—PTI
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SC to examine detention of juveniles under NSA
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine a crucial question as to whether a juvenile offender can be put under preventive detention under the National Security Act (NSA).
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and P. Sathasivam sought a response from the Manipur government on a habeas corpus petition filed by N .Jugendra Meitei challenging the detention of his 17-year-old son under the National Security Act.
A habeas corpus petition is filed by an aggrieved person seeking direction to the authorities to produce before the court a person whose whereabouts are not known. The apex court decided to examine the aggrieved father’s plea as counsel N. Mahendra Singh submitted that the Guwhati high court had taken an erroneous view that even a juvenile offender can be held under the National Security Act (preventive detention).
According to the counsel, persons below the age of 18 should be tried only under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2008, and cannot be tried under any other criminal laws of the country.
—PTI
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