Aadhaar, homosexuality, adultery: The big judgements awaited before CJI Misra retires

Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra's tenure will perhaps go down as the most controversial in the history of India's Supreme court. Misra was sworn in as the 45th CJI on August 29, 2017.

He retires on October 2, giving him a tenure of a little over a year. In that one year, he heard a number of important cases, many of which made international headlines.

Here is a list of important judgements awaited before Misra steps down:

The constitutional validity of Aadhaar: Several petitioners moved the apex court asking it to examine the constitutional validity of the government's Aadhaar scheme and the Centre's decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for the availing of various services and government welfare. Last year, a nine-judge Constitution bench had held that the Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had raised the issue that the scheme violated privacy rights.

Judgement reserved on: May 10, 2018.

The decriminalisation of homosexuality, Section 377: Petitions had challenged the constitutional validity of Section 377, which says homosexuality is a crime, and had asked for the striking down of the section .

Section 377 refers to "unnatural offences" and says "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, will get life imprisonment, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to pay a fine."

The archaic law dates back to 1861, and the ambit extends to any sexual union involving penile insertion.

Judgment reserved: July 17, 2018.

The adultery law, section 497: The apex court had been hearing a clutch of pleas seeking quashing of the adultery provision in the IPC on the ground that it only punishes married men for having extramarital sexual relations with a married woman.

Section 497 of the 158-year-old IPC says: "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery. He shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine or with both. In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor."

Judgement reserved: August 8, 2018.

Ban on entry of women into Sabarimala temple: A bunch of pleas have challenged the ban on entry of women in the age group of 10-50 into the Sabarimala temple in the state of Kerala.

The apex court had on October 13 last year referred the issue to a Constitution bench after framing five "significant" questions including whether the practice of banning the entry of women into the temple amounted to discrimination and violated their fundamental rights under the Constitution.

The Kerala government, which has been changing its stand on the contentious issue, had on July 18 told the Supreme Court that it now favours their entry.

Judgment reserved: August 1, 2018.

It is expected that CJI Dipak Misra will be remembered, by litigants and citizens, for both the right and the wrong reasons. From the opposition demanding his impeachment to petitioners seeking his recusal from cases that accused him of being involved in cases of bribery — CJI Misra has seen it all.

Lest we forget, there was the unprecedented press conference by the four seniormost judges of the supreme court telling the CJI that he was master of the roster but also only first among equals.

Apart from constitution bench cases, other important cases like Hadiya's marriage to Shafin Jahan article 370 that gives special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir and multiple cases of women moving court asking that they be allowed to abort their foetuses — all made headlines from court number 1 of the Indian Supreme Court.

Many of the judgements Misra was involved in — "no one can judge the judges", "collegium decisions will be made public", and "how can the supreme court intervene in the marriage of two consenting adults?" — will be seen as both progressive and contentious at the same time.