PM Modi to inaugurate Diamond Jubilee celebration of Supreme Court
New Delhi (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Diamond Jubilee celebration of the Supreme Court on Sunday, his office said.
Unveiling the 75th year of the Supreme Court, Prime Minister Modi will launch citizen-centric information and technology initiatives that include Digital Supreme Court Reports (Digi-SCR), Digital Courts 2.0 and a new website of the apex court, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
He will also address the gathering on the occasion.
The Supreme Court held its inaugural sitting on January 28, 1950.
Prime Minister Modi will inaugurate the Diamond Jubilee celebration of the Supreme Court of India on January 28 at 12 noon at the Supreme Court auditorium, the statement said.
The Digital Supreme Court Reports (SCR) will make Supreme Court judgments available to citizens free of cost and in the electronic format, it said.
The key features of Digi-SCR are that all 519 volumes of Supreme Court reports since 1950, covering 36,308 cases, will be available in the digital format, bookmarked, user-friendly and with open access, the statement said.
The Digital Courts 2.0 application is a recent initiative under the e-Courts project to make court records available to judges of district courts in the electronic form. This is coupled with the use of artificial intelligence for transcribing speech to text on a real-time basis.
Prime Minister Modi will also launch the new website of the Supreme Court which will be in a bilingual format in English and Hindi, and has been redesigned with a user-friendly interface, according to the statement.
This would be followed by the sitting of a Ceremonial Bench of the Supreme Court in the Chief Justice Court at 3:30 pm. It will be presided by the Chief Justice of India along with companion judges of the court.
The chief justices of high courts and former judges of the Supreme Court will also be a part of this occasion which will be also addressed by the Chief Justice of India, the Attorney General for India and the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
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HC questions Delhi govt over failure to regulate sale of old vehicles, refers to Red Fort blast
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi High Court questioned the city government on Wednesday over its failure to regulate the sale and transfer of used vehicles, while pointing out that in a recent bomb blast near the Red Fort, a second-hand car was used, making the issue more significant.
A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela asked the Delhi government to file a detailed response on the issue of regulating authorised dealers of registered vehicles.
"A car changes four hands but the original owner has not changed. Therefore, what happens? That man (the original owner) goes to the slaughterhouse? What is this? How are you permitting this? You will take a call when two-three more bomb blasts take place?" the bench asked the Delhi government's counsel.
The bomb blast near the iconic Mughal-era monument was carried out using a second-hand car, making the issue even more significant, it said.
The court listed the matter for further hearing in January 2026.
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The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) plea filed by an organisation, Towards Happy Earth Foundation, highlighting the challenges in the implementation of rules 55A to 55H of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, introduced in December 2022 to regulate authorised dealers of registered vehicles.
While the rules were intended to bring accountability to the second-hand vehicle market, the petitioner's counsel argued that they have failed in practice due to regulatory gaps and procedural hurdles.
The plea said there is a major gap in the amended framework, that is, the absence of any statutory mechanism for reporting dealer-to-dealer transfers.
"In reality, most used vehicles pass through multiple dealers before reaching the final buyer, but the rules recognise only the first transfer to the initial authorised dealer.
"As a result, the chain of custody breaks after the first step, defeating the very purpose of accountability," the petition said.
It added that because of these gaps, only a very small percentage of dealers across India have been able to obtain authorised dealer registration and in Delhi, not a single dealer has got it.
Consequently, lakhs of vehicles continue to circulate without any record of who is actually in possession of those, it said.
The plea said only a small fraction of India's estimated 30,000 to 40,000 used-vehicle dealers are registered under the authorised-dealer framework.
The petition also pointed out that the 11-year-old vehicle used in the November 10 bomb blast near the Red Fort was sold several times but was still registered in its original owner's name.
The blast near the Red Fort had claimed 15 lives.
