Baffling to read lies, disrespectful to drag personal lives: Virat on rift with Rohit Sharma
Mumbai, July 29: Indian captain Virat Kohli on Monday categorically refuted rumours of a rift with his deputy Rohit Sharma, saying "people feeding off lies" are being disrespectful to the players' personal lives.
After India's ouster from the World Cup, stories of fissures in the Indian camp emerged with claims that Rohit and Kohli are not seeing eye to eye.
Theories of split captaincy were also floated.
"In my opinion, its baffling. It's absolutely ridiculous to read these kind of stuff, that comes out there. I have been to public events where we have been praised and here we are feeding off lies, overlooking facts, turning a blind eye to all good things that happened and creating fantasies and scenarios in our head. We want to accept that this is the truth," Kohli said.
Adding fuel to all the speculations was a cryptic instagram post by Kohli's actress wife Anushka Sharma, which was later deleted.
"I have seen this for too long now. Bringing personal lives into the picture. It's disrespectful after a moment. I have played the game for 11 years and Rohit has played for 10 years (12 years) and it's bizarre that people are creating this stuff from outside," the skipper said, with coach Ravi Shastri by his side.
Shastri made a tongue-in-cheek comment about the conspiracy theories.
"Very soon you will hear wives batting and bowling. The way this team plays, no individual is bigger than the game. Not me, not him, nobody in the team. I have a been a part of that dressing room and none of the nonsense is there," the commentator in the former all-rounder came out as he pooh-poohed the rumours.
For Kohli, the Indian team couldn't have performed consistently across formats if there was no camaraderie amongst the players.
"I have also heard a lot of things. Now you can only hear things from outside. If the dressing room environment had been bad, then we couldn't have possibly played the quality of cricket that we played.
"Because I know how the dressing room environment and trust factor becomes important to succeed in international cricket. The journey that we have had in ODIs, in Tests (from No 7 to 1) and T20s, that wouldn't have been possible without camaraderie, respect and understanding," said Kohli, who urged people to come and see the atmosphere in the change-room.
"You people please come to our change room and see, how we speak to a Kuldeep Yadav, how we crack a joke with the senior-most player MS Dhoni. We can't shoot a video and show you guys. It baffles you as a leader, when lies are being floated around to make it look like actually they are believable," Kohli sounded irritated.
He emphatically denied that there could be any awkwardness between him and Rohit due to the events in the past few days.
"If I don't like a person or if I am insecure about a person, you will see it on my face or my behaviour towards the person and that's how simple it is," Kohli said.
"I have always praised Rohit whenever I have got an opportunity because I believe he is that good. I don't know who is benefitting from all of this but we are living, breathing towards getting Indian cricket to the top, and here we get some kind of pleasure in bringing Indian cricket down," the skipper said.
It's time that we all do some introspection, he felt.
"We have to reflect as cricketers everyone can take a step back and think are we creating something that's really not out there. You can't play with that kind of passion if you don't get along with each other. As I said, its baffling and its time that we focus on taking Indian cricket forward," he said.
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SC dismisses pleas seeking review of 2023 verdict declining legal sanction to same-sex marriage
New Delhi, Jan 9: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a batch of pleas seeking to review its October 2023 verdict declining legal sanction to same-sex marriage.
A five-judge bench of Justices B R Gavai, Surya Kant, B V Nagarathna, P S Narasimha and Dipankar Datta took up about 13 petitions related to the matter in chambers and dismissed them.
"We do not find any error apparent on the face of the record. We further find that the view expressed in both the judgements is in accordance with law and as such, no interference is warranted. Accordingly, the review petitions are dismissed," the bench said.
It said the judges have carefully gone through the judgements delivered by Justice (since retired) S Ravindra Bhat speaking for himself and for Justice (since retired) Hima Kohli as well as the concurring opinion expressed by Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha, constituting the majority view.
The bench also rejected a prayer made in the review petitions for hearing in an open court.
According to practice, the review pleas are considered in chambers by the judges.
The new bench was constituted after Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the present CJI, recused from hearing the review petitions on July 10, 2024.
Notably, Justice P S Narasimha is the only member of the original Constitution bench comprising five judges which delivered the verdict, as former CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices S K Kaul, Ravindra Bhat and Hima Kohli have retired.
A five-judge Constitution bench led by then CJI Chandrachud on October 17, 2024, refused to accord legal backing to same-sex marriages and held there was "no unqualified right" to marriage with the exception of those recognised by law.
The apex court, however, made a strong pitch for the rights of LGBTQIA++ persons so that they didn't face discrimination in accessing goods and services available to others, safe houses known as "garima greh" in all districts for shelter to members of the community facing harassment and violence, and dedicated hotlines in case of trouble.
In its judgement, the bench held transpersons in heterosexual relationships had the freedom and entitlement to marry under the existing statutory provisions.
It said an entitlement to legal recognition of the right to union, akin to marriage or civil union, or conferring legal status to the relationship could be only done through an "enacted law".
The five-judge Constitution bench delivered four separate verdicts on a batch of 21 petitions seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriages.
All five judges were unanimous in refusing the legal recognition to same-sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act and observed it was within Parliament's ambit to change the law for validating such a union.
While former CJI Chandrachud wrote a separate 247-page verdict, Justice Kaul penned a 17-page judgement where he broadly agreed with the former's views.
Justice Bhat, who authored an 89-page judgement for himself and Justice Kohli, disagreed with certain conclusions arrived at by the former CJI, including on applicability of adoption rules for such couples.
Justice Narasimha in his 13-page verdict was in complete agreement with the reasoning and conclusion of Justice Bhat.
The judges were unanimous in holding that queerness was a natural phenomenon and not an "urban or elite" notion.
In his judgement, the former CJI recorded Solicitor General Tushar Mehta's assurance of forming a committee chaired by the cabinet secretary to define and elucidate the scope of entitlements of such couples in a union.
The LGBTQIA++ rights activists, who won a major legal battle in 2018 in the Supreme Court, which decriminalised consensual gay sex, moved the apex court seeking validation of same-sex marriages and consequential reliefs such as rights to adoption, enrolment as parents in schools, opening of bank accounts and availing succession and insurance benefits.
Some of the petitioners sought the apex court to use its plenary power besides the "prestige and moral authority" to push the society to acknowledge such a union and ensure LGBTQIA++ persons led a "dignified" life like heterosexuals.
