New Delhi: The Delhi High Court is scheduled to pronounce on Wednesday its verdict on a plea seeking suspension of arrested Delhi minister Satyendar Jain from the cabinet.
Jain has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case.
The high court is also likely to give its judgement on an appeal challenging a single judge’s order dismissing the plea seeking the agenda of the Supreme Court collegium’s meeting on December 12, 2018, when certain decisions were purportedly taken on elevation of judges to the apex court, under the RTI.
During the day, the high court is slated to hear several other important matters, including a plea by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair challenging the legality of his police remand in a case related to an alleged objectionable tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity and bail pleas by Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Alumni Association Jamia Millia Islamia President Shifa-ur-Rehman in a UAPA case related to the alleged conspiracy behind the riots here in February 2020.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad had earlier reserved order on a plea by former BJP MLA Nand Kishore Garg who has said in the petition that AAP leader Jain was arrested in the money laundering case on the allegation of his involvement in hawala transactions in 2015-2016 with a Kolkata-based firm which is repugnant and inconsistent to the rule of law as he is a public servant having a constitutional oath to uphold the rule of law in the interest of public at large.
“However, the minister under custody is still enjoying the perks and privileges of cabinet minister despite having been allegedly indicted under the serious charges which may entail severe punishment,” the plea said.
The high court is also scheduled to hear a plea challenging the privacy policy of instant messaging application WhatsApp.
Petitioner Chaitanya Rohilla has contended that the updated privacy policy violates users’ right to privacy under the Constitution and they can either accept it or exit the app, but they cannot opt not to share their data with other Facebook-owned or third-party apps.
The plea has claimed that the new privacy policy of WhatsApp allowed full access to a user’s online activity without there being any supervision by the government.
In its response, WhatsApp has claimed that the new policy did not affect a user’s privacy as personal messages continued to be protected by end-to-end encryption.
