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- October 2019
Index
Toppers Talk
Art & Culture
Polity
- Right to access internet is fundamental right declares Kerala High Court
- Legal rights of Deities in India, Difference in Natural and Juristic Person
- Bru refugees refuse to return to Mizoram
- No animal sacrifice in Tripura temple-Orders High Court
- EC’s Order on Reducing Sikkim CM’s Disqualification Period
- Law Ministry issues corrigendum to Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act
- Appointment of the Judges in India.
- New Chief Justice of India- How is CJI appointed?
- Indian Penal Code 1860, HM Amit Shah wants to Overhaul IPC
- National Population Register (NPR) 2020
- Whistle Blowers Allegations on Infosys
Governance & Social Justice
- 60% girls in Delhi colleges anaemic
- Niti aayog’s School education quality index
- Multipurpose National Identity Card
- Population pyramid : India Vs China, Demographic dividend Phase of India
- UN Population Report, India will become the most populous country by 2027
- Supreme Court upholds SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendments Act
- Comparing Population Pyramids of India and China
- Waqf boards-Their governance and purpose
- Harvard Admissions Case
- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana- Ist Anniversary, Problems and solutions
- Significance of sexual and Reproductive Health-Status of reproductive services in India
- Pregnancy in Old Age, What is In Vitro Fertilisation-Risks and legal shortcomings
- Supreme Court Judgement on NGOs and RTI
- Social Stock Exchange
- Rajasthan Govt changes EWS norms, Sets Rs 8 lakh family income as only criteria
- Global hunger index 2019
- No Government job for those with more than two kids
- Ranitidine CANCER risk
- IIT Council Introduces Tenure track system
International Relations
- Bangladesh growing faster than India ?
- Cyprus dispute explained
- Donald Trump impeachment
- India wins Hyderabad Nizam case against Pakistan
- India’s reply to Pakistan at UNGA
- Prime Minister of Malaysia calls India and invader in Kashmir
- Should India recognise the armenian genocide ?
- Why are CARICOM countries important for India ?
- Why are countries leaving OPEC ?
- Attacks on Saudi Oil facilities
- Organization of Islamic Cooperation issues statement on Jammu and Kashmir
- Sri Lanka’s relations with India & China
- US troops start pullout in Syria as Turkey prepares for operation
- What are Vanilla Islands?
- India-USA trade deal
- UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award-2019
- Modi – Xi Informal meet at Mamallapuram – Historic Chinese links
- India China informal summit in Tamil nadu
- Pakistan save from FATF blacklist till 2020
- USA blacklists China organisations over Uighur Muslim abuse
- Why is Chile burning ?
- Why is the Philippines important for India
- Xi jinping Nepal visit 2019 and impact on India
- India Pakistan Cross LOC Trade suspended, Should India revoke suspension?
- Protests in Lebanon
- Chennai to Vladivostok Sea Route
- End of baghdadi
- Indian government’s security advisory
- Indians no longer require Visa to visit Brazil
- Non Aligned Movement 2019 summit
- US backed Ceasefire between Turkey and Kurds
- Pakistan stops postal exchange with India
- China’s GDP growth slows to 6% slowest in 27 years
- Common Goods for Health project by WHO
- Turkey attack Kurds in Syria
Geography
Economy
- Behavioural Aspect of Farmer Suicide
- Is rural India really open defecation free ?
- Global Growth Slow Down
- Nobel Prize in Economics 2019
- Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
- SBI wrote off bad loans worth 76,000 crores
- Surge in Onion Price
- Agriculture Credit by RBI’s Internal Working Group
- What is Debt to GDP Ratio?
- Yes Bank Crisis
- Nobel prize in Literature – Controversy
- Boosting Indian Exports
- Sopore Fruit Mandi deserted
- What is Pink Collarisation?
- Mizoram to have Broad Gauge railway line by 2021
- Demand downturn in Indian Economy
- Payment facilitation fund
- Participatory Guarantee Scheme
- RBI’s 4th Bi-monthly Monetary Policy 2019-20
- Tourism restrictions lifted in Kashmir
- Link between Jobs, Farming, and Climate
- Draft Social Security Code 2019
- State Tax Revenues, SGST and Central Tax Devolution are likely to fall short
- Competitiveness Index 2019 by World Economic Forum
- NITI Aayog’s Water Resources Strategy
- BSNL and MTNL financial issues-DoT prepares Rs 74000 crore revival plan
- 20th Livestock Census
- India falls 10 ranks in World economic forum’s Global competitiveness index
- RBI stops Printing Rs 2000 Notes
- What is the Unified Approach proposal of OECD?
- FCI granaries overflowing
- India’s Economic Growth 2019
- Financial Sector Scams in India
- Labour Market of India
- New Strategic Disinvestment Process
- Payment Delays to Sugarcane Farmers
- Why India’s IMF Quota is not increased
- What is monetary policy Transmission? Why banks are not reducing interest
- Mahatma Gandhi’s theory of Economics
- India moves up 14 spots to 63 on world Bank ease of doing business index
- New amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act
- Power Sector Scenario in India
- Telecos to Pay Rs 96,642 crore to the Government
- Camel population declines in Rajasthan
- Merger of BSNL and MTNL
- World bank on Indian economy
Defence & Security
- Nagas Kukis Conflict, What is the cause of the latest tensions?
- Case against 50 Celebrities controversy
- Can Indian Government intercept WhatsApp?
- UP Government fires 25000 home guards, Is Yogi Government’s decision justified?
- NCRB’s Crime in India 2017 report
- Aadhaar Social Media mandatory linking case
- What is TechSagar? National repository of India’s cyber tech capabilities.
Disaster Management
Science & Technology
- ISRO’S Project NETRA
- Facebook’s LIBRA Currency in trouble
- WHO launches first World report on Vision
- 2019 Nobel prize in physics
- 2019 Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine
- Elon musk’s starlink project
- NASA’s ICON mission
- New King of the Moons in the Solar system is Saturn
- What Is Spectroscopy ?
- Quantum supremacy
Environment
- Climate Vulnerable Mapping Of India
- C40 Cities
- Gujarat Unveils emission trading scheme
- Forest Plus 2.0
- Himalayan States seeks Green Bonus
- India to Phase Out Single Use Plastic (SUP) by 2022
- Role of Volcanoes in Global Warming
- NH 766 ban controversy, Protests in Kerala against night traffic ban on the forest stretch
- Climate Change needs Global Solution
- Aarey Forest -2185 trees to be cut for Mumbai metro
- Government to build 1400 km long Green wall
- Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi
- Aerosol formation brightening clouds
- Anthrax outbreak in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, Two affected buffaloes died
- Species in News from June to October 2019
- Climate Action Summit 2019
Prelims bits

Tag: GS 2 || Polity || Judiciary || Supreme Court
Why In News?
- Among the parties in a famous temple, suit appeals now being heard by the Supreme Court is the Lord represented by His “next friend”.
God as a juristic person
- A juristic person, as opposed to a “natural person” (that is, a human being), is an entity whom the law vests with a personality.
- The Supreme Court has clarified this in the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000) order.
- It states that the very words Juristic Person connotes recognition of an entity to be in law a person which otherwise it is not.
- In other words, it is not an individual natural person but an artificially created person which is to be recognized to be in law as such.
- Gods, corporations, rivers, and animals, have all been treated as juristic persons by courts.
Background?
- The treatment of deities as juristic persons started under the British.
- Temples owned huge land and resources, and British administrators held that the legal owner of the wealth was the deity, with a shebait (manager of the Devasthan) or manager acting as trustee.
- In 1887, then Bombay HC held in the Dakor Temple case: “Hindu idol is a juridical subject and the pious idea that it embodies is given the status of a legal person.
- This was reinforced in the 1921 order in Vidya Varuthi Thirtha vs Balusami Ayyar, where the court said, “under the Hindu law, the image of a deity… (is) a ‘juristic entity’, vested with the capacity of receiving gifts and holding property”.
- This idea is now established in Indian law.
God
- A juristic entity or person is one in whom the law reposes rights or duties in its own name.
- A company is a juristic person, who can hold or deal with property in its own name.
- God as an abstract concept is not a juristic entity, deities in Hindu law have been conferred personhood, as capable of being bestowed with property, or leading it out or suing to take back possession.
- Thus, by a legal fiction installed deities at Hindu places of worship have been treated like other real persons for the purpose of law
- However, not every deity is a legal person.
- In Yogendra Nath Naskar vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax (1969), the Supreme Court ruled: “It is not all idols that will qualify for being ‘juristic person’ but only when it is consecrated and installed at a public place for the public at large.”
The rights deities have
- Apart from owning property, paying taxes, suing, and being sued, what else do deities as ‘legal persons’ do?
- In the Sabarimala case, one of the arguments presented against allowing women of menstruating age entry into the temple was that this would violate the right to privacy of the Lord who is eternally celibate.
- It was argued that deities have property rights, but not fundamental rights or other constitutional rights.
- This was upheld by Justice D Y Chandrachud in the Sabarimala judgment.
Religions
- A mosque has never been held as a juristic person because it’s a place where people gather to worship; it is not an object of worship itself. Neither has a church.
- In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the SC ruled that the Guru Granth Sahib cannot be equated with other sacred books.
- Guru Granth Sahib is revered like a Guru and is the very heart and spirit of gurudwara.
- The reverence of Guru Granth on the one hand and other sacred books, on the other hand, is based on different conceptual faith, belief, and application.
- However, the court clarified that “every Guru Granth Sahib cannot be a juristic person unless it takes juristic role through its installation in a gurudwara or at such other recognized public place.”
Who else holds such legal status?
- In May, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that the “entire animal kingdom” has a “distinct legal persona with corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a living person”.
- On March 20, 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a living person”.
- The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.
Additional Info
Mains Question
What type of rights do deities have?