Pegasus row: Weapon in our phones

New Delhi: Verdicts ordering probe into alleged use of Pegasus spyware for surveillance, and paving the way for widening of the strategic Chardham highway project near China border and the Central Vista construction were among key imprints of the Supreme Court in 2021. The apex court also for the first time got as many as nine judges in one go including Justice B V Nagarathna, who is poised to become the first woman Chief Justice of India in 2027.

The year witnessed change of guard at the top of judiciary with Justice N V Ramana, hailing from an agriculturist family of Ponnavaram village in Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district, taking charge as the 48th CJI upon retirement of his predecessor Justice S A Bobde in April. In a significant verdict, the apex court refused to refer to a larger bench to revisit its 29-year-old Mandal verdict, putting cap on quotas at 50 per cent, as it quashed a Maharashtra law granting reservations to Marathas in admissions and government jobs, saying it violated the principle of right to equality.

It also said that reservation in favour of Other Backward Classes in local bodies concerned in Maharashtra cannot exceed an aggregate 50 per cent of the total seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and OBCs taken together.

It trashed opposition of the government to pleas for probe into alleged use of Israeli spyware Pegasus for surveillance and appointed a three-member panel of cyber experts to investigate under the monitoring of former apex court judge R V Raveendran, saying the state cannot get a "free pass" every time the spectre of national security is raised and it cannot be the "bugbear" that the judiciary shies away from. It also intervened to ensure fair probe into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which eight people including four farmers were killed during a protest as it appointed Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, to monitor the investigation of Uttar Pradesh SIT which will also have three IPS officers.