Day ahead: CJP leaders back before magistrate as Supreme Court vacation bench takes up YSRCP and Vijayan pleas

Two Cockroach Janta Party leaders, a former chief minister’s family and an opposition party fighting for a place on the ballot all have business before the courts on Wednesday, with the Supreme Court still on its Dussehra break.

The CJP leaders

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka are due to be produced before Special Executive Magistrate Ritu Raj at 2 pm, when their two-day extension of judicial custody runs out. On Monday the magistrate turned down their sureties and said their conduct “shows no respect for law”, pointing to what the order called a “habitualness in calling protest at de-notified areas”. The two must offer fresh sureties and file written submissions.

They have also gone to the Delhi High Court against the extension of their custody. No hearing date had been announced by early Wednesday.

The pair have been held since climbing the gate of Jantar Mantar with the Tricolour on 13 October, a day after the site was struck off the list of protest venues. On Tuesday party founder Abhijeet Dipke called their stand a satyagraha, and Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut asked the Supreme Court to step in.

The vacation bench

A special bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana will hear the YSR Congress Party’s challenge to an Andhra Pradesh High Court order of 18 October that refused to extend the deadline for nominations in the state’s urban local body elections. The party says violence kept its candidates away from nomination centres and wants police protection, more time and more centres.

The same bench takes up the pleas of former Keralam chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter Veena T and P A Mohammed Riyas against the High Court orders that led to a vigilance case in the CMRL-Exalogic matter. Arguing for an early hearing last week, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra told the court: “It is a matter of liberty.”

Kharge and the Prime Minister

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said in Kalaburagi on Tuesday that he would lay out his objections to the Special Intensive Revision, delimitation and the women’s reservation plan to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. “I will explain everything to him tomorrow, including the harm caused by the SIR,” he said. He did not say whether that would be at a meeting in person.

The Supreme Court’s regular benches return on 26 October.