Common Cause Case Updates
Supreme Court Cases
MA 18/2025 Registered on January 3, 2025, in writ petition on Illegal Mining in Odisha:
In January 2025, Common Cause filed a Miscellaneous Application (MA) in the writ petition on Illegal Mining in Odisha. The MA prayed for directions to the State of Odisha to expedite the recovery/ attachment proceedings on an urgent basis by complying with directions contained in previous orders passed by the Supreme Court and to take immediate action to pursue all available remedies before the appropriate forum (Division bench of High Court or SLP before this Hon’ble Court) to have unfavourable orders reversed or altered. The MA was listed several times in January, February, March, April and May 2025.
The IA filed by Common Cause on February 23, 2023, focused on getting directives issued for the Union of India and the State of Odisha to impose limits on the extraction of minerals and on constituting a committee of two or three independent experts to suggest and recommend such limits and submit its report in a time-bound manner. The matter was disposed of by the Supreme Court on May 7, 2025. The IA also sought an updated status report on the amount of penalty deposited by the lessees including the amount to be recovered, lease-wise details of the ore reserve, extraction permitted, the current status of the mining lease, total iron ore reserves and total permitted extraction in the State as directed in the judgment dated August 2, 2017.
Significantly, the Supreme Court granted Common Cause, the petitioner, the liberty to file an independent writ petition for the same relief, which had been sought in the IA. The Court also granted our request that the State of Odisha may be called upon to file a status report about the points referred to in paragraphs 3 and 6 of the SC’s order dated March 5, 2025, which is the prayer in the MA too. The matter is directed to be listed on July 29, 2025.
Petition challenging the electoral irregularities and to ensure free and fair elections and the rule of law (W.P. (C) 1382/2019)
Common Cause, along with ADR, filed a writ petition in 2019 to ensure free and fair elections and the rule of law, and for the enforcement of fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The writ petition highlighted the dereliction of duty on the part of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in declaring election results (of the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies) through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), not based on accurate and indisputable data, which is put in the public domain.
The petitioners sought a direction from the Hon’ble Court to the ECI not to announce any provisional and estimated election results before the actual and accurate reconciliation of data. A direction to the ECI was sought by the petitioners to evolve an efficient, transparent, rational and robust procedure/mechanism by creating a separate department/grievance cell.
On May 10, 2024, Common Cause and ADR filed an application seeking directions from the Supreme Court to the ECI to disclose authenticated records of voter turnout by uploading scanned legible copies of COMMON CAUSE CASE UPDATES COMMON CAUSE | Vol. XLIV No. 2 April-June, 2025 | 29 Form 17C Part-I (the total number of Votes Recorded) of all polling stations after each phase of polling in the on-going 2024 Lok Sabha elections on its website and to provide in public domain a tabulation of the constituency and polling station wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers and percentage.
On May 17th, 2024, IA no. 115592 was heard by CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra. The Election Commission of India requested a fair opportunity to deal with the contents of the IA. The court granted a week to the ECI to file a response. On May 24 2024, the application was heard by the bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma. Prima facie, the court was not inclined to grant any instant relief in view of the similarity of prayers in the main writ petition and the application under hearing. On March 18, 2025, the counsel for ECI suggested that the petitioners may file representation(s) and approach the ECI with their grievances and suggestion(s) and the ECI would inform them about the date of hearing so as to try to resolve the issues and contentions raised. Such representation(s) were required to be made within a period of ten days from March 18, 2025 and the ECI would hear the petitioner(s) and proceed to decide such representation(s). The registry was directed to relist the matter in the week commencing July 28, 2025.
Petition seeking directions to implement the recommendations of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan, 2020 (W.P. (C) 228/2019)
Common Cause partnered with CPIL and Jindal Naturecure Institute to seek directions for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan, 2020, promulgated in 2012 by the Ministry of Heavy Industries (nodal agency for the automobile sector), and the recommendations of Zero Emission Vehicles: Towards a Policy Framework, promulgated in September of 2019 by the Niti Aayog to curb the problems of climate change, air pollution, and cost of importing fossil fuels to India.
This petition has been filed under Article 32 as fundamental rights of citizens to health and clean environment guaranteed under Article 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India are being violated due to governmental apathy in mitigating the impact of Climate Change and Air Pollution, partly attributable to emissions from vehicles that burn fossil fuels.
On March 5, 2019, taking note of the contentions of the petitioners, the bench consisting of the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna ordered the government to apprise it of the status of implementation of the FAME-India scheme.
On January 17, 2020, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways of India, through its Secretary, was impleaded as a respondent in the petition, and the Bench consisting of Chief Justice and Justices Gavai and Surya Kant issued a notice to the ministry.
On February 19, 2020, the bench consisting of the Chief Justice and Justices Gavai and Surya Kant discussed that the issue of the use of electric vehicles is connected to several other issues which are pending before the Court. The bench observed that issues pertaining to the source of power of public and private electric vehicles have a great impact on the environment of the whole country, and all such issues must be discussed simultaneously. The court sought the assistance of authorities empowered with decision-making, specifically on the following:
The procurement of electric vehicles; providing charging ports; the feebate system, i.e, imposing a fee on vehicles with high emissions and providing a subsidy on electric vehicles; use of hydrogen vehicles; any other alternate means of power for vehicles; overall impact on imports and environment.
On March 11 2024, the matter was heard along with a suo motu writ petition (c) no.4/2019 by the Coram of Justices Surya Kant and KV Vishwanathan. The respondents were granted four weeks to file the counteraffidavit.
On May 6 2024, upon hearing, the court granted four weeks to the respondents as requested. On July 22, 2024, upon hearing the counsel, the Court granted four weeks to Mr. Devashish Bharukha, learned Senior Counsel representing the UOI, to file the counter affidavit, along with all the policy decisions taken by the UOI from time to time to promote electric vehicles. The court also impressed upon Mr Bharukha to inform the learned Attorney General for India to assist the court in the matter on the next date of hearing and posted the matter for September 23, 2024.
The matter was listed on April 22, 2025, when the government sought time to place on record the policy decisions taken by it from time to time for promoting electric vehicles and also for setting-up of the requisite infrastructure to facilitate the consumers of electric vehicles. The Court granted four weeks’ time to respond. On May 14, the AG stated that the process of taking policy decision, as indicated in the order dated April 22, 2025, involved inter-ministerial deliberations and it would take some more time to take a conscious decision in this regard. Meanwhile, the SC directed the petitioner as well as the intervenor to provide their respective suggestions to the AG for onward transmission to the concerned Ministry and posted the matter for August 13, 2025.
Contempt Petition against Lawyers Strike: The contempt petition filed by Common Cause against the strike of lawyers in the Delhi High Court and all district courts of Delhi on the issue of conflict over pecuniary jurisdiction has led to the submission of draft rules by the Bar Council of India (BCI).
On January 24, 2024, the BCI counsel stated that the rules may be examined by the Court, and the suggestion of the court, if any, shall be accepted by the BCI without any condition.
On February 6, 2024, arguments by the counsels were heard by the court. On February 9, 2024, the court appointed Justice Muralidhar as Amicus to examine the rules in the context of the existing judgments and objections and to submit his report. On May 3, 2024, the matter was ordered to be listed on August 13, 2024.
On August 27, 2024, Dr. S. Muralidhar, learned Senior Counsel, submitted that pursuant to his being appointed as Amicus Curiae by the Court, he had held a hybrid meeting with the BCI on April 29, 2024 and given suggestions which were also put in writing. Though the Bar Council of India had taken a stand that it would consider the suggestions in its meeting, no such meeting was convened. The counsel for the BCI requested that the Amicus Curiae forward his formal report to it. The Court observed that, considering the nature of the issues involved, such modalities were required for the reason that ultimately, the final suggestion/report by the Amicus Curiae would be submitted to the Court after considering the suggestions given by the BCI. Accordingly, the Court requested the Bar Council of India to hold such a meeting within four weeks from the date of hearing and provide its response to the Amicus Curiae, who would then submit his final report to the Court within the next four weeks. On April 2, 2025, three weeks’ time was sought by Mr. Manan Mishra, when he apprised the Court that a committee has been formed and it is likely to give its opinion within that period. The matter is likely to be taken up on July 15, 2025.
Writ for Supreme Court Directions on Police Reforms: The battle for police reforms has been going on for the last 29 years. The Supreme Court took 10 years to give a historic judgment in 2006, in the petition filed by Prakash Singh, Common Cause and NK Singh IN 1996. Since then, it has been a struggle to get the Court’s directions implemented. On July 3, 2018, responding to an interlocutory application filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding the appointment of acting Director General of Police (DGP) in the states, the Supreme Court gave a slew of directions to ensure that there were no distortions in such appointments. It laid down that the states shall send their proposals to the UPSC three months before the retirement of the incumbent DGP. The UPSC shall then prepare a panel of three officers so that the state can appoint one of them as DGP.
In October 2022 and December 2022, the Court entertained applications filed by the State of Nagaland and the UPSC to finalise the names of the DGP for the state. In January 2023, the matter was listed twice, when the Court decided on the IA filed by the State of Nagaland on the appointment of DGP. This matter was listed several times. On March 25, 2025, after hearing the counsels for the petitioners, the bench directed that an advance copy of the contempt petitions be served on the nominated/standing counsel for the State of Jharkhand.
Mr. Prashant Bhushan stated that he filed I.A. Nos. 150155/2023 and 67359/2023 in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 310/1996 on behalf of the petitioner, Prakash Singh, seeking appropriate orders/directions as to compliance and for modification of the order(s) of this Court, which have been registered, but were not listed. The registry was directed by the bench to examine and list these applications on the next date and list all pleas for hearing in the week commencing May 5, 2025. The matter has not been listed since.
