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The Supreme Court told Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that a “true Indian” would not make remarks such as the ones he made in 2022 about alleged Chinese incursions into Indian territory. However, the court stayed the defamation proceedings against him for three weeks.

The case pertains to comments made by Gandhi in December 16 about a clash between the Indian and Chinese armies along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang.

In response to the court’s remark, Gandhi’s counsel Abhishek Singhvi said that it was also possible for a “true Indian” to express concern about the deaths of soldiers during clashes between India and China in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in June 2020.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and AG Masih, however, asked the Opposition leader how he had verified claims that 2,000 sq km of Indian territory had been occupied by China. Datta asked why the Congress leader had made the allegations on social media instead of raising questions in Parliament. Read more.

Jharkhand’s former Chief Minister Shibu Soren died on Monday. He was 81. Soren was admitted to a hospital in New Delhi for more than a month and was undergoing treatment for kidney-related ailments.

Soren was the founder of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the party’s chief for 38 years.

He served as the chief minister for 10 days in March 2005, for five months between August 2008 and January 2009, and between December 2009 and May 2010. Read more.

The Supreme Court questioned the “tearing hurry” of the Uttar Pradesh government in passing an ordinance that allows it to take over the management of the Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi expressed disapproval of the “clandestine manner” in which the government had secured permission to use temple funds for a Rs 500-crore corridor project. The permission was secured through a May 15 judgement of the Supreme Court, which allowed the state to acquire five acres of land with temple funds.

The bench verbally proposed recalling the May 15 verdict and forming a committee, headed by a retired High Court judge, to oversee the temple’s management while the validity of the ordinance was being decided. Read more.

The Tamil Nadu government moved the Supreme Court challenging a Madras High Court order restraining it from naming welfare schemes after living politicians and using the photographs of former chief ministers, ideological leaders and political party symbols in advertisements of the schemes.

On Thursday, the High Court passed the order on a plea filed by an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP, who had sought directions to stop the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government from using Chief Minister MK Stalin’s name in public outreach programmes such as Ungaludan Stalin.

The petitioner had argued that the practice violated the Supreme Court’s earlier directions and the 2014 Government Advertisement Content Regulation Guidelines.

The High Court had referred to a Supreme Court ruling that allowed the use of the current chief minister’s photo in government advertisements, but ruled that including former leaders or party icons could be seen as political misuse of public funds. Read more.

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