The Supreme Court set aside Gauhati High Court orders declaring 27 persons to be foreigners. The bench remanded the cases to foreigners tribunals for fresh adjudication.

The court said that determining a person’s citizenship status carries a “high field of constitutional significance” and must be decided through a “fair, lawful and reasonable” process.

The High Court had said that the appellants had not challenged the tribunals’ orders for nearly 23 years. Acknowledging that they should be given a fair chance to establish their Indian citizenship, the bench said that the opportunity cannot be “enlarged into an endless exercise”. Read on.

Both Hindu and Muslim parties declined the Supreme Court’s proposal for mediation in the disputes relating to the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura and the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal. The litigants will continue to pursue the cases in court.

Each of these mosques, Hindutva groups contend, is actually a Hindu temple.

The court had sought consent of parties involved in the three cases to engage in mediation of the disputes under the 2026 Supreme Court Action for Mediated Adjudication and Disputes Harmonization Across Nation Samadhan Samaroh. The initiative began in April and will conclude with a Special Lok Adalat in August. Read on.

The Supreme Court stayed a Madras High Court order that banned cow slaughter in Tamil Nadu. The bench issued notice on the special leave petition filed by the state government, adding that the High Court order prima facie required a correction.

On the eve of Bakrid on May 28, the High Court passed a blanket order banning the slaughter of cows and calves across the state on any day. The ruling came on a plea filed by the general secretary of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, a Hindutva party, seeking directions to ensure that slaughter in Coimbatore took place at designated locations and not in public places.

The Tamil Nadu government contended that the High Court had granted a relief that “was neither pleaded nor prayed”. Read on.

Assam activist Pranab Doley, who has been opposing a proposed luxury hotel near the Kaziranga National Park, was arrested in connection with a June 28 protest against the project in Golaghat district. Doley has been booked for criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, criminal trespass, rioting, obstructing public servants from carrying out their duties and criminal intimidation.

The first information report alleged that Doley was the organiser of an “unlawful” gathering in Kohora on June 28. Kohora is the main entry point to the national park.

The proposed hotel is to come up at Ingleng Pathar near the national park, where about 45 farming families depend on a 19-acre plot. Of this, 9.9 acres have been earmarked for the project. Although the plot has been classified as government land, the families have been paying land revenue for more than a decade. Read on.

A suspended staffer in the office of the Badrinath temple committee chairperson was arrested in connection with the alleged theft of donations made to the shrine. Pramod Nautiyal was arrested on Sunday night from his home in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun.

On July 7, the Uttarakhand Police registered a case against Nautiyal for alleged theft by a clerk or servant and aggravated criminal breach of trust of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The temple committee had suspended Nautiyal and filed a complaint accusing him of unlawfully taking the donation money for “personal gains”. Read on.

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