Morning Digest: Supreme Court to hear pleas for Pegasus probe today; Medvedev wins U.S. Open to end Djokovic calendar Grand Slam bid, and more

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on September 13 a batch of pleas seeking an independent probe into the alleged snooping on certain people in India involving Pegasus, the Israeli spyware.

Novak Djokovic’s quest for a record 21st major title that would have completed the calendar-year Grand Slam collapsed at the final hurdle with a 6-4 6-4 6-4 loss to Russian Daniil Medvedev in the U.S. Open final on September 12.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has sought an elaborate report from the J&K police on the burial of former Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who died at 92 after a prolonged illness on September 1 in Srinagar.

The Delhi High Court has questioned West Bengal over its handling of the requests of All India Service (AIS) officers seeking inter-cadre transfer to other States. A bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher and Justice Talwant Singh said that the West Bengal government was trotting out shortage of officers, as the reason, for rejecting the request of inter-cadre transfer, without placing the relevant material on record.

When Vijay Rupani headed to the Raj Bhavan to submit his resignation as Chief Minister at the instruction of the BJP high command on Saturday, many party leaders and workers and media persons began speculating immediately on the names that could be the next Chief Minister. Animated discussions here have mainly centred on outgoing Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, and the Administrator of the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Lakshdweep, Praful Patel.

In a landmark decision, the Delhi High Court has ruled that marriages can be registered in the virtual presence of parties, noting it “cannot allow a rigid interpretation of the statute to prevent citizens from exercising their rights”.

The change of guard in Gujarat has once again brought into focus the high stakes battle not just for the ruling party but also for the Congress. Though the party identified poll bound Gujarat as a ‘priority’ State, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) is yet to appoint an in-charge for the State after the former AICC in-charge Rajeev Satav passed in the middle of May due to COVID-19 complications.

The government has appointed 31 people as judicial, technical and accountant members at the NCLT and the ITAT, amid the Supreme Court flagging concerns about vacancies in various tribunals. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) deals with matters mainly related to companies law and the insolvency law while the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) deals with income tax matters.

The resignation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vijay Rupani as Gujarat’s Chief Minister and the process of choosing the next CM was the BJP’s internal matter and no other party’s concern, said Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday.

The Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) has transferred the know-how of indigenously developed Saline Gargle RT-PCR technique to the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) for commercialising it, a statement said on Sunday.

More than 20 organisations have announced a joint movement against a mega hydropower project being built by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) on the Arunachal Pradesh-Assam border.

Amid the tug of war to claim the Lok Janshakti Party legacy, a two-page message by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the presence of estranged uncle and Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras in Patna on Sunday for the event marking the first death anniversary of party founder Ram Vilas Paswan warmed up party leader and MP Chirag Paswan for a future reunion in the family and in the NDA as well.

A high-profile cartoonist and a Sweden-based journalist were among seven men charged on Sunday under Bangladesh’s internet law that critics say is being used against opposition figures. A court in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka accepted formal charges laid out by police under the Digital Security Act against cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore and rights activist and journalist Tasneem Khalil, prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim said.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has officially written to the ICC to decide the fate of the cancelled fifth Test against India at Old Trafford, indicating that the two boards are far from reaching a settlement.