Dipak Mishra is head of newly-constituted 5-judge constitution bench of SC to hear a range of crucial cases

The newly-constituted 5-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court has been set up to hear a range of crucial cases & its hearings has started on January 17, 2018. The bench is headed by Chief Justice Dipak Mishra and also comprises of Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. The cases that the bench will hear include challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and the 2013 apex court judgement re-criminalising gay sex between consenting adults. The bench will also hear the issue of ban on the entry of women between 10 and 50 years of age in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. It will also resume hearing a legal query on whether a Parsi woman would lose her religious identity if she marries a man from a different religion. The other issues to be dealt with by the bench include the pleas, which have raised a question as to when will a lawmaker, facing the criminal trial, stand disqualified. All these matters were earlier referred to larger benches for adjudication by different benches of the apex court.