In 2022, the Delhi High Court was the setting of a high-profile political struggle over control of the Shiv Sena and a less-public turf war between the Delhi government and the lieutenant governor. The court was also investigating WhatsApp's privacy practices and issuing crucial verdicts, such as one upholding the right of women to end pregnancies.

The high court, which also issued a divided decision on criminalising marital rape and let the parties appeal to the Supreme Court, posed some probing questions about the Centre's contentious Agnipath scheme for enlisting people in the armed services.

It also covered significant commercial matters, such as a stay on the ban on eateries automatically adding service charges to food bills and issues concerning the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo. The conflict involving the Future group and the US-based e-commerce behemoth Amazon also commanded attention.

Also read: Delhi HC recognises woman's choice to give birth; allows termination of 33-week pregnancy

This year, the high court welcomed Justice Satish Chandra Sharma as the new CJI and added 18 new judges.

This year, it also made some historic choices as it intervened to clean up the mess in the sporting arena. The high court found the positions of life president, life member, and CEO of Hockey India to be unlawful and established a committee of administrators to manage the institution's business.

The Judo Federation of India and the Table Tennis Federation of India both had ‘administrators’ appointed by the court in separate cases to oversee their respective organisations' operations.

In 2022, the Delhi High Court said the "ultimate decision" in abortion cases should recognise a woman's choice to give birth and the prospect of an unborn child having a dignified existence, as the world discussed the US Supreme Court's decision to abolish the constitutional right to abortion.

The high court emphasised that the "choice of a woman" was recognised by Indian law in a key decision that permitted a 26-year-old to have medical termination of her 33-week pregnancy since the baby had neurological abnormalities.

Additionally, it permitted the termination of a pregnancy that was over 30 weeks owing to a rare chromosomal defect in the foetus in one instance and the abortion of a 16-year-old rape victim at 28 weeks in another.

One of the justices on the division bench supported repealing the exemption in the legislation that applies to husbands when assessing whether or not to criminalise marital rape as it would be "tragic if a married woman's call for justice is not heard even after 162 years" since the IPC's enactment.

The exemption to the rape legislation, according to the dissenting judge, was "founded on an intelligible differentia" and was not "unconstitutional."

The Centre had received criticism from the Opposition over Agnipath, the short-term recruiting programme for the Army, that it defended before the high court. The court reserved its verdict on several petitions assailing the policy. According to the government, the programme was introduced in the exercise of its sovereign jurisdiction to strengthen national security and defence and make them more "robust, "impenetrable," and "abreast of changing military requirements."

Also read: Delhi HC dismisses PIL with cost against Justice Chandrachud’s appointment as CJI

When a disagreement between two opposing Shiv Sena factions reached the high court, former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray's appeal against an Election Commission interim decision freezing the party's name and election symbol was rejected.

It also barred the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its leaders from making "defamatory" remarks against Vinai Kumar Saxena, the lieutenant governor of Delhi. It instructed Congress representatives Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera, and Netta D'Souza to remove social media posts on accusations made against Union minister Smriti Irani and her daughter over ownership of a bar in Goa.

The high court held that the AAP government's doorstep ration distribution programme in Delhi cannot be implemented in its current form since the LG, who was not on the same page, did not authorise it.

At the same time, the high court expressed its unhappiness with the "failure" of the police to stop a vandalism incident at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence in March, calling it a "very disturbing state of affairs."

In addition to staying the Lokapal proceedings against JMM Chairman Shibu Soren, the high court paved the way for MP Chirag Paswan, the former president of the Janata Dal (United), Sharad Yadav, and the ex-MP Subramanian Swamy to vacate their expansive government bungalows.

The North East Delhi riots of February 2020 were still being discussed in a number of cases that needed the high court's attention.

It declined a request by some CPI(M) leaders to register an FIR against BJP's Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma for their alleged hate remarks over anti-CAA rallies at Shaheen Bagh and denied bail to former JNU student Umar Khalid in a related Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case.

Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, two prominent members of the Congress, resisted a plea to file a police report (FIR) against them for allegedly making hateful statements, arguing that doing so would violate their right to free speech and the democratic principles.

The high court, while it was addressing commercial and economic concerns, rejected a request by a Future Group subsidiary to halt the arbitration procedures that Amazon had commenced against it.

It permitted Chinese smartphone company Vivo to use its different bank accounts that had been blocked in connection with an investigation into money laundering, provided that a bank guarantee in the amount of Rs 950 crore was produced.

The high court also ruled that WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy effectively forces its users into an agreement by giving them a "mirage" of choices and sharing their sensitive data with its parent company Facebook. This decision is significant because it highlights the "take it or leave it" position WhatsApp's users are in.

Also read: SC to hear pleas challenging state laws regulating conversions due to inter-faith marriage

The high court denied TMC's Abhishek Banerjee's appeal against summons issued to him in a money laundering investigation connected to an alleged coal fraud in West Bengal and also declined to grant bail to Christian Michel James in the AgustaWestland Chopper scandal proceedings.

Additionally, it declined to reduce the seven-year prison sentences for evidence tampering in the Uphaar fire catastrophe that were given to Sushil and Gopal Ansal. It put on hold a decision to grant bail to Congressman Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 riot case.

The former CEO and MD of the NSE, Chitra Ramkrishna, was granted bail by the court in the CBI's colocation scam case.

As the COVID-19 pandemic situation eased, the high court ended the procedures in a number of related cases, including those involving testing and the disposition of the dead.

Additionally, it instructed St. Stephen's College to adopt Delhi University's admissions guidelines and give the CUET 2022 score 100 percent of the weight for admitting non-minority applicants to its undergraduate programmes.

A PIL requesting that the Shraddha Walkar murder probe be moved from the Delhi Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was dismissed by the high court with costs after it was deemed to be a "publicity interest litigation."

She was reportedly strangled and her corpse was sliced into 35 pieces by her live-in partner, who then discarded the body parts throughout the city over the course of several nights and days after keeping them in a freezer for about three weeks at his house.

(With inputs from PTI)

Also read: Demonetisation is done and dusted: SC post-facto review is awaited and likely to shed more heat than light

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)