Weekly Legal Updates

Here we are... to begin this new session. We start with the updates from last week. 

The Supreme Court in a recent judgment has ruled that CCTV cameras should be installed in the prisons within one year and not later than that. The court has also suggested that all lock-ups in the country should have CCTV cameras installed as per the satisfaction of the police commissioner/DGP concerned. This was, however, left to the discretion of the respective states and union territories. The Supreme Court has also said that every police station should have at least two women constables to deal with women who are accused or suspects.

The Supreme Court came down heavily on the Central Government for not filing a counter affidavit in a petition questioning the functioning of the Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) across the country. The Social justice bench of the Apex Court, while imposing Rs.25,000 cost on the Ministry of Women and Child Development remarked “You are not even bothered to file your affidavit. You will have to pay the cost”. The bench, was hearing a Public Interest Litigation seeking proper implementation of Juvenile Justice Act and its rules. The Court had sought complete details on the pendency of cases, frequency of its sittings, vacancy of posts and other related issues.

The Bombay High Court has denied the relief under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act to a woman who was living with a married man for 15 years. The Additional Sessions Judge had ruled that the woman was in a “live-in relationship” with the married man and was entitled to relief under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act. The Court observed that since they had been in a relationship for almost 15 years, common sense required that she should have made enquiries about his marital status. The Court also noted that the woman had not been able to give a single instance where they had appeared as husband and wife in the society on any occasion of marriage or party. The Court hence ruled that such a relationship cannot be relationship in the nature of marriage. She and her daughters were therefore, not entitled for any relief under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.  The Court however noted that the daughters may be entitled for relief under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal procedure.

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Mr. K.V. Chaudhary as the Central Vigilance Commissioner and Mr. T.M. Bhasin as the Vigilance Commissioner as being “illegal and arbitrary”. The petitioners have claimed that there was complete non transparency on the part of the Central Government in making the appointment of the CVC and VC. The Petitioners have also claimed that the appointments violate the principles of ‘impeccable integrity’ and ‘institutional integrity’ laid down in the landmark judgments of Vineet Narain case (1998) 1 SCC 226 and Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) case (2011) 4 SCC 1.

Yakub Memon, convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, has approached the Supreme Court challenging the death warrant for his execution scheduled on July 30. According to his plea the death warrant is illegal because it did not follow the proper procedure prescribed by the Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors.

The Supreme Court of India in a ruling (DM Wayanad Institute of Medical Sciences vs. Union of India and Another – Writ Petition (C) No. 441 Of 2015) has reaffirmed the settled legal position that under Article 32 it will not interfere with an administrative order where the constitutionality of the statute or the order made there under has not been challenged on the ground of contravention of Fundamental Rights. The Apex Court added that no question other than that relating to the Fundamental Rights will be determined in a proceeding under Article 32 of the Constitution.

The SC has dismissed a Public Interest Litigation that came up before the three Judges Bench praying “to stop the use of names and images of gods and goddesses for commercial exploitation”.  The court dismissed the petition remarking that “You have raised the issue which concerns the faith of the people. This country has 33,000 crore gods. Sorry.”

We hope that this summarizes the last week's News. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Until next post of weekly News updates.

Anjana Srinivasan, (3rd Year student of IIT Kharagpur Law School)

For 'OFF Court.'

Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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Legal News Updates

We bring you the updates for last week. Hope it updates you with all the news from legal world.

Updates: 03rd November to 22nd November 2014.

In an interim order passed by the Delhi High Court, Micromax has to pay a royalty that amounts up to 1% of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson. Ericsson had alleged that Micromax had refused to enter into a licensing agreement covering its patented innovations across several wireless technology standards such as GSM, EDGE and third generation (3G). The patents in question are a part of what are called “standards-essential” patents and holders are expected to license them on Free Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Micromax was said to have keen on negotiating a FRAND license with Ericsson but the companies could not come to a suitable conclusion.

The E-Committee of the Supreme Court has rejected the Government’s proposal to record the Court proceedings in a subordinate court.  The E-Committee rejected the proposal saying it was not acceptable at present. The proposal to record court proceedings was made by the government after an advisory council meeting of the Law Ministry held in August this year. This was as a part of the E-court project under which the government had sought to initiate recording of the proceedings in lower courts and subsequently bring the High Courts and the Supreme Court under its ambit.

The Supreme Court is facing an interesting case of murder where the accused was tried as an adult though the accused was a juvenile at the time of commission of offence.  Since, the accused was a juvenile when the offence was committed, the criminal trial stands vitiated and a fresh trial will have to be held before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).  The Court has sought the assistance of the Attorney General to resolve the issue.

In a letter to the High Courts, Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu has asked for the judgments delivered by the Judges of the High Courts, in order to “ascertain quantitative as well as qualitative disposal of cases”. So far Reported Judgments have been accepted as one of the parameters for ascertaining “qualitative disposal”. Now as per this letter, the details of all judgments will have to be provided. The letter also demands resumes of the Chief Justices and the Judges in a specified format. It also demands details of total and reported judgments.

In Criminal writ petition before the Bombay High Court, the Petitioner was seeking criminal prosecution of a Judge in respect of acts discharged during judicial functions. It was held no Court shall entertain or continue any civil or criminal proceeding against a Judge for any act, thing or word committed, done or spoken by him, when, or in the course of, acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official or judicial duty or function. The Court also held that no Judge can be prosecuted without a prior sanction, whether the alleged offence is punishable under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 or under the Indian Penal Code or under any other law.

The Central Information Commission has held that refusing to give details of foreign tours by ministers and officers, and staff particulars of AG without hearing the appellant was wrong.  It set aside the order of First Appellate Authority of Department of Legal Affairs as it was given without hearing the appellant.  CIC also recommended action against the officer for this ‘illegal’ order.

The Bar Council of India has recently notified the Certificate of Practice and Renewal Rules of 2014. Under these rules, a lawyer must practice for two years in a trial court and three in a high court before being allowed to practice before the apex court. The new rules also mandate the renewal of licenses every five years, in an attempt to “weed out” those lawyers who are no longer practicing.

In accordance with the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, the Ministry of Law and Justice has decided on the formation of a separate High Court for Andhra Pradesh. According to section 30 of the A.P. Reorganisation Act, 2014 the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad shall be the common High Court for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh till a separate High Court for the State of Andhra Pradesh is constituted under Article 214 of the Constitution of India and other provisions of the Act.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is all set to slash the prices of popular medicines for stress, hypertension, HIV, pain and pneumonia. The move seeks to cover as many as 100 new drugs and would apply to drugs of varying strengths. This is the second time that NPPA has proposed regulating the price of drugs outside the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2011. The announcement by NPPA comes in light of its findings that certain “anomalies or discrepancies” exist in the description/specification of drugs in NLEM.

We hope that this summarizes the last week's News. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Until next post of weekly News updates.

Anjana Srinivasan, (2nd Year student of IIT Kharagpur Law School)

For 'OFF Court.'

Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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They have all the Answers!!

Author: Antriksh Mishra, 3rd Year student of RGSOIPL, IIT-Kharagpur.

Our politicians seem to have all the answers, especially when it comes to crimes like rape. What is the need of Psychologists, Criminologists and Legal experts when we have great minds like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Abu Azmi, Mohan Bhagwat, Abhijeet Mukherjee to replace them.

I will not state what these leaders have said as they have already received enough coverage in the social, print and electronic media.

Recently another suggestion came from the Gandhis of the BJP. Varun and Menaka suggested that if a juvenile commits rape he should be punished as severely as an adult under the IPC. To quote Varun“If he is old enough to rape he is old enough to be punished for it.”

But Varun that is not true, in fact a child’s involvement in any kind of crime proves that he is misguided and troubled.

And why just amend the law relating to the crime of rape? How is murder any different? Just because rape has been a hot, sensational and most talked about topic ever since the Delhi Rape case made headlines and the politicians hope to garner more political mileage and make more headlines by speaking out against it. Not that today’s political class would ever be involved in political appeasement.

To respond to Mr.Varun Gandhi’s statement, of course a juvenile is old enough to have sex, aren’t we all by the age of 15? That doesn’t mean we are old enough to understand the rights and wrongs of the society.

The age of puberty and the legal age of adulthood are two completely different things! These juveniles have no counsel or guidance to make them understand the rights and wrongs of the society. They are children struggling to find a place for themselves among their elder counterparts. So whose responsibility is it to provide them with proper counselling and guidance? Oh Yes!! There is a ministry set up for that purpose it’s called “The Ministry of Women and Child Development” and you’ll never guess who the Hon’ble Minister associated with this ministry is… Yes it is “Menaka Sanjay Gandhi.”

Their motto is “Holistic Development of Women and Children”and to achieve this they have adopted “The National policy for Children, 2013” which includes providing such guidance and help to children.

But all that was before the Minister had this epiphany.Now the meaning of “Development” has changed to “Developing children into Criminals.”Wow that is some idea! The political class has done it again, congratulations to yet another leader to come out with another brilliant idea. We the people of India can really get used to this.

What one fails to understand is why some activist and lawyers keep insisting on opposing such a game changing idea?

Ms Ved Kumari an expert on juvenile Justice Law and ex chairperson of Delhi Judicial Academy insists,

“Juvenile's involvement in the acts of 'adult' crime such as murder and rape does not imply maturity. On the contrary, it is direct evidence of vulnerability of juveniles to reckless behaviour. Once the juveniles are dealt under the criminal justice system, the children will turn much worse psychologically and are likely to commit crime again.”

Athiya Bose, an activist for the welfare of juveniles says“Studies from the western nations have already suggested that such initiatives are a failure and it becomes difficult for children to come back from the trauma that they suffer under the adult justice system.”

Nah!! What do they know? What makes them the experts? Other than having worked in the field of law and juvenile justice for the last decade.

Our politicians know better! They always have all the answers.

 Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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