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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Weekly Legal Updates

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

Updates: 03th January to 11th January 2015:
In a major move the Supreme Court has revised rules regarding its selection of judicial clerks which allows non-NLU students to apply.  The new rules, published on the Supreme Court’s website, specifies that applicants can come from any law college accredited by the Bar Council of India (BCI).

The President of India  promulgated the Citizenship (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 on January 06, 2015 with immediate effect which provides for the following amendments to the Indian Citizen Act, 1955:

• At present one year continuous stay in India is mandatory for Indian Citizenship which is relaxed stating that if the Central Government is satisfied that special circumstances exist, it may, after recording such circumstances in writing, relax the period of twelve months specified upto a maximum of thirty days which may be in different breaks.

• To enable for registration as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) by a minor, whose parents are Indian Citizens.

• To enable for registration as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) by a child or a grand-child or a great grandchild of such a citizen.

• To enable for registration as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) by such spouse of a citizen of India or spouse of an OCI registered under Section 7A and whose marriage has been registered and subsisted for a continuous period of not less than two years immediately preceding the presentation of the application under this section.

• In respect of existing PIO card holders central government may, by notification in Official Gazette, specify a particular date from which all existing PIO card holders will be deemed to be OCI card holders.

The Delhi High court dismissed a plea against Amir Khan starrer movie- PK, holding that there was no substance in the allegations leveled against the movie, in the PIL filed by Ajay Gautam. The Court also observed that the provision for appeal against the CBFC’s decision on certification of films was restricted to film-makers. Mr. Gautam had alleged that the movie defamed and maligned the Hindu religion and culture. It was also contended that the movie hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.

In a submission made before the Apex Court, the Central Government has said that it wants to stop NGOs that do not submit their balance sheets of last three years. The Central Government represented by the Additional Solicitor General P S Patwalia submitted to the Bench headed by Chief Justice of India HL Dattu that the submission of balance sheets by the NGOs must be a condition precedent for grant of funds.

The Supreme Court has published the in-house mechanism adopted by it in 1999 to deal with complaints against the judges of the Supreme Court and High Court in its website. This has been published pursuant to its judgment in the sexual harassment case involving a sitting judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In the above judgment the Court relied on the in-house mechanism and had scrapped the investigation initiated by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Justice on the ground that it was not in compliance with the in-house mechanism.

Siemens, Dong Energy and London Array – the world's biggest operating offshore wind farm – are all heading for a UK court showdown with German turbine-maker Enercon over alleged patent infringement of 'Storm Control' technology developed by the latter's founder, Aloys Wobben. The Wobben Properties lawsuit names Siemens, Dong and turbine-installation specialist A2Sea as defendants.  The 630MW London Array – which is already using 175 3.6MW Siemens turbines – is the subject of a similar but separate action, and is set to join the other defendants in contesting the case at a High Court hearing in London, currently scheduled for June. Enercon had previously successfully sued turbine OEM Gamesa in Spain over the 'storm control' patent, a verdict which is currently being appealed.

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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Legal News Updates

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

Updates: 23rd November to 07 November 2014.

The Supreme Court has constituted a Special Bench christened ‘Social Justice Bench’ to achieve the Constitutional  goal of securing ‘social justice for the citizens of the country. The bench comprising of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice UU Lalit will hear all cases in the Supreme Court falling within the domain of “social justice”. The Bench will start functioning from December 12 and will sit at 2 pm on every Friday.

The Centre is planning to partially open up legal market to foreign firms. According to the proposal put forward by the Centre, foreign lawyers could be permitted to practice in India in conjunction with Indian lawyers, as a joint venture, with a cap on foreign participation. Also, advisory or non-litigious services in Indian law could be opened up subject to foreign lawyers going through a prequalification examination in various aspects of Indian law. However, the Bar Council of India and Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) have voiced their opposition to this proposal.

The Delhi High Court refused to quash the FIR filed against three men who tried to molest a Delhi Police Constable. The woman registered an FIR against the three persons, who incidentally lived in her locality only. She later agreed to take back her complaint, after the intermediation of some people. When the matter reached the Delhi High Court for quashing of FIR, Justice Pratibha Rani, refusing to quash the FIR said, ‘if a woman police officer can’t walk on the street what will happen to common girls?’

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister has approved the introduction of the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2014 in Parliament to make certain amendments in the Companies Act, 2013. The Companies Act, 2013 (Act) was notified on 29.8.2013. Out of 470 sections in the Act, 283 sections and 22 sets of Rules corresponding to such sections have so far been brought into force. In order to address some issues raised by stakeholders such as Chartered Accountants and professionals, some amendments have been proposed.

The Allahabad High Court dismissed a PIL challenging Rule 7 of the recently released Bar Council of India Rules, 2014. Under Rule 7, 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. It was dismissed not on merits, but on the ground that Rule 7 has still not been notified and therefore it would be an exercise in futility if the petition is examined on merits.

The Delhi High Court has held that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has the right to file an appeal in cases where its probes have been stayed by courts. The order came after a CCI appeal in a dispute involving JCB India Ltd, in which all CCI proceedings, including the probe, were stayed by the HC after its director general raided JCB’s premises. Doubts were raised whether CCI could file such an appeal, as it was the CCI that ordered the probe against JCB in the first place; the court ruled that CCI has the right. The court also held that “the interference by us at this stage is unwarranted”. It asked both parties to raise their issues before the single judge who is hearing the case.

The Delhi High Court recently interpreted S.107A expansively to conclude that it is applicable when a party exports a patented product to a third party outside India as long as the purpose of export is the facilitation of research. The case relates to the Compulsory License granted by the Court to Natco for the compound Sorafenib tosylate. One of the conditions was that Natco should use the licensed product “solely for the purpose of making, using, offering for sale and selling the drug covered by the patent for the purpose of treating HCC and RCC in humans within the territory of India”. However, Bayer found that Natco was exporting the product outside India. In March this year, an interim order was passed by the Delhi High Court preventing Natco from such export. The present application was filed by Natco to seek permission from the Court to export 1 kilogram of Sorafenib to a Chinese Pharmaceutical Company for preparation of a trial batch of the generic drug in China.

The application filed by Venus Remedies Ltd. (the applicant) for an invention titled “Parenteral Composition Comprising Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin for Bacterial Resistance and Process of Preparation Thereof” was opposed in a pre grant opposition by (Akums Drugs & Pharmaceuticals) on the grounds of lack of inventive step as required under Section 2(1)(j), 2(1)(ja) and 2(1)(l) and also on the grounds of section 3(d) and 3(e) of the Patent Act. The opposition, however, was not successful. The invention was a single unit combination of two incompatible antibiotics (Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin) which are combined together with stabilizing agents, such as L-arginine, EDTA and Na₂CO_3.  The Controller observed that the claimed invention was held not to be a mere aggregation of property/features since Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin are made compatible, due to the existence of a chemical stabilizing and solubizing agent. The opponent also contended that various studies have shown the concomitant use of vancomycin and ceftriaxone and cited two documents.  However, both these documents failed to form ‘prior art’ because they were published on 3/3/2006 and 20/12/2005 after the filing of the present patent application in 14/2/2005. Moreover, the prior art failed to contemplate the problem of incompatibility between Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin. Also, the contention on Section 3(d) was dismissed on the ground that nothing in the prior art qualified as a “known substance” and hence Section 3(d) was not attracted.  The Controller declared that that the invention was both a technical advance as well as economically significant and therefore qualified the inventiveness criteria.

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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PILs IN DISTRICT COURTS !!

In a very interesting development, the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court has raised a very interesting point about filing PIL in District Court!
What is at the heart of Constitutional Law is that a PIL can only be filed in the High Court or Supreme Court and only these courts have jurisdiction to entertain the same.

Any public spirited person does not have any other forum for redressal, as he has no locus standi for the matter. Well, soon this concept may find itself way back only in the annals of history. A new kind of Jurisprudence is now emerging where PIL in district courts can actually be envisaged. I freely admit, I myself was a part of the “ignorant society” that nodded and believed that only Constitutional Courts have the Jurisdiction to entertain a PIL. But kudos the innovativeness of the Indian Judiciary for envisaging a concept which may possibly help many public spirited persons in the future.

First, let us highlight what the Hon’ble Chief Justice Kalyan Sengupta said while delivering the C. Padmanabha Reddy Memorial Lecture organised by the Indian Association of Lawyers (IAL) in Hyderabad observed: (the report can be found here )

“A PIL could be filed in district courts or other subordinate courts also but not necessarily in the Supreme Court or High Courts. Judicial activism should be welcomed wherever the executive and legislative branches fall short of their goals and when a PIL comes against them, it should not be treated as an adversarial litigation but as a reminder of their Constitutional duties”

The idea itself isn’t bad. The vision of justice to the common man would be complete. The search and reach for justice has always eluded the common man, having to spend a lot of time and money to travel to long places, file for PIL in the HC or SC and represent their case. It’s not uncommon to make more than one appearance to get the desired relief. If PILs in District Court could make headway into the Judicial System, it would eliminate the need for the long wait of justice for people even in the remotest corner of India.

But is such an idea really feasible? District Courts always have the problem of pendency of cases with over 3 crore cases pending in courts. It would mean that district courts would also have to deal with the additional burden of PILs from persons who have no locus standi. This is specially a big problem because as it is the effective rate of disposal of cases is slow and time consuming. Unless additional resources are pumped in to expedite the process, it would be very difficult for the courts to carry this additional burden.

The competiveness of the District Court in handling PIL petitions is still uncertain. While on one hand, it may be especially good as District Court looks into matters of fact, hence it may examine evidence on a fact and decide on a petition, but there would not be an expeditious remedy. On the flipside, with regard to examining matters on PIL where effective, quick, correct and adequate remedy is the need of the hour, District Courts may, at some point, lack competence.

The Jurisdiction of the Court is also another aspect under consideration. The jurisdiction of the District Court is limited to the district only. This helps litigants save time and money and the Court may understand the problems of the district better than any of the Higher Courts. Yet its Jurisdiction being limited, it is very difficult for the court to give a judgment within the rigidity of jurisdiction it is bound in.

Another aspect is that, the courts are bound by procedural laws, making it very difficult to get quick remedies. So, it is very uncertain whether a District Court can be given wide amplitude of powers to bypass procedural laws which is required when a PIL petition is being heard.

In my opinion, considering many problems, and not to mention procedural aspects the District Courts may face, unless radical changes are proposed, it would be very difficult to actually put the vision of Hon’ble Chief Justice into practice. However all is not lost for the common man as he grapples with the administration, the government and the law in his quest to seek justice. The Code of Civil Procedure and Code of Criminal Procedure do provide sections for public to seek justice.

1. An important section provided by the CPC is to invoke section 91 of CPC which empowers any two public persons to raise any matter of public interest with the permission of the court in case of any public nuisance. The relief granted by the Court includes a suit of declaration and injunction or for such other relief as may be appropriate in the circumstances of the case.

2. Order I Rule 8 permits the filing of Representative Suit. Where any interested person may sue on behalf of all persons interested in the suit and a decree passed in a suit under this rule shall be binding on all persons on whose behalf, or for whose benefit, the suit is instituted, or defended, as the case may be. This section can be used as a powerful tool to file a suit in the District Court, as the language of Order I Rule 8 is so wide so as to permit filing of a civil suit and asking for civil damages as a result of redressing any public injury, enforcing public duty and claiming public rights.

3. Though PIL generally creates civil liability only, even criminal courts can entertain a complaint from a member of the public. Section 190 of CrPC gives wide powers to a Magistrate based on information received by him to take cognizance of any crime which may have been committed and to direct the Police to investigate the same. This is particularly helpful when the public injury committed by person or persons alike may attract criminal liability. The investigations may proceed say, under sections 268 of IPC for public nuisance, section 133 of CrPC empowering magistrate to take action against public nuisance.

PILs have revolutionised our justice system. Indian Judiciary has always upheld the cause of justice to common man and has addressed the same. In this regard, PIL in District Courts would give the much needed impetus in the process of restoring faith of the common man in the judiciary. But, the process is long drawn and a tough one. Its implementation would be difficult. Let us hope the vision, the path and the cause that the Hon’ble Chief Justice envisaged is taken up by others and the issues are addressed.

Author: Suraj Badrayan

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