Thorat & Associate's

As the Apex Court opened today after the summer break to a new process of listing and mentioning, along with a new scientifically-driven roster, the Supreme Court Collegium also witnessed a change.  The five-Judge Collegium, which recommends names to the Centre for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court, got two new members as two of its existing members retired during the summer vacations. Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant joined the Supreme Court Collegium as members, following the retirement of Justice KM Joseph and Justice Ajay Rastogi. Headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, the other members of the Collegium include Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Sanjiv Khanna. Justice Khanna, Justice Gavai and Justice Kant are set to become the Chief Justice of India in future.  In terms of seniority, Justice Khanna will succeed CJI Chandrachud on November 24, followed by Justice Gavai and Justice Kant. A three-member Collegium, comprising the CJI and his two im

The Central government on Friday approved the re-appointment of Tushar Mehta as Solicitor General for India for a period of three years.  This is the second extension granted to Mehta by the Union of India. The Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet further approved the re-appointment of  Vikramjit Banerjee, K.M. Nataraj, Balbir Singh, S.V. Raju, N. Venkataraman and Aishwarya Bhati as Additional Solicitors General (ASGs). Madhavi Diwan, Sanjay Jain and Jayant K. Sud will not continue as Additional Solicitors General. The Department of Personnel & Training Secretariat of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet under the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions further approved the re-appointment of Chetan Sharma as Additional Solicitor General of Delhi High Court. It approved the re-appointment of Satya Pal Jain as Additional Solicitor General of Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Union government approved the re-appointment of Devang Girish Vyas

The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) on Friday moved the Supreme Court against the ordinance brought out by the Union of India, saying that the ordinance, if passed, would completely sideline the elected government from control over its civil services. Terming the Government of National Capital Territory (Amendment) Ordinance 2023, promulgated by the President on May 19 as an ‘unconstitutional exercise’ of ‘executive fiat,’ the writ petition contended that the ordinance would take away the powers of the GNCTD to control the civil servants working in the national capital. It pointed out that the Ordinance was brought out a week after a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court pronounced that the Delhi Government had power over Entry 41 of List II (services).  Filed by Advocate-on-Record Shadan Farasat, the petition said the Union of India, by way of the Ordinance, had overturned the Supreme Court’s verdict.  It further said the Ordinance violated the scheme

The Supreme Court of India after the ongoing summer vacation, will reopen on July 3. The court would now have a new scientifically-driven roster. As per the media sources, the new roster system will be based on the inflow and pendency of cases, after considering the domain expertise of the judges of  the top court. As per the information, more judges have been assigned for the ordinary civil, criminal and service cases as we have the highest inflow and pendency on the same. It was also brought to notice that the public interest litigation (PILs) will be heard by benches led by the Chief Justice of India and the two senior-most puisne judges in most cases,for the disposal of old cases. As per the sources,the system needed re-jigging, pointing to the recent spate of retirements and impending ones, which necessitated redistribution of case categories. Very soon,there will be specialised benches for direct and indirect taxation, land acquisition, compensation (including motor vehicle

The Bombay High Court has held that in a Public Interest Litigation, the Court cannot permit the Petitioners to participate in judicial or quasi judicial proceedings pending before the Revenue Authorities, to which the Petitioners are not party. The Aurangabad Division Bench of Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Y. G. Khobragade dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed intent to convey to the Bench that their desire is to protect the Gairan land situated in Hingoli, Taluka and District Hingoli. They are aggrieved that the person who was allocated the portion of that land, has indulged in creating third party interests. On deeper scrutiny of this Public Interest Litigation paper book, the Bench noted that the person who is alleged to have created third party interest, was before the Court in Petition of 2010. By an order dated 26.09.2013, the High Court have directed the Revenue Authorities to look into the issue of the use of the Gairan land. A proceeding is already

The High Court of Karnataka has refused to stay the blocking order issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) to Twitter Inc under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Rejecting the petition filed by the microblogging site, the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Krishna S. Dixit further imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on the social platform for its conduct.  The Bench rebuked the counsel appearing for Twitter for not complying with the notices issued to it, noting that punishment for non-compliance was seven-year imprisonment and unlimited fine. It said the petitioner did not submit any reason for delaying the compliance by more than a year. Then all of a sudden, the petitioner complied and approached the Court, noted the High Court, remarking that Twitter was not a farmer, but a billion dollar company. The High Court said it had framed eight issues in the matter. Regarding locus standi, it said this has been answered in Twitter’s favour. Regarding

The Bombay High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed raising the issues regarding illegal activities done by the Assistant Director, Town Planning, Municipal Corporation, Ahmednagar/Respondent No.6. According to him, Respondent No.6 has done illegal acts in the last 4 years. His such acts have caused a huge loss to the exchequer of the Municipal Corporation as well as the State Government. No departmental enquiry is initiated against him and instead of punishing him, he has been rewarded with promotion. He is hands in gloves with the Commissioner, Municipal Corporation. He caters to the needs of politically influential people. The memo of the petition contains several such allegations, though bereft of substantiation. The Aurangabad Division Bench of Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Y. G. Khobragade noted that the petitioner has not disclosed his source of income. No details of his income are set out. By this petition, the Petitioner desires that the Court

The Allahabad High Court has stayed the arrest of Harjinder Singh, distributor of Broadband Internet service provider company DEN, and his son on charges of conspiracy and cheating and has sought reply from the state government within six weeks. The Division Bench of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prakash Padia passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Harjinder Singh and Another. The petition has been filed with the prayer to quash the First Information Report 24.5.2023 registered as Case under sections 420, 409, 403, 441, 379, 427, 504, 506, 120B Indian Penal Code and Section 65 & 72 of Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 and Section 25 of Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 at Police Station Izzatnagar, District Bareilly. Further prayer has been made not to arrest the petitioners in the aforesaid case. Counsel for the petitioners submitted that the impugned FIR has been lodged alleging therein that the informant’s company is in the business of fixed l

By Dr Pallavi Gupta and Dr NK Bahl In June 25, 2015, a 21-year-old woman in Tumakuru district of Karnataka went to attend her computer class at 10:30 am. But she did not return home. Her brother, who was working at a dairy, heard some people there mentioning that someone had murdered a girl by slitting her neck. When he, along with his uncle, reached the site, he found to his shock that the victim was his sister. The miscreants had thrown her clothes and bag in the bushes and raped her. In order to hide this crime, they murdered her with a weapon. The incident happened between 3 pm to 5 pm. An FIR was registered against unknown persons. The accused was arrested seven days after the incident. After investigation, a charge sheet was filed by the police under Section 376/302 of the IPC. There were no eyewitnesses. Bloodstained clothes and a towel with the B+ blood group were recovered from the residence of the accused. The blood group of the victim was also B+. There were six injuries

The Allahabad High Court stayed the arrest of the petitioner in the case registered two years ago on charges of cheating at George Town police station and directed the petitioner to cooperate in the investigation. The Division Bench of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prakash Padia passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Sandeep Mitra. The petition has been preferred for quashing the FIR dated 29.8.2020 being Case under Section 147, 148, 149, 323, 504, 506, 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 406 and 120-B IPC, P.S George Town, District Prayagraj and for a direction to respondents not to arrest the petitioner pursuant to aforesaid FIR. The Court noted that, Counsel for the informant submitted that the other co accused has also preferred Criminal Misc Writ Petition (Madhurima Mitra v State of U.P & Ors) in which following conditional interim order was passed on 30.5.2023:- “Heard counsel for the petitioner, counsel for the first informant and AGA for the State. Co

The Bombay High Court directed the state government to place on record the details regarding the State Council, District Committees/District Co-ordination-cum Monitoring Committees on implementation of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007. The Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Sandeep V. Marne heard a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed for a direction to respondent (State of Maharashtra) to issue detailed guidelines for licensing, registration and management of the old age homes across the State. Further directions are sought in respect of the scheme framed under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Rules 2010 . The prayers regarding old age homes are traceable to Section 19 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, which reads thus: – “19. (1) The State Government may establish and maintain such number of oldage homes at accessible places, as it may deem necessary,

Come July 3, the Supreme Court will witness a completely new process for listing and mentioning of fresh cases before the Chief Justice of India. The Apex Court, which is set to open on Monday after the summer vacation, will adopt to this new process, wherein all fresh miscellaneous matters which are verified by Tuesday will automatically be listed on the coming Monday, while those verified after Tuesday will be listed for Friday of the next week. The lawyers seeking listing of verified fresh matters prior to such allotted dates will be required to submit their mentioning proformas by 3 pm, so that their cases are heard on the next day. For those seeking listing on the same day, the proformas will have to be submitted by 10:30 am to the mentioning officer along with a letter of urgency. The CJI will then take a call on the same either during the lunch hours or ‘as the exigency may warrant’. For after-notice and regular hearing matters that are sought to be urgently listed, the Cou

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday made it clear that a court did not have any religion of its own and was only concerned with the law and order situation of a state or country. Once again slamming the makers of movie Adipurush for portraying Hindu Gods such as Lord Ram, Lakshman, Hanuman and Goddess Sita in a poor light, the Bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Justice Shree Prakash Singh observed that the court of law was concerned with the sentiments of all religions equally. It noted that the sentiments of people must have been hurt by the way the movie portrayed the religious characters being worshipped for centuries.  The Bench further noted that in recent times, it had come across several movies wherein the Hindu god and goddess were shown in a funny way.  Expressing concern over the number of such incidents increasing day-by-day, the High Court mentioned a movie, wherein Lord Shankar was shown running with his Trishul in a very funny manner. The Bench further aske

The Allahabad High Court has directed the family members including the opposition father to present the petitioner/ corpus on July 14 on the habeas corpus petition filed to Pinky Sharma (Corpus) of Sahibabad, Ghaziabad from illegal detention. A Single Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Singh passed this order while hearing a Habeas Corpus Writ Petition filed by corpus And 2 Others. The Habeas Corpus Writ Petition has been preferred alleging inter-alia that the petitioner no 1/corpus is wife of petitioner no 2- Golu Sharma. Both the petitioners are major and they have solemnized their marriage in Arya Samaj Vedic Sansthan Mandal, Ghaziabad on 20.03.2023 and got their marriage registered on the same day i.e on 20.03.2023 in the office of Marriage Registrar Officer-Vth, Ghaziabad and thereafter they were living as husband and wife. It is also alleged that on 28.05.2023, petitioner no 1/corpus has been forcibly taken away from the house of petitioner no 2 by the respondent nos 5 to 11 who

The Bombay High Court disposed of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking directions to establish circuit bench of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). The PIL filed by one Nicky Pokar further prayed – -directions for activating and enabling the e-filing; and -to have NCLAT proceedings through online/virtual mode as a permanent feature. The Public Interest Litigation was filed on 21 December 2020 and is pending. The Counsel for the Petitioner states that e-filing has been initiated in the NCLAT and states that this prayer is worked out. As regards the directions for establishing circuit bench, the Counsel states that proceedings will be taken out in the appropriate Court. Therefore, the Counsel restricts the Petition to the prayer regarding online/virtual mode of hearing in NCLAT on a permanent basis. The Counsel for the Petitioner states that on 21 December 2020, online/virtual mode was provided for during the Covid-19 Pandemic, and then it was discontin

The High Court of Bombay on Wednesday adjourned to July 25, the regular bail petition of human rights activist Gautam Navlakaha, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018. Earlier on April 7, a Special National Investigation Agency court had denied regular bail to the former secretary of People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR). Special Judge Rajesh Katariya heard Navlakha’s bail plea, as directed by the Bombay High Court and refused to grant regular bail to the activist. On November 10 last year, the Supreme Court had shifted the 73-year-old human rights activist from Taloja Prison, where he was then lodged, to house arrest for one month, on medical grounds. The Bench of Justice K.M. Joseph and Justice Hrishikesh Roy passed an interim order for his one-month house arrest in Mumbai, considering his age and medical conditions. The Apex Court had put some conditions on the activist during his house arrest. Navlakha was told not to use mobile phone, internet, laptop

Google has filed an application in the Supreme Court against the March 29 order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) that upheld the Rs 1,337.76 crore penalty imposed on the tech giant by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for anti-competitive conduct in the Android ecosystem. A Google spokesperson told the media on Tuesday that the tech giant has filed an appeal against the NCLAT order because the Tribunal, while acceding to the fact that harm for anti-competitive behaviour needed to be proven, did not apply this requirement to several of CCI’s directions which it upheld. On March 29, the Bench of NCLAT Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Dr Alok Srivastava, Member (Technical) had set aside the four key directions issued in paragraphs 617.3, 617.9, 617.10, and 617.7 of the CCI order. The CCI had ruled under Paragraph 617.3 that Google shall not deny access to its play services Application Programming Interface (APIs) to disadvantage the Original Equipmen

The Allahabad High Court today has observed as to why the tolerance level of a particular religion (referring to Hindus) was being put to the test by them. Slamming the makers of the movie Adipurush for portraying religious characters including Lord Rama and Lord Hanuman in an objectionable manner. “The one who is gentle should be suppressed? Is it so? It is good that it is about a religion, the believers of which did not create any public order problem. We should be thankful. We saw in the news that some people had gone to cinema halls (wherein the movie was being exhibited) and they only forced them to close the hall, they could have done something else as well,” the bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Justice Shree Prakash Singh orally remarked while noting that the CBFC should have done something while granting certificate in the matter. “Agar hum log ispar bhi aankh band kar len kyonki yeh kaha jaata hai ki yeh dharm ke log bade sahishnu (Tolerant) hain to kya uska test l

The High Court of Karnataka has dismissed a petition filed by the Principal and other officials of a school in Kodagu district, who were accused of allegedly abetting the suicide of a student. As per the complaint filed by the family of the 15-year-old, the ‘mischievous’ student was suspended for allegedly carrying alcohol to school. Parents of the student sought permission for him to appear for examinations online from his home, which was accepted by the school.  However, the student kept waiting for the exam link but did not receive the same. After the exam and answer sheet collection time got over, he committed suicide, added the complaint. The Single-Judge Bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna noted that the boy was in communication with the school even up to 15 minutes before his death, which proved proximity with the commission of suicide.  It said prima facie, the ingredients of Section 107 of the IPC were met, which would become an offence under Section 305 of the Indian Penal

The High Court of Calcutta came down heavily over a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) having similar content to a petition filed by some of the nominees to the Panchayat polls, which was pending for hearing before the High Court. In the current plea, some voters had complained that the unopposed elections of candidates from the ruling party from their block, while stopping the candidature of rival ‘prospective’ nominees, took away their right to choose. The Division Bench of Chief Justice Sivagnaman and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta noted on Monday that a similar petition, filed by some ‘prospective’ candidates, complaining of being stopped from filing nominations from Canning-I block, was pending before the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Amrita Sinha. The High Court noted the substantial similarities between the recitals and prayers of both Writ petitions filed in the matter by private litigants. It orally remarked that the averments in both the petitions, including more than seven para

The gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and Ashraf Ahmed’s sister, who was gunned down while he was in a police custody in Uttar Pradesh, has moved Apex Court asking for a probe headed by a retired judge to look into the state-sponsored killing’ of the duo. The complaint has also been made on the encounter of Atique’s son and her nephew by the police. Advocate Vishal Tiwary also had also filed a petition that remains pending before the apex court seeking an independent inquiry into the killings of the Ahmad brothers, which was caught on live television, and 183 other encounter killings in the State of UP since 2017. A comprehensive affidavit has been asked by the Apex Court from the Uttar Pradesh government on the steps taken to enquire into the killings, besides seeking information on the inquiry into the encounter killings of the other accused in the Umesh Pal murder case, including Atique Ahmed’s son Asad. The petition was filed through advocates Somesh Chandra Jha and Amartya Ashis

A new Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has been formed, which will hear  four cases starting July 12. Led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud, the Bench will comprise Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Justice P.S. Narasimha, Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Manoj Misra. The cases to be listed before the Bench are: 1. Tej Prakash Pathak and Ors vs Rajasthan High Court and Ors 2. Central Organisation for Railway Electrification vs M/s ECI SPIC SMO MCML (JV) A Joint Venture Company 3. M/s Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co Ltd vs Rambha Devi & Ors 4. JSW Steel Limited vs South Western Railway & Anr The post New Constitution Bench of Supreme Court led by CJI Chandrachud to hear 4 cases from July 12 appeared first on India Legal . from India Legal https://ift.tt/BLaKDqZ

Supreme Court judge, Justice K.V. Viswanathan on Monday announced that he was recusing himself from hearing the petitions relating to a case registered against the directors of Gurugram-based realty group M3M under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The Vacation Bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Viswanathan directed the Registry to place the matter before an appropriate bench on Tuesday. The Apex Court was today hearing a bunch of petitions, including the one related to M3M.  The plea challenged the Delhi High Court verdict of June 16, wherein the Single-Judge Vacation Bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh had refused to interfere with the arrest of Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of M3M in connection with an alleged bribery case against a former judge and others. During the course of hearing, Justice Viswanathan indicated that he had appeared for the co-accused in connected matters arising out of the case. Representing the Bansal brothers, Senior Advocate

The High Court of Delhi on Monday upheld the 10-year imprisonment awarded by a trial court to five officers of the Uttar Pradesh Police department for custodial death of a 26-year-old man in 2006.  Questioning the Police’s narrative that the accused had committed suicide, the High Court found that the records were fabricated.  The Court further found it ‘hard to accept’ that the deceased had committed suicide and then sustained such injuries during the process of being saved by trained police personnel. However, it dismissed the petition filed by the family of the deceased to convert the conviction of the accused policemen from Section 304 (causing death by negligence) to Section 302 (murder) of IPC. In March 2019, Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra of Karkardooma Courts had convicted the policemen for custodial death of one Sonu in 2006. The cops were accused of falsely implicating Sonu in a robbery case by forging incorrect entries and torturing him to death. The

The Calcutta High Court granted liberty to the petitioners to approach the concerned authority regarding fraudulent regarding disbursement made to the facilitators of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) Project. The Division Bench of Chief Justice T. S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya disposed of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) alleging that fraudulent disbursement has been made to the facilitators of PMAY Project and the private respondents have been named to have defrauded the revenue. According to the petitioners, dead persons have been included as beneficiaries, the bank accounts of the beneficiaries have been changed at the last minute and unknown persons have swindled the public money. The petitioners had not made any proper representation and the annexures to the petition are certain queries which have been raised under the RTI Act and the information supplied by the Public Information Officer. “The representation said to have been given by the petitioners on

The High Court of Madhya Pradesh has refused to quash an order of the Gwalior MP/MLA Court that took cognisance of a defamation complaint filed against former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh for his alleged remark that members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were ‘jasoos’ (detectives) of Pakistan. A private complaint was filed by one Awdhesh Singh under Sections 499 and 500 of IPC before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Gwalior, contending that on August 31, 2019, petitioner and Digvijay Singh had falsely blamed the workers of RSS and BJP for being the detectives of Pakistan.  The Congress leader had further said that the majority of persons who were arrested for allegedly working for ISI were non-Muslims, noted the plea. Complainant Awdhesh claimed that he was an Advocate by profession and a worker of RSS and also an inviting member of BJP. He alleged that Digvijay’s statement was defamatory and caused a significant dent to the image of both RSS

Putting a stay on the restoration of minor custody to the father, the Supreme Court remarked that Orissa High Court failed to ascertain the welfare of the child.  The Division Bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice B.V. Nagarathna noted that welfare of the child is paramount consideration in legislations including Muslim law for adjudicating cases related to child custody. The appellant, sister and niece of the father in the present plea, pointed out that biological parents of the girl had earlier abandoned her on the ground of financial incapability followed by a declaration of not wanting a girl child.  The petition further stated that legal recourse to gain custody was only initiated when a property dispute arose between the parties.  The minor girl wants to live with her father’s sister and niece, the Advocate for the petitioner argued.  On the basis of evidence and the submissions made before the Bench, the court put an interim stay on the order of the High Court of Orissa