Legal News for Judiciary
- 1990 IAF Killings: Yasin Malik faces murder charge
- There is “enough prima facie evidence” to prosecute Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik and six others of the banned outfit in the case pertaining to the killing of four IAF personnel in Kashmir in 1990, a Jammu TADA court said on Saturday.
- Charges against all the seven will be framed on Monday.
- Malik is currently under trial for his alleged role in the killing of the four IAF personnel and abduction of Rubaiyya Sayeed, daughter of then Union home minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed, on December 8, 1989.
- In October last year, separatist Malik was scheduled to appear before the TADA court but the authorities of Tihar Jail, where he is lodged, could not produce him before the court.
- ‘Legal Services not under Consumer Protection Act’
- Service of lawyers won’t come under the Consumer Protection Act, Union consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.
- The statement came amid speculations from lawyers that the provision of “all services” could include legal services as well and thereby giving a handle to their clients to drag them to consumer commissions.
- False claim of impotence mental cruelty, says court
- Falsely accusing the spouse of impotence amounts to mental cruelty and is a ground for divorce, held a Delhi court.
- The court held so while granting divorce to a man whose wife accused him of being impotent.
- Even false allegations pertaining to demand of dowry and ill-treatment come under the ambit of cruelty, the court said.
- Ex-CJI Gogoi nominated as RS member
- Four months after retiring as CJI, Justice Ranjan Gogoi was nominated as member of Rajya Sabha by the President for his outstanding contribution in the field of law.
- The decision was criticised by Congress as controversial and undermining of the judiciary.
- Justice Gogoi is the first ex-CJI to get nominated to Rajya Sabha but the second, after ex-CJI Ranganath Misra, to become a member of the Upper House.
- Justice Mishra was elected on a Congress ticket.
- SC asks govt about steps taken to shield jails from Covid-19 spread
- Fearing that overcrowded prisons could become fertile grounds for spread of coronavirus, the Supreme Court on Monday initiated suo motu proceedings and asked states to respond by March 20 detailing steps taken to protect prisoners from falling prey to the epidemic.
- AGR dues: Govt seeks SC nod to grant 20 yrs to telcos
- The Centre on Monday sought the Supreme Court’s approval to grant 20 years’ time to telecom companies to pay in instalments Rs 1.69 lakh crore on account of adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
- The Centre sought the approval saying that the entire economy would be adversely impacted if telecom service providers are not granted enough time to pay the dues.
- Gogoi RS move blow to judicial freedom: Kurian
- Slamming former CJI Ranjan Gogoi for accepting a Rajya Sabha nomination, former SC judge Kurian Joseph said the decision had weakened judicial independence.
- SC gives Nath 24 hrs to reply on MP floor test
- The SC on Tuesday gave 24 hours to the Kamal Nath government in MP to respond to a petition seeking immediate floor test on the ground that the government had been reduced to a minority after the resignation of 22 MLAs.
- SC: Give women in Navy permanent commission
- Demolishing the Centre’s opposition to granting permanent commission to women naval officers in all cadres as “premised on sex stereotypes”, the Supreme Court quashed the government’s decision to restrict it to only specified branches, stressing on the need to overcome all such discrimination.
- A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Ajay Rastogi said gender discrimination cannot be allowed in the Navy on the “illusory” ground that male officers are more suited for certain duties by virtue of their physiological characteristics.
- This came exactly a month after the SC passed a verdict allowing command posting and permanent commission (PC) to women officers in Army.
- SC refuses to have MP MLA’s parade in court
- Supreme Court said it would “proceed to dictate the judgment (in the case), once arguments get over on Thursday afternoon”.
- It said so while refusing BJP’s offer to parade 16 rebel Congress MLAs before the Supreme Court judges.
- BJP asked so to counter Congress’s charge that the legislators were coerced to quit the party and held in captivity by BJP in Bengaluru.
- Reassessment of AGR will be contempt of court, says SC
- The Supreme Court slammed the Centre and telecom companies for not complying with its order and said any reassessment will amount to contempt of court.
- A bench of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice S A Nazeer and Justice M R Shah questioned the Centre for suggesting a staggered formula for repayment of AGR dues after fighting tooth and nail with the companies.
- It deferred by two weeks hearing on the Centre’s plea to allow telcos 20 years to pay dues but said the time period suggested by the government is unreasonable.
- “We will be party to fraud if we allow self-assessment of AGR dues by telecom companies,” the bench said.
- Are you setting free Omar too, SC asks J&K
- Days after National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah’s release from detention, the Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Jammu & Kashmir administration to inform whether it was also thinking of releasing his son, former CM Omar Abdullah.
- He happens to remain in detention under the stringent Public Safety Act.
- A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah adjourned the hearing on the plea of Omar’s sister Sara Abdullah Pilot as solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who appears for J&K, was not available.
- SC refuses to hear plea on BS-IV vehicles
- In a setback to automobile dealers, the Supreme Court refused to hear their plea seeking permission to sell BS-IV vehicles beyond the March 31 deadline, when BSVI norms will kick in, to clear their inventory which they have not been able to sell due to economic slowdown and Covid-19 scare.
- A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah refused to list the application filed by Federation of Automobile Dealers’ Associations (FADA) and said it can’t be heard before March 31.
- Cal HC junks leave-India notice to Pole
- The Calcutta HC set aside the expulsion order issued by FRRO to Kamil Siedcynski, a Polish student, for allegedly participating in an anti-CAA rally on December 19.
- “In a democratic country like India, the rights of any authority cannot be totally arbitrary and unrestricted. The fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution govern not only Indian citizens but foreigners as well, so long as they are on Indian soil,” Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya said.
- Siedcynski, a student of comparative literature at Jadavpur University, had challenged the expulsion order on the ground that he was inadvertently caught in the anti-CAA protest while taking pictures of the gathering from a pavement.
- SC asks Nath govt to take floor test
- The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh to a face floor test by 5pm on March 20 in the assembly by a show of hands of members.
- The court asked police chiefs of Karnataka and MP to ensure security for the 16 rebel Congress MLAs if they choose to participate in the voting by coming to Bhopal from Bengaluru.
- Justice at Dawn: Nirbhaya Killers Hanged
- A little over seven years after a 23-year-old medical student died following her brutal gangrape in a moving bus in south Delhi, four of the culprits were hanged by their neck to death at 5.30am on Friday.
- This was the culmination of a long judicial process during which the parents of the victim, Nirbhaya, swung between hope and despair.
- The fifth culprit, Ram Singh, had been found hanging in his jail cell in March 2013, four months after the incident, while the sixth convict, found to be a juvenile, was let off as part of a reformation process.
- The execution of the four — Vinay, Pawan, Akshay and Mukesh — was the first mass hanging in Tihar Jail.