High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Allahabad High CourtThe Allahabad High Court, on Wednesday, ruled that an application for voluntary retirement cannot be rejected solely on the ground of there being a scarcity of doctors in the State.Chhattisgarh High CourtThe Chhattisgarh High Court held that the State Human Rights Commission is only a recommendatory body and it has no power and jurisdiction to direct payment of compensation.Delhi High CourtEncroachment on pavements cannot be permitted to stand and no person has the right to maintain them, the Delhi High Court said as it once again called for response from all civic bodies concerned on relocation of idols and religious structures obstructing pedestrian and vehicular movement in Karol Bagh area and other encroachments in the Southern ridge.After the defacement of public spaces in the national capital during the Delhi University Students Union Election, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday expressly asked the DUSU, its president Rocky Tuseed, the varsity and other authorities concerned to beautify Delhi on the lines of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan and undertake spreading public awareness, by all means, about defacement being punishable with 10-year imprisonment.Unhappy with the pace of probe into the attack on a whistleblower while performing his duties as a court-appointed commissioner to assess the magnitude of the problem of unauthorised construction, the High Court handed over the investigation to the Crime Branch of Delhi Police asking it to bring the culprits to book expeditiously.The High Court on Friday refused to restrain Arnab Goswami and Republic TV from airing the news items or debates relating to the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife.Gujarat High CourtThe Gujarat High Court, on Tuesday, rejected the Appeals challenging the ex-parte injunction rendered by Additional Senior Civil Judge B.K. Dasondi of Ahmedabad rural court against The Wire.Jammu & Kashmir High CourtOrdering release of a man detained for being a ‘notorious stone pelter’, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court observed that prevention detention laws cannot be made a substitute for the ordinary law and absolve the investigating authorities of their normal functions of investigating crimes which the detenu may have committed.Kerala High CourtWhile overruling the objections of the Central Government regarding exhibition of documentaries ‘March, March, March’ and ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, the Kerala High Court observed that mere disturbance of law and order was not a ground to curtail freedom guaranteed to film maker under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. ‘March, March, March’ dealt with student agitations in Jawaharlal Nehru University, and ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ dealt with agitations in Hyderabad Central University (HCU) in the wake of the suicidal death of scholar Rohit Vemula.The High Court dismissed a plea questioning the authority of some Kerala ministers to continue as ministers, for their abstinence from cabinet meeting convened by the Chief Minister.Madhya Pradesh High CourtThe Madhya Pradesh High Court has granted three more weeks to the state government to furnish report on the action taken against erring police officials who did not lodge an FIR in the Bhopal gangrape case.The High Court, commuted death penalty imposed on a man convicted for rape and murder of a minor girl, who was his niece.Madras High CourtThe Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, on Wednesday, directed the Tamil Nadu Government to stop all sand quarrying and mining activities within six months and prohibited it from opening any sand quarries in the future.Punjab & Haryana High CourtThe Punjab and Haryana High Court, on Monday, dismissed a Petition seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the brutal lynching 16-year-old boy, Junaid Khan, in June this year.

High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Ashok K.M

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