High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Allahabad High CourtThe Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court held that the award rendered by the Lok Adalat is not appealable and writ petition under Article 226 and/or 227 of the Constitution of India, against the award is maintainable on very limited grounds.Bombay High CourtIn a significant judgment, the Bombay High Court held that a petition for divorce through mutual consent can be filed through a registered power of attorney and directed the Family Court, Bandra, to allow recording of consent terms via Skype or any other technology.The High Court held that admission of marriage by the accused is not evidence of it for the purpose of proving a marriage in a bigamy case.The High Court held that the act of recovering credit card dues does not constitute an act of abetment.Calcutta High CourtBringing an end to the war of words that erupted over a “doubtful recall” by the West Bengal State Election Commission of its order extending time to file nominations for panchayat polls, the Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the commission to notify fresh dates for filing of nominations for panchayat elections which were scheduled for May first week.Chhattisgarh High CourtThe Chhattisgarh High Court upheld appointment of 11 members of the Chhattisgarh State Legislative Assembly MLAs as parliamentary secretaries to assistant different ministers, though it clarified that they cannot discharge any function as member of Council of Ministers.Delhi High CourtThe Delhi High Court last week ruled that the mandatory requirement of one year experience as Law Officer with Government / Semi Government/ Public Sector Undertaking/ Nationalized Banks/ Listed Companies on NSE/BSE cannot be considered the arbitrary denial of equal opportunity.The High Court, on Monday, sought responses from the Centre, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Jet Airways on a PIL alleging that the airlines have been violating national and international flight safety regulations by allowing unauthorized persons to travel aboard by “masquerading” as its crew on the basis of a “General Declaration” (GD).The High Court on Wednesday asked all media houses which revealed the identity of the 8-year-old Kathua gangrape-cum-murder victim to pay Rs 10L fine towards victim compensation fund maintained by the Jammu and Kashmir State Legal Services Authority for disbursement to victims/ families of the deceased victims of sexual violence.The High Court quashed the order of a trial court granting anticipatory bail to a 26-year-old MBA student accused of rape after he offered to do community service by teaching underprivileged children to show his bonafide towards the society.In a rather unusual judgement coming on the heels of Supreme Court’s Hadiya verdict, the High Court recognised that threat to the right of choice of a person and thereby right to life, liberty, privacy and dignity can very well come from the person‘s own parents and has directed the parents of a girl to pay her compensation of Rs 3 lakh for forcibly picking her up from the residence of her music teachers and detaining her in a mental institution where she was forced to spend one day and one night in “clear violation of Section 19 MHA read with Article 21 of the Constitution of India”.Gujarat High CourtThe Gujarat High Court, on Friday, reportedly acquitted former BJP Minister Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre case.Kerala High CourtInvoking the concept of ‘Lost Life Principle’, High Court of Kerala ordered an insurance company to pay additional compensation to the mother of a minor victim in a motor accident case.With government holidays and strikes taking away a fair share of instructional days from schools pressed hard to complete syllabus of Classes XI to XII, the Kerala High Court stayed the orders of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the government restraining schools from conducting classes during summer vacations and had asked the CBSE to fix days, though not more than 20, for such vacation classes.In Teesta Distributors v. State of Kerala, the High Court of Kerala struck down Rule 56(20A)(iii)(d) of the Kerala State GST Rules, 2017 (“KGST Rules”) as being ultra vires for lack of legislative competence. Orissa High CourtThe Orissa High Court observed that merely because the victim did not support the prosecution case during trial in respect of the co-accused persons, the same cannot be a ground to quash the criminal proceeding against the accused. Tripura High CourtThe Tripura High Court observed that no adverse inference can be drawn against a candidate seeking public employment, when the FIR once registered against him was quashed by the high court.

High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Ashok K.M

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