High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Allahabad High Court

Allahabad High Court convicted a lawyer for committing criminal contempt of subordinate Court and has sentenced him to undergo simple imprisonment of six months. Division bench of Justices Sudhir Agarwal and ShamsherBahadur Singh has also restrained the lawyer from entering the High Court and District court premises for a period of three years.

Bombay High Court

Bombay High Court on Thursday allowed the Appeal filed by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan against a Trial Court verdict which sentenced him for Five Year Imprisonment in the 2002 Hit and Run Case. Justice A.R.Joshi acquitted him of all charges holding that the prosecution failed to prove the Case beyond reasonable doubt.

Delhi High Court

Delhi High Court on Monday, dismissed the Petitions filed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi challenging the summons issued by a Trial Court on a Criminal Complaint filed by Dr. Subramanian Swamy

In a rare and remarkable gesture, the High Court has apologized to the authors of an Article, the contents of which were copied in the Judgment it delivered in F.Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd vs. Cipla Ltd. Division bench comprising of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Mukta Gupta said that they are also taking ‘corrective action’, by expunging those copied portions.

Delhi High Court directed the Central Government to ensure that appropriate legislation is made regarding the issue of restricting retired Supreme Court or High Court Judges from taking up arbitration work while holding constitutional or statutory posts, at the earliest. First bench comprising of the Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Rajiv SahaiEndlaw however, refused to give any directions restricting the appointees to the above mentioned posts, saying that it is a matter entirely in the domain of legislature.

High Court of Himachal Pradesh

The High Court of Himachal Pradesh, last week, held that, mobile tower radiations do not cause any health hazard to people living in its vicinity and it is a just a myth being spread in order to create panic among people. The first bench of the High Court comprising of Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir and Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan, dismissed a batch of writ petitions which had challenged installation of mobile towers near their residences.

Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court  directed all the Public prosecutors to make effective representation before the Courts hearing criminal cases, to award suitable compensation to victims of crime, not only in the cases where they end in conviction but also in the cases where the criminal cases end in acquittal or discharge. Justice Chandrashekara said that the direction issued by Apex Court in Suresh vs. State of Haryana, (2015) 2 SCC 227 is a binding precedent under Article-21 of the Constitution of India for all the Courts and the concerned authorities in the state.

Kerala High Court

The High Court of Kerala has directed the police to make available the copy of First Information Report to the accused within two days of his application. First bench comprising of Chief Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice A.M. Shafique also held that the police authorities are obliged to provide for copy of the FIR on an RTI application, unless an appropriate authority decides it is exempted under section 8 of the RTI Act.  Government was also asked to take a decision within three months, in the matter of uploading of all or certain category or nature of the FIR, in the official website with all concerned details.

The High Court on Friday, admitted to its files, a writ petition filed by former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan challenging the action of the National Human Rights Commission in closing his petition seeking action by the government against 5 former cops including ADGP Siby Mathews, and retired SP’s S. Vijayan and K.K. Joshwa- who had tortured him during the course of the investigation into the sensational espionage case of 1994.

Madras High Court

Madras HC, in a relief to a poor teenager, directed the bank, which had denied him the educational loan because of his ineligibility, to consider his case sympathetically. Division bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran said that his case may considered ‘without making it a precedent and on the clear understanding that as of right heis not entitled to grant of loan”.

While allowing a Writ Petition filed by Mrs. A. Muthuiruvakkal of Nagercoil in Kanyakumari district the Madras High Court Madurai Bench of Justice K. Ravichandrabaabu held that a Savings Bank Account maintained primarily for the purpose of depositing monthly pension amount could not be attached by a bank just because the account holder had defaulted repayment of a loan availed from them.

Punjab and Haryana High Court

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, held that merely because a spouse is having a Sexually Transmitted Disease, and consequentially the other spouse being not possible for that reason, does not constitute ‘cruelty’ for the purpose of getting divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act. Justice K. Kannan said that, though it has been held that refusal of sexual access is a ground for divorce, having a communicable disease does not afford a spouse a ground for divorce under the scheme of the Hindu Marriage Act.

The High Court held that Father in Law of a Government employee is not entitled to get medical reimbursement under the Punjab Medical Attendance Rules, 1940. Justice G.S. Sandhawalia held that father in law cannot be treated as part of family in the definition given in the rules.

The Court also held that legal heirs of the deceased cannot enter into a compromise with the accused. Justice Rajan Gupta refused to allow an application under Section 482 CrPC filed by the accused, saying that no ground for quashing the FIR is made in the application.

Tripura High Court

Upholding the conviction of a person who was accused of raping his own nine year old daughter, the Tripura High Court made some pertinent observations about public authorities who do not forward the complaints, public make to them, to the police. First bench of the High Court comprising of Chief Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice U. B. Saha apparently said that if the victims are very poor or illiterate, the concerned public authorities, should themselves lodge the complaint.