High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Allahabad High CourtThe Allahabad High Court on Monday refused to grant interim relief to private power companies from the circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which gives borrowers 180 days’ time to clear their dues— a deadline that ended on Monday.Full Bench of the High Court on Monday directed the Principal Secretary, Law as well as the Principal Secretaries in the Department of Finance or P.W.D. to remain present before it in order to formulate a time-bound program for the resolution of the issues plaguing the District Judiciary in the State.The High Court recently imposed personal costs of Rs. 5,000 on an Executive Engineer, Bandhi Prakhand, Varanasi for wearing “pink coloured half sleeves shirt and jeans” for the hearing.Bombay High CourtThe Bombay High Court on Friday ruled as constitutional the prescription for prospective judges to have sufficient knowledge of Marathi to practice in subordinate courts in Maharashtra.Justice GS Patel of the High Court refused to allow the state government to discontinue an advocate’s services from a 45-year-old suit that he has been appearing in since 2016.The High Court recently gave the benefit of doubt to an accused convicted of murder, accepting his defence that the murder took place in a heat of passion as he was being forced to perform unnatural sex by the deceased.A division bench of the High Court referred an important question of law to a larger bench in a case involving a police officer convicted of rape of the victim who was in his custody.The High Court orally expressed doubts about the maintainability of criminal charges against Poonam Agarwal, Associate Editor of “The Quint”, for the suicide of a jawan after a sting expose. She has approached the High Court seeking to quash the FIR registered against her alleging abetment of suicide of the jawan who was interviewed in the sting video.The High Court recently imposed an unprecedented Rs 1.5 crore as cost on Galpha Laboratories for being guilty of habitual infringement and directed the pharma company to draw a demand draft in favour of the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund for Kerala floods.Chhattisgarh High CourtThe Chhattisgarh High Court quashed and set aside the order of extension of tenure of Vice-Chancellor of Hidayatullah University, Prof. (Dr) Sukhpal Singh. The division bench of Justice Goutam Bhaduri and Justice Sanjay Aggarwal concluded that the Executive Council’s recommendation for extension of tenure was not sustainable as the council failed to apprise the Chancellor of the University about the actual facts of the case before recommending such extension.Delhi High CourtDelhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and the Delhi Government, while suggesting digital recording of witness statements and effecting recovery by the Delhi Police.The High Court directed the city police to provide due protection to a disabled man, a school teacher, who apprehended threat to his life from his estranged wife, who he claimed has been harassing their son too.The High Court on Tuesday directed that rights activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested by Maharashtra police for alleged Maoist links, should not be taken away from the national capital till it hears the matter tomorrow morning.The High Court on Friday directed the Centre to examine and take expeditious decision on the candidature of para table tennis players who had been recommended by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) for the upcoming Asian Para Games to be held in Indonesia.As the Supreme Court ordered house arrest for the five arrested activists Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Fereira, Gautam Navlakha and Vernon Gonsalves, the High Court, also indicated that it would examine the legality of the transit remand order of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate while dealing with the habeas corpus petition filed by Navlakha, a rights activist.The High Court deferred hearing the petition of Gautam Navlakha against the order issued by Chief Metrapolitan Magistrate,Saket giving transit remand to Maharashtra police in relation to alleged involvement in Bhima-Koregaon violence.The High Court stayed for one month the Central Government order preventing manufacture and sale of drugs containing oxytocin by private companies. The impugned order permitted only a public sector company, Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceutical Ltd(KAPL), to manufacture and sell oxytocin drugs.Himachal Pradesh High CourtThe Himachal Pradesh High Court sentenced a lawyer to one-month imprisonment for his contemptuous comment against judges on his Facebook page. The bench of Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Chander Bhusan Barowalia, which also ordered the deletion of Vikas Sanoria’s Facebook account, observed that growing trend of “judges bashing” has to be stopped and dealt with an iron fist.Jharkhand High CourtThe Jharkhand High Court on Monday quashed the State Government’s notification passed under section 16 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act,...

High Courts Weekly Round-Up

Ashok Kini

Tags