Supreme Court Weekly Round Up

Live Law reported three judgments of Supreme Court of India, last week.

Late ‘serious’ charges no reason to deny pre arrest bail

Supreme Court on Monday, held that, merely because the accused is charged with a serious offence at a later stage may not by itself be the reason to refuse the grant of anticipatory bail if the circumstances are otherwise justified. The court observed that no purpose would be served in compelling the appellant to go behind bars, as an under trial, by refusing the anticipatory bail in respect of alleged incident which is 17 years old and for which the charge is framed only in the year 2014.

Criminal Courts finding not conclusive proof in civil proceedings

The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, held that the evidence and the finding recorded by the criminal courts in a criminal proceeding cannot be the conclusive proof of existence of any fact, particularly, the existence of agreement to grant a decree for specific performance without independent finding recorded by the Civil Court.It also said that the High Court failed to consider the scope of Section 20 of the Specific Relief Act and the law laid down by Supreme Court.

Govt. should speak in one voice

Supreme Court on Thursday in Lloyd Electric and Engineering Limited vs State of Himachal Pradesh, held that the Department of a Government cannot issue a notification contrary to the policy decision taken by the Government. Setting aside the High Court Judgment, a Three Judges bench of  Apex Court declared that the appellant is entitled to the concessional rate of Central Sales Tax @ 1 per cent with effect from 01.04.2009 till 31.03.2013 until it is duly varied by the State Government.

Last seen theory not safe to rely when time gap is long

Supreme Court on Friday, in Nizam vs State of Rajasthan, held that the if  the gap between the time of occurrence and the time when the accused was last seen, is considerably long,  it would be unsafe to base the conviction on the “last seen theory”.  Setting aside the conviction which was confirmed by High Court, the Apex Court said “In the absence of definite evidence that appellants and deceased were last seen together and when the time gap is long, it would be dangerous to come to the conclusion that the appellants are responsible for the murder”.

Other happenings in Apex Court

The Centre was slammed by the Supreme Court for its “callous and casual” approach towards welfare of urban labourers. The labour secretary was asked by the court to be personally present before it and explain how the government intends to spend over Rs 27,000 crore collected as construction cess.

The Supreme Court on Friday said that monitoring the implementation of the Right to Education Act across the country is a difficult task and it’s not possible for it to undertake such an exercise.

The Supreme Court today issued notice to Madhya Pradesh government on a plea by whistleblowers seeking transfer of four pending petitions relating to Private Dental and Medical College admission scam from Jabalpur High Court to Supreme Court.

A two Judge Bench of the Supreme Court  issued notice to Union of India, Bar Council of India and Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law Patiala, on a PIL filed by Professor Shamnad Bahseer seeking to set up a permanent body to conduct the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT).

Justice U U Lalit of the Supreme Court on Friday recused from hearing a petition filed by Social activist Harsh Mander seeking a fair trial into 2008 Malegaon blasts allegedly involving rightwing  Hindu extremist groups.

A Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi   came down heavily on its registry for poor maintenance of judicial records of a sensitive case and summoned the Secretary General of the Apex Court.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the appointment of law officers to represent governments in courts cannot be an act of “political appeasement” and must be transparent. A bench of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Kurian Joseph made this observation in the course of the hearing of a plea by the Punjab government challenging an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The Supreme Court  sought to know from the Centre about the steps taken to implement the recommendations of the special investigation team to bring back Rs 70,000 crore worth of black money stashed in foreign banks.

A PIL has reportedly been filed in the Supreme Court by an SC Advocate, Vineet Dhanda demanding Court’s intervention in the confrontation between the Centre and the students of Film and Television Institute of India, going on for more than two months. The Petition demands that transparency be restored in the appointment process in the institute.

Supreme Court Bar Association President, Mr. Dushyant Dave has written to Chief Justice H.L. Dattu, requesting the Supreme Court to adopt the practice of fixing the roster for reasonably long period, preferably for eight weeks. This is in light of the inconvenience faced by the litigants, as well as Members of the Bar, especially, those coming from outside of Delhi, arising on account of short durations of the Roster for the Benches.

The Indian Army today submitted before the Supreme Court that has put on hold all promotions of personnel from Lt Colonel  to Colonel rank till it decided on the validity of the new command and exit policy which is under challenge before it.

Supreme Court Bench comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice N.V. Ramana reportedly praised the Union Government on Tuesday for its “commitment” and the “positive steps” taken by the Centre for filling up vacancies meant for differently-abled persons.

The Centre told the Supreme Court that it could not approach the International Court of Justice as it had itself stopped Islamabad from doing so earlier.

Sri Ram Sene chief, Pramod Muthalik’s plea against a Bombay High Court decision upholding the order restraining him and his associates from entering the territory of Goa was dismissed by the Supreme Court on Monday.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi also directed legal journalists in the apex court to observe restraint while reporting the exchange between the judges and lawyers.