40 Important Kerala HC Judgments Of 2019

1. Death penalty awarded to man accused of rape and murder. The Kerala High Court commuted death sentence awarded to a man accused of rape and murder of a 15-year-old. The division bench comprising of Justices AM Shaffique and P Somarajan affirmed the conviction recorded by the trial court. The court said instead of death penalty, the punishment of life imprisonment would meet the ends of justice. But taking into account the gravity of the offence, the bench ordered that no remission shall be granted to the accused for a period of 25 years. (Case : Rajesh Kumar v. State of Kerala, Crl. A. No. 88 of 2014, judgement dated 8 January 2019)2. Banks liable for unauthorised withdrawals even if customers did not respond to SMS Alerts. The case filed by the plaintiff was that a total sum of Rs. 2,40,910.36 was withdrawn from his SBI NRE account between 22.3.2012 and 26.03.2012 through the ATMs at different places in Brazil. He filed a suit against the bank seeking refund of the amount along with interest. Though the bank said that it had no liability in connection with the unauthorised transactions as the customer did not respond to the SMS alerts it had sent to him. Justice PB Suresh Kumar, Kerala High Court said that a bank cannot be exonerated from liability for the loss caused to its customers on account of the unauthorised withdrawals made from his account merely on the ground that the customer has not responded promptly to the SMS alerts given by the bank. (Case : State Bank of India v. PV George, RSA No. 1087 of 2018, judgement dated 9 January 2019)3. Kerala HC quashes government order that allowed premature release of 209 prisoners. The full bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justices Abraham Mathew and Jayasankaran Nambiar, quashed the 2011 state government order which directed premature release of 209 prisoners who had then completed 10 years or more in jail. In 2011, the Government of Kerala invoking his powers under Article 161 of the Constitution of India had ordered premature release of 209 Prisoners who completed 10 years imprisonment and above. Many writ petitions were filed challenging this move by the state government. The court directed that the proposal for premature release of 209 Prisoners shall be examined afresh within a period of 6 months from then. "We make it clear that if no decision is taken by the functionaries under article 161 within the said period of six months, it will be deemed that there is no exercise of power under article 161 in favour of prisoners concerned and steps shall be taken to re incarcerate such prisoners for serving out the remainder of their sentence.", the court added. (Case No : WP(C) No. 14628 of 2011, judgement dated 11 January 2019)4. Compact Disc (CD) admissible in evidence in family court even without section 65B(4) certification. The single bench of the High Court held that a compact disc(CD) is admissible in evidence in proceedings in Family Court even without certification under Section 65B(4) of the Indian Evidence Act. The Division Bench of Justices C K Abdul Rehim and N Anilkumar held so based on Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, which relaxes application of Indian Evidence Act to proceedings in Family Court. The court added, " the purported voice of respondent extracted in the CD in our opinion has to be proved in the same manner as a tape recorded conversation. The petitioner can succeed in proving the alleged riotous dialogue in the CD only when the identity of the speaker is also proved" (Case : Pramod EK v. Louna VC, OP(FC) No. 513 of 2018, judgement dated 14 January 2019)5. A person's right as a devotee cannot be stopped citing his criminal background. The petitioner had approached the High Court claiming that he has been visiting the Sabarimala Temple for the past 15 years and that he is being denied entry for 'darsan' at Sabarimala citing his criminal background. The Kerala High Court bench comprising Justices P R Ramachandra Menon and N. Anil Kumar said, "In so far as the petitioner's right as a devotee cannot be prevented, or stalled but for imposing reasonable restrictions to the requisite extent, we find it appropriate to permit the petitioner to have the 'darsan' at Sabarimala on the basis of the assurance and undertaking given by the learned counsel that the petitioner will not get involved in any offence punishable under any provisions of law, nor will he cause any act of threatening or intimidating anybody; whether it be the traders or others." (Case : Rameshan v. State of Kerala, WP(C) 1004 of 2019, judgement dated 16 January 2019)6. No sales tax can be levied on medicines, implants, surgical tools used in medical procedures. The full bench of the Kerala High Court, Justices K. Vinod Chandran, A. Muhamed Mustaque and Ashok Menon ruled that medicines, implants and other...

40 Important Kerala HC Judgments Of 2019

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