With All Due Respect

The Delhi High Court’s order granting bail to erstwhile student leader from Jawaharlal National University, Kanhaiya Kumar had very strange observations in it. I had an occasion to criticize it here. In another such judgment, this time the Bombay High Court in a much criticized judgment recently granted bail to 3 accused persons alleged to have committed crimes under Section 302, 307, 143, 147, 148, 149, 120B and 153A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Pertinently the maximum punishment under these...

Right To Alcoholic Drink Not A Fundamental Right: Kerala HC [Read Judgment]

Right to privacy—if right to take intoxicating drinks were one— always subject to reasonable restrictions, the bench held.The Kerala High Court has dismissed a challenge against the government’s liquor policy, observing that the laws prohibiting alcoholic drinks will not fall foul of the fundamental rights guaranteed to a citizen.Anoop MS had challenged the policy on the ground that...

ECI Says ‘Bicycle’ Belongs To Akhilesh Yadav [Read Order]

The Election Commission of India has held that the group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol ‘bicycle’.Rejecting the contention put forth by the group led by Mulayam Singh Yadav on the touchstone of the functioning of rival groups as per the party constitution, the commission observed that the test of majority should...

Bombay HC Grants Bail To Murder Accused, Says They Were "Provoked In The Name Of Religion" [Read Order]

Making drastic observations, Bombay High Court has granted bail to three men accused of murdering Shaikh Mohsin. The single bench of Justice Mridula Bhatkar granted bail to the three accused observing – “The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favour of the applicants/accused. Moreover, the applicants/accused do not have...

Files On PM Modi’s Foreign Visits Confidential, Exempted Under RTI Act: CIC [Read Order]

The Central Information Commission has rejected an RTI plea seeking information on costs in relation to the Prime Minister’s foreign travel, observing that disclosure of travel arrangements of the PM, whether foreign or domestic, involve important security concerns.The commission, perusing the files, said the sought information was of a nature that is exempted under Section 8 (1)(a) of the...

Interview: Scholar And Author Chintan Chandrachud Says Considerable Political Traction Is Necessary To Overturn A Judgment

Chintan Chandrachud is an associate at the London office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan LLP. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Cambridge, master’s degrees from Oxford and Yale, and a law degree from the Government Law College, Mumbai.His research has been published in prominent newspapers, journals and books, including The Hindu, Public Law, and The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution. He has undertaken several pro bono litigation projects and was chairperson of the...

Madras HC Bars Kazis From Issuing Talaq Certificates [Read Order]

The Madras High Court on Wednesday, in an interim order, held that for purposes of courts of legal proceedings, the certificate issued by the chief kazi is only an opinion and has no legal sanctity.The bench also directed that no certificate in respect of talaq would be issued as an opinion by the chief kazi.The bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh was hearing a petition...

Entry Tax On E-Commerce Sites Prima Facie Unconstitutional, Says Allahabad HC [Read Order]

The Allahabad High Court has observed that the levy of entry tax on e-commerce sites is prima facie unconstitutional as the state legislature has no authority or competence to do so.This observation was made by the Bench comprising Justice Ravindra Nath Mishra and Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi, in an interim order on a plea by Instakart Services Pvt. Ltd. which had challenged the levy of...

The Kerala High Court's NSS Judgment Defies The Supreme Court

The Kerala High Court judgment in Nair Service Society v University Grants Commission is completely incorrect in law and should be set aside by the Supreme Court. This case, concerning the constitutional validity of relaxation of marks by the UGC in the National Eligibility Test (NET) for candidates belonging to Scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, Other Backward Classes and disability categories, has been decided almost entirely without reference to the correct case law. The judgment completely...

Interview: How Courts Use Stereotypes And Myths In Sentencing, Explains Academic & Author, Mrinal Satish

Prof Mrinal Satish is Associate Professor of Law, and Executive Director, Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy, and Governance at the National Law University, Delhi.He is a graduate of Yale Law School and the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. He holds masters and doctoral degrees in law from Yale Law School. His doctoral dissertation examined sentencing policy and practice with a special focus on rape sentencing in India.He was part of the research team that assisted the...

UID/Aadhaar Enabled Bio-Metric Attendance System (AEBAS) Violates Supreme Court’s Orders

Seeding of UID/Aadhaar not permitted by both the Court’s order and the Aadhaar Act 2016It is in breach of promise made in the UID/Aadhaar Number Enrolment Form Some 639 organizations registered over 1.88 lakh employees, over 5000 active devices in contempt of Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench order on the subject of 12-digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Number. This has been revealed by a government document titled “Aadhaar: Dynamics of Digital Identity”. The Court reiterated...

Govt Servant, Who Has Begotten Child By Surrogacy, Entitled To Maternity Leave: Chhattisgarh HC [Read Judgment]

Right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India includes the right to motherhood and also the right of every child to full development, the court held.There cannot be any discrimination between a natural mother and a mother who has begotten child by surrogacy procedure, the Chhattisgarh High Court has observed while holding that a female government servant, who has begotten a child...