Prolawctor Daily Legal Update| 13 August, 2020

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Daily Legal Update

  • Litigation Due To Ad-hocism in Recruitments and Promotions

In this case of Jammu and Kashmir, the practice of giving promotion on incharge basis without regular promotion was deprecated by Supreme Court.

The division bench observed that what is seen in the then State of J&K and now the Union Territory of J&K is that the aforesaid judgment of the Supreme Court is is being “complied with less and violated more”, as practically in all the departments, promotions are being made on incharge basis and the reasons therefore are not unknown.

The court also remarked that these employees continue working on that post for years together and whenever any transfer is sought to be made, they approach the court and persuade the court to grant interim relief and as a result of that, continue in the same position for years together.

  • Setting up a Special Cell for the victims of honour killing

In the case of Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, Delhi High Court has directed the Principal Secretary (Home) of the Delhi Government to file a status report in a plea seeking strict compliance with with the directions of the Supreme Court for setting up a Special Cell for the victims of honour killing.

During the proceedings, Standing Counsel (Criminal) Rahul Mehra had informed the court that the Delhi Government is taking appropriate measures to comply with the directions passed in the Shakti Vahini case.

The Division Bench of Justice JR Midha and Justice Brijesh Sethi had earlier directed the Delhi Government to ensure that a Special Cell is put in place, if it has not been constituted as of yet, to consider the case of a victim of honour killing.

  • Orissa HC sets aside GO mandating furnishing of bank guarantee instead of solvency certificate for excise licence

As per the notification released by the state government, no department will seek solvency certificate for granting licence. After this decision many petitions have been filed in HC of Orissa. The Orissa HC sets aside the GO of mandating bank guarantee instead of solvency certificate. The division bench mentioned that the statutory provisions of law or the Rules cannot be overridden by way of executive instructions.

  • Bail plea moved by Natasha Narwal in Delhi riots case

The Delhi HC issued notice on bail plea by pinjra tod member Natasha Narwal. Natasha Narwal is a pinjra tod activist who is accused under three FIRs filed against her in violating and provoking the Delhi riots. The present bail plea has been moved at crime branch for commission of offences under the unlawful assembly prevention act. She has been under judicial custody in Tihar Jail since she was arrested. The bail plea would be heard on August 28 by a single judge bench justice Vibhu Bhakru.

  • The students of Karnataka Law University move to the high court contending the university’s decision to Hold Exams for the Intermediate Semester Students.

A plea has been filed by a 3rd year law student, Purbayan Chakraborty, contending that the students belonging to the intermediate semester should be promoted using the method/formula proposed by the University Grants Commission, where 50 percent of the weightage should be based upon internal evaluation and the rest should be evaluated by the marks secured in the previous semester. The petition highlights that the present situation under which the students have been subjected to “disparate impact” due to various challenges faced by students while attending online classes. Therefore, in the present situation the petitioner urged the court to instruct the university to apply the method prescribed by the UGC.

  • Madras High Court stating that “Final Report Filed Only After Lapse Of 90 Days, Even Before Which Plea for Default Bail Filed” released a murder accuse.

Observing the final report, a bench constituting of Justice V. Bharathidasan stated that the petitioner submitted the application seeking bail on completion of 90 days period ascribed under the section 167(2). The period was completed on 07.06.2020, however the final report filed by the police before the concerned court was on 18.06.2020. Nevertheless, this has been wrongly dismissed by the Magistrate’s court. Consequently, the single bench judge rejected the argument put forth by the government’s advocate and granted release to the accused.

The single bench judge in the aforementioned plea highlighted the distinction between the section 57 and the section 167(2) of Code of Criminal Procedure by stating that “Section 57 of the Code of Criminal Procedure empowers the Police Officer to detain the accused in custody for 24 hours. However, Section 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as amended, authorizes the Magistrate to detain the accused in custody for a term not exceeding fifteen days in the whole. Section 167 also empowers a Magistrate to detain a person in custody while the investigation is being conducted by the police and also prescribes the maximum period for which such detention could be ordered. However, the provision to Section 167(2) stipulates the right of an accused to be released on bail after the expiry of maximum period of detention provided therein”.

  • 25% Horizontal Domicile Reservation Challenged- Karnataka HC to hear the plea of Bar Council of India

The Bar Council of India filed a petition before Karnataka High Court challenging the constitutional validity of 25% horizontal domicile reservation introduced by the National Law School of India (NLSIU Amendment) Act 2020.

The Bar Council of India in its plea mentions that the NLSIU Amendment Act 2020 is ultra vires on the grounds that it provides 25% of horizontal domicile reservation to the students of Karnataka and allots only 5% to the general merit cut off score.

The petitioner states that the National Law School of India has passed the amendment without prior consultation with the petitioner (BCI) which extremely interferes and infringes the statutory functioning of BCI. The plea also states that the amendment so made that is insertion of section 4 in the NLSIU Act is in contrast to the previous judgement delivered by this Hon’ble Court in “Lokasha Vs Convener, Common Law Admission Test (CLAT-2009)”.

The petition also states that there is no such reservation made by the State Law University and inserting such type of 25% domicile Reservation in NLSIU infringes the rights of General, SCs and STs category students.

BCI also prays to quash down the notification issued by NLSIU which contains revised seat matrix for BALLB (Hons) and LLM programs.

  • Trial Court’s Verdict upheld by Rajasthan HC – Murder Accused awarded Death Sentence.

Last week, a bench of Justice Sabina and Justice Chandra Kumar Songara of Rajasthan HC upheld the decision of Trial Court in a murder case and awarded the accused death sentence.

The accused Mohan Singh @ Mahaveer was charged under sections 302, 392 and 201 of IPC and was awarded death sentence by the trial court for murdering a woman by strangulation, and taking out various internal organs from her abdomen which included liver, ovary, bladder, uterus and some parts of intestine as per the post mortem examination report Exhibit P36. The accused stuffed the victim’s abdomen with blouse and petticoat and stitched it with wire.

The HC while upholding the conviction and death sentence of the accused made a note of all the circumstantial evidences, DNA test reports and CCTV footage and confirmed that the trial court has rightly convicted the accused.

The HC also noted that accused had tried to abscond from Open Air Camp, Sanganer while undergoing sentence in pursuance of his conviction.

Taking all the allegations in to consideration th HC upheld the decision of trial court.

Prolawctor Daily Legal Update| 12 August, 2020

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