Christmas and New Year Vacation Legal Updates

26th – 30th December 2021

Legal Awareness :- Daughters have Equal Property Rights

The Supreme Court On 11/08/2020 ruled that a daughter can claim equal share in parental property irrespective of when she was born and if her father was alive or not at the time of the 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act.

“Once a daughter always a daughter…son is a son till he is married”

The daughter shall remain a coparcener one who shares equally with others in inheritance of an undivided joint family property throughout life, irrespective of whether her father is alive or not.

“Daughters must be given equal rights as sons, daughter remains a loving daughter throughout life.”

26th December 2021 (Sunday)

  1. The Calcutta High Court asked the Election Commission to preserve the CCTV footage at all polling stations of the recently held Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections.  (BJP and ors. vs. State of West Bengal and ors.)
  2. A Vacation Bench of the Delhi High Court will be hearing only ‘extremely urgent matters’ on December 27, 29 and 31 this year.
  3. On Friday the Delhi High Court urged people of Delhi to exercise restraint and be responsible while celebrating Christmas and New Year.  (Kamlesh Jacob and Another v. State (NCT of Delhi) and Another)
  4. Today Chief Justice of India NV Ramana made it clear a government enjoying popular majority in the parliament is not a defence for its arbitrary actions.
  5. Today Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana said “Judges appointing judges” is a a widely propagated myth, in defence of the Collegium system which currently appoints judges to the Supreme Court and various High Courts across the country.
  6. The Delhi High Court has held that a false declaration made in relation to education qualification by a candidate standing for elections can be brought within the ambit of Section 123(4) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.  (Yogender Chandolia v Vishesh Ravi and Ors)
  7. After the retirement of Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan from the post Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra assumed charge as the acting Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court on 24th December 2021.
  8. The Bombay High Court stayed an order passed by an arbitrator nine years after the final award on the ground that the award was passed against parties who had never been party to the arbitration proceedings.  (Raigad Co-operative Housing Soc. Ltd. v. Truly Creative Developers Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.)
  9. Today the Supreme Court judge Justice S Abdul Nazeer said that the colonial legal system left behind by the British is not suitable for Indian population and Indianisation of legal system is the need of the hour.
  10. On Saturday Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) YS Jagan Mohan Reddy hosted a high tea for Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana at Vijayawada, a development which comes a year after the CM had written to former CJI SA Bobde complaining about Justice Ramana who was then the second senior-most judge in the Supreme Court.

27th December 2021 (Monday)

  1. Today the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court held that touching any part of a woman’s body without her consent, specially in the dead of the night by a stranger, amounts to outraging her modesty punishable under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC).  (Parmeshwar Dhage v. State of Maharashtra)
  2. IIM Calcutta has designed the Executive Programme in Business and Corporate Laws for working professionals who have an active interest in understanding the legal aspects of business, especially in today’s dynamic times.
    • Professor R. Rajesh Babu, Programme Director, said “The programme shall address the different facets of business and its operation including the strategic understanding of the legal environment to improve a firm’s competitive advantage, leveraging regulatory framework in designing strategies to differentiate in a dynamic and disruptive environment, minimize organizational and financial risks and other aspects. Having a reasonable understanding of the regulatory framework will help the manager/executive in designing the strategies and counter-strategies for competitive advantage.”
    • Professor V. K. Unni, Programme Director said, “The Programme will provide participants a comprehensive understanding of the legal environment in which the business, both national and international, operates. The programme shall address the different facets of business and its operation including but not limited to setting-up of business operations, raising capital – public offers, private placement, liability, transactions in the field of JV, M&A, external commercial borrowings, private equity/venture capital investments, capital and forex market regulations, strategic management of IPRs, Dispute Resolution through Arbitration, etc.”
  3. The Allahabad High Court acquitted a man who was awarded death penalty in the rape and murder of a minor.
  4. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court reaffirmed the Bombay High Court’s finding that in the absence of a specific penal provision creating vicarious liability, an administrator of a WhatsApp group cannot be held liable for objectionable content posted by the groups. (R. Rajendran v. Inspector of Police)
  5. The Punjab and Haryana High Court sought the response of the State of Haryana and the Excise and Taxation Officer on a plea challenging the practice of uploading names and photographs of alleged tax defaulters on the Central Excise Department website.  (Surya Board Ltd. and Anr. v State of Haryana and Ors)
  6. The Madras High Court has directed the Government of Tamil Nadu to come up with a standardized guide/prospective glossary containing the words and expression to address persons belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community.

28th December 2021 (Tuesday)

  1. The relationship between the Central government and the judiciary have always come under scanner when a government with absolute majority in parliament assumes power.
  2. Today Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani called on the government to punish those guilty of the recent hate speeches delivered during a conclave in Haridwar, Uttarakhand.
  3. The Allahabad High Court sought the response of former Shia Waqf board chairman Waseem Rizvi (now Jitendra Singh Tyagi) on a plea to refrain him from giving disputed religious statements regarding Islam and Quran on social media platforms or electronic media.
  4. Today the Delhi High Court has directed WhatsApp to either take down or block over 80 groups illegally circulating the e-newspapers of the Dainik Bhaskar Corporation Limited.  (DB Corp Ltd v WhatsApp LLC and Ors)
  5. Eleven judges are lined up for superannuation from the Bombay High Court in the year 2022, which will bring down the working strength of the High Court from 60 to 49 unless new appointments are made.
    • The sanctioned strength of the High Court in 94.
    • The following are the judges who will be retiring in 2022:
      • Justice SP Tavade: will retire on March 4, 2022
      • Justice SJ Kathawalla: he was known as the judge who sat well past Court working hours to hear matters. In May 2021, he along with Justice Tavade sat for over 12 hours from to hear cases, many of which required urgent intervention. The same Bench in the same week sat beyond midnight to hear a plea filed by former Commissioner of Mumbai Police Param Bir Singh. In May 2018, a day before the vacation, Justice Kathawalla as a single-judge had sat till 3.30 am to finish over 120 matters in day without taking a break. He is set to retire on March 23, 2022.
      • Justice VK Jadhav: will retire on May 16, 2022
      • Justice VM Deshpande: will retire on May 18, 2022
      • Justice Sadhana S Jadhav: she was heading the Bench which commuted death sentence of three men convicted in the 2013 Shakti mills gang rape case to life imprisonment. Justice Jadhav is set to retire on June 13, 2022
      • Justice AK Menon: will retire on July 11, 2022
      • Justice VG Bisht: set to retire on July 18, 2022
      • Justice SS Shinde: Justice Shinde was heading the Bench hearing criminal writ assignments from mid-2019 to mid-2021. During this time period, he heard a clutch of ‘high profile’ cases pertaining to Arnab Goswami in Anvay Naik suicide case and the investigation pertaining to Television Rating Points (TRP) scam case. He granted first medical bail in the Bhima Koregaon case to Telugu poet Varavara Rao and first default bail to co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj upholding their fundamental rights to life and health. Noting the piling up burden of pending trials in lower courts due to the COVID pandemic, he acknowledged that it was the undertrials who were languishing in prisons. These observations were made during hearing of cases where Justice Shinde granted bail to two boys accused of having allegedly joined ISIS. While hearing the bail appeals challenging the orders of the Special NIA Court refusing bail to Bhima Koregaon co-accused Father Stan Swamy, Justice Shinde was informed that Swamy had passed away in Holy Family Hospital. He expressed his condolences while appreciating the services Swamy offered to the society. He however withdrew the comment after it was pointed out that his statement may have been ‘misconstrued’ in the media.
      • Justice MG Sewlikar: retiring on September 20, 2022
      • Justice CV Bhadang: retiring on November 4, 2022
      • In addition to these eleven judges, Justice Pushpa Ganediwala‘s tenure as Additional Judge is set to expire in February 2022 and so far, she has not received any extension or confirmation.
        • Justice Ganediwala was the author of the controversial skin-to-skin judgment in Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act matter which had received a lot of flak with the Supreme Court eventually overturning the same.
    • (Refer from Bar and Bench)
  6. The Patna High Court reiterated a person whose death penalty has been commuted to life imprisonment is eligible for remission. (Anuj Kumar Gupta v. State of Bihar)
  7. The Madras High Court has decided to revert to full physical functioning from 3rd January 2022.
  8. Several young resident doctors have been protesting in Delhi for the past few days with the police action against them generating a huge controversy.

29th December 2021 (Wednesday)

  1. Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s Nyaaya is collaborating with Instagram and online platform ‘We The Young’ with the aim to spread legal information among the youth about issues like online violence, bullying and harassment and child sexual abuse.
  2. The Bombay High Court invoked presumption of guilt under Section 22(2) of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) while refusing to quash a first information report (FIR) against a businessman accused of being a part of a crime syndicate and committing extortion by giving threats of murder.  (Hemant Dhirajlal Banker v. State of Maharashtra & anr)
  3. The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (DCDRC) of South District, New Delhi, has directed Sun Pharmaceuticals (Sun) to compensate a consumer for the mental agony suffered by him after he was misled into believing that he won a 25-gram gold coin on purchasing a packet of the Revital Capsule.  (Zamiruddin vs. Nidhi Medicose)
  4. A letter petition has been moved before Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana seeking directions to the Delhi Police to take stern action against the “culprits” who physically assaulted protesting doctors in the national capital.
  5. Supreme Court judge Justice S Abdul Nazeer also highlighted another issue, albeit a contrasting one – docket exclusion while docket explosion is a major problem which leads to mounting arrears in Indian courts.
  6. Professor (Dr) Usha Tandon has been appointed as the new Dean and Head of the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. She is the 32nd Dean of the institution and occupies a position which has been previously held by many legal stalwarts.
  7. Today the Uttarakhand High Court issued notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea seeking postponement of upcoming assembly elections in the State in view of the threat posed by Covid’s Omicron variant.   (Sachdanand Dabral v Union of India and Ors)
  8. Today the Competition Commission of India (CCI) told the Karnataka High Court that it will not act against Google in the probe initiated by the competition watchdog against the tech giant in relation to its play store rules.  (Google India Pvt. Ltd. vs. Competition Commission of India)
  9. Today Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana said Free and fearless press is essential for an efficient democracy underscoring the “noble” role played by journalists in speaking truth to power.
  10. The Delhi High Court has issued a slew of directions for the implementation of rehabilitative schemes for juveniles in conflict with the law who are either lodged or have come out of care homes in the city.  (Court on its own motion v. State)

30th December 2021 (Thursday)

  1. The last decade has seen significant progressive changes, globally, when it comes to the rights and acceptance of the often-marginalised LGBTQI+ individuals across the world.
    • Several laws and policies have been repealed and enacted respectively for the well-being of queer persons with simultaneous progression, although not always in a linear trajectory, of acceptance of various sexual orientations and gender identities.
    • The Indian legislature has not prioritised a policy shift in this regard but the judiciary can and often has, especially over the last few years year, lit a path forward with increasingly inclusive judgements.
      • Navtej Singh Johar & Ors. v Union of India when the Supreme Court read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code effectively decriminalising all consensual sex, including homosexual intercourse.
    • Justice DY Chandrachud, in his concurring judgement, said “De-criminalisation is but the first step; The Constitution envisages much more. LGBTs are victims of Victorian morality. Constitutional morality and not Societal morality should be the driving force for deciding validity of Section 377.”
  2. Pooja Sood joins ORTIS Law Offices at its Delhi Office as a Partner and will head the firm’s IPR practice. Sood joins the firm from United IPR Group where she handled the patent practice.
  3. The Central government has extended the application of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Nagaland for another six months.
  4. Today the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court quashed criminal proceedings against law students who had assembled in front of law college to celebrate Dr. BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. (S. Dinesh Kumar v. The Inspector of Police)
    •  the Court ruled “The assembling of the law students in front of the Law College cannot constitute unlawful assembly. Since the accused wanted to celebrate the birthday of Dr.Ambedkar in advance and since the permission was denied, they appeared to have got agitated. This behaviour on the part of the students can be expected and it need not have been given a criminal colour.”
  5. Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Anil Kumar in charge of handling the case against Malayalam actor Dileep and his associates, the actress assault case, has handed in his resignation.
  6. Today the Delhi High Court has decided to revert to full virtual hearing from January 3, 2022 until January 15, 2022 in view of the spurt in COVID-19 cases and the consequent ‘yellow alert’ declared by the government in the national capital.
    • Today the Delhi High Court an office order issued the District Courts in Delhi will also hear cases through virtual mode only during the said period.

The year 2021 has been a great year for Legal Prudent Fraternity. We achieved new heights together with a lot of new collaborations and milestones. Thanks a lot to everyone. 🔥🙏🏻

Please share your valuable feedbacks for the year of 2021. It’ll take around 30 secs: www.LegalPrudent.in/feedback.html

Legal Prudent Fraternity