Today’s Legal Updates

Monday, 31st January 2022

Legal Awareness :- Voting Rights In India

Who can vote in India?

Our Indian Constitution has particularly laid certain qualifications to become eligible for voting in India.

  • One must be a Citizen of India
  • One must be above 18 years of age
  • Must be of sound mind.

Today’s Legal Updates:-

  1. Today Senior Advocate, Additional Solicitor General and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Rupinder Singh Suri passed away.
  2. The Allahabad High Court has directed all subordinate courts in Uttar Pradesh to ensure that their orders, statements and office reports are written in legible handwriting.
  3. Today the Kerala High Court granted bail to the accused husband of Mofiya Parveen, a young law student who recently died by suicide.  (Mohammed Suhail & Ors. v State of Kerala & Anr.)
  4. Today the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana lamented at the extraordinarily high number of anticipatory bail petitions being filed before the Supreme Court, remarking that the top court has turned into a court to hear such pre-arrest bail petitions.
  5. Today the Supreme Court observed that the constitutional courts have to show restraint in matters which require interpretation of tender documents.  (Agmatel India Pvt. Ltd. v. Resoursys Telecom & Ors.)
  6. Today the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended that Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari be appointed as Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.
  7. The prosecution in the Delhi Riots case on Saturday argued that the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) were not organic in nature, and that large crowds were drawn to these sites because of the entertainment provided by the accused. (Umar Khalid v. State)
  8. Today the Supreme Court set aside a judgment of the Delhi High Court which had directed the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) to consider the bid of infrastructure company Montecarlo Limited for construction and development of a depot in relation to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.  (NHSRCL v. Montecarlo Ltd)
  9. Today the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the appointment of seven lawyers as judges of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
    1. Konakanti Sreenivasa Reddy @Srinivasa Reddy
    2. Gannamaneni Ramakrishna Prasad
    3. Venkateswarlu Nimmagadda
    4. Tarlada Rajasekhar Rao
    5. Satti Subba Reddy
    6. Ravi Cheemalapati
    7. Vaddiboyana Sujatha
  10. Today the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the elevation of four lawyers as judges of the Orissa High Court.
    1.  V Narasingh
    2. Sanjay Kumar Mishra
    3. Biraja Prasanna Satapathy
    4. Raman Murahari 
  11. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) set aside the order of the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai, which directed the administrator of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd. (DHFL) to place the second settlement proposal sent by Kapil Wadhawan before the Committee of Creditors (CoC).
  12. Today the Supreme Court granted interim protection from arrest to Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Majithia in a drug case registered against him by the Punjab Police.  (Bikram Singh Majithia v. State of Punjab)
  13. Today the Supreme Court declined to entertain a plea seeking a stay on the release of the movie ‘Why I killed Gandhi’ on over the top (OTT) platform ‘Limelight’.  (Sikander Behl v. Union of India)
    • the Court said that “A writ petition under Art 32 may only be filed when there is question of violation of fundamental right. There is no fundamental right of the petitioner which appears to have been violated. Thus this plea cannot be entertained. However, it appears that the petitioner is a citizen may have a serious cause of concern here. Petitioner is at liberty to approach the High court under Article 226,” 
  14. Today Supreme Court judge Justice UU Lalit recused from hearing the plea filed by former Editor of Tehelka magazine Tarun Tejpal seeking in-camera hearing in the appeal filed by the State of Goa against his acquittal in a sexual assault case.  (Tarun Jit Tejpal v. State of Goa)
  15. Today the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court transferred the investigation into the suicide of Thanjavur girl Lavanya to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). (Muruganantham v. The Director General of Police)
    • When the Superintendent of police said in a press conference that the conversion angle was ruled out, the child’s father moved the High Court seeking a transfer of the investigation.
    • The petitioner submitted that the education minister and two other “high ranking ministers” had given their opinions, absolving the school authorities of conversion.
    • A class 12 student committed suicide, and in a private video alleged that a correspondent from her school spoke to her parents about conversion to Christianity.
    • Justice GR Swaminathan who heard the father’s petition opined that the investigation was not on the right lines and thus, transferred the case to the CBI.
  16. Today the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the appointment of three advocates and three judicial officers as judges of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
    • The lawyers recommended for appointment are 
      1. Maninder Singh Bhatti
      2. Dwarka Dhish Bansal @DD Bansal 
      3. Milind Ramesh Phadke
    • The three judicial officers, whose names have been recommended are 
      1. Amar Nath Kesharwani
      2. Prakash Chandra Gupta 
      3.  Dinesh Kumar Paliwal
  17. Today While seeking anticipatory bail in a case of alleged conspiracy to kill police officers, the counsel representing Malayalam cine actor Dileep informed that Court that he will be seeking an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the matter.  (P Gopalakrishnan alias Dileep & Ors. v State of Kerala & Ors.)
  18. Today the alleged founder and prime accused in the Bulli Bai case, Neeraj Bishnoi, has been remanded to judicial custody by a Mumbai court.
  19. Today the Karnataka High Court said that a notification on a reduction of interest rate on loans is not adequately conveyed to customers if the bank has only pasted it on its notice board.  (Canara Bank v. Shekha BS and Anr)
  20. Today the Kerala High Court stayed the order of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (ministry) which had revoked the licence of the MediaOne channel.  (Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited v Union of India & Ors.)
  21. Today the prosecution in the Delhi Riots case argued that when the accused were chatting about “inciting violence” on a WhatsApp group, the name of BJP member Kapil Mishra had not even surfaced, indicating that they only needed a name to build their narrative. (Umar Khalid v. State)
  22. Today the Karnataka High Court dismissed an application for anticipatory bail after noting that the accused had already appeared before the trial court through a lawyer with an application to do away with his personal attendance in a matter.  (Ramesh v. State)
  23. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Mohinder Goyal, who faced trial for allegedly raping a woman, has been acquitted by a Special MP/MLA Court in Delhi. (State v. Mohinder Goyal & Anr)
  24. Today while hearing arguments in the petitions demanding the criminalisation of marital rape, the Delhi High Court asked whether striking down the exception provided in Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) would amount to creating a new offence.  (RIT Foundation v. Union of India)
  25. Today the Delhi High Court has directed a woman to take down a video from her Instagram account which allegedly showed her being beaten up by a mother-daughter duo for feeding street dogs.  (Kamaljit Kaur Ahuja and Anr v Tania Sudan)
  26. Today the Delhi High Court refused to entertain a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Congress leader Jagdish Sharma seeking postponement of upcoming assembly elections in five states.  (Jagdish Sharma v Union of India and Ors)
  27. The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court directed the district prison officials to inform the Court about the statutory procedure for sending any prisoner to an “anda cell” (an isolated cell) and whether any records are maintained for the same.  (Shaikh Ruheena v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.)
  28. Today the Supreme Court held that inquest report in a criminal case is not substantive evidence since its purpose is only to find out the apparent cause of death of a person who has died under suspicious circumstances.  (Pappu Tiwari v. State of Jharkhand)
  29. Today the Bombay High Court directed the Maharashtra government not to keep any applications filed by the kin of COVID-19 victims seeking ex-gratia compensation pending merely because they are not filed online.
  30. The controversy surrounding the ban on wearing hijab to a college in Karnataka has reached court with Muslim girl filing a petition before the Karnataka High Court, arguing that the college is discriminating against her and other female Muslim students by denying them entry on the sole ground of them wearing a hijab.  (Resham v State of Karnataka and Ors)
  31. Today the Bombay High Court took suo motu cognizance of the arduous journey which young girls in a Maharashtra village have to undertake to reach their schools.

Legal Prudent Fraternity