Today’s Legal Updates

Monday, 6th June 2022

Legal Awareness :- CONSTITUTION OF INDIA

Part – XV   ELECTIONS

Article – 328  Power of Legislature of a State to make provision with respect to elections to such Legislature.

Subject to the provisions of this Constitution and in so far as provision in that behalf is not made by Parliament, the Legislature of a State may from time to time by law make provision with respect to all matters relating to, or in connection with, the elections to the House or either House of the Legislature of the State including the preparation of electoral rolls and all other matters necessary for securing the due constitution of such House or Houses.

Today’s Legal Updates :-

  1. On Monday the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Bar Council of India (BCI) to publish on its website inspection reports of law colleges. (Prasoon Shekhar v CPIO)
    • An order delivered on May 25, the CIC Saroj Punhani said that the disclosure of the inspection reports of the law colleges in the public domain will benefit the student community at large and will significantly reduce the burden of RTI applications filed in this regard.
    • the Commission directs the FAA to place this order before their competent authority to ensure that action is expedited with respect to the upgradation of the BCI website while also incorporating the stipulations of the Commission in the H N Pathak case.
    • The FAA burst into frenzied arguments with the Appellant for bringing up allegations of lack of transparency and for insisting on non-compliance of earlier Commission’s directions. The Commission took exception to the disdainful conduct of the FAA and closed the hearing proceedings.
    • All the applications for approval will be considered after inspection only. If the college fulfills all the requirements, the inspection will be carried out. Firstly, the application of the new law colleges will be given priority. The colleges situated near new colleges also will be covered while inspecting new law colleges. The existing law colleges are also inspected very three year, if not happened the extension of approval of affiliation will be issued.
    • the order said, As regards relief to be ordered in the matter, the Commission directs the CPIO to reiterate the opportunity of inspection of the available records with respect to the information sought for at points 2,3,4 to the Appellant and facilitate the same on a mutually decided date & time. The intimation of date & time of the inspection shall be provided to the Appellant telephonically and in writing by the CPIO. Copy of documents, if any desired by the Appellant during the inspection shall be provided free of cost upto 25 pages and beyond this limit, prescribed fees may be charged as per RTI Rules, 2012 by the CPIO.
    • The appellant had also sought the following details which were not provided by the CPIO:-
      • List of colleges which are not found fit after inspection between 2016-20.
      • List of colleges whose affiliation were cancelled by BCI between 2016-20.
      • List of all the collegse and the members who inspected along with date and time of the RTI Request.
  2. On Monday Marathi Actor Ketaki Chitale has moved the Bombay High Court seeking quashing of the First Information Report (FIR) registered against her at the Kalwa Police Station in Mumbai, booked for allegedly reproducing a derogatory poem against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar on Facebook.
    • the plea said, An invisible hand is targeting the petitioner and there is a concerted effort to strike fear in minds of people of Maharashtra in general and the petitioner in particular so as to deter everyone against coming out with any expressions of views that would offend some ‘Pawar‘.
    • Actor Ketaki Chitale had posted on her Facebook profile a Marathi poem attributed to another person. The poem mentioned the surname (Pawar), age (80) and physical ailments which the NCP leader is also suffering from.
    • Chitale was arrested on grounds that she made disparaging remarks about Pawar’s illness, appearance and voice and also called him corrupt.
    • She was booked by the Thane crime branch police under sections 500 (defamation), 501 (printing or engraving defamatory matter) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the Indian Penal Code.
    • Chitale also sought directions to be issued to the DGP to call for reports with regard to the FIRs registered across the State with regard to the same Facebook post and transfer the same to the Kalwa Police Station.
  3. On Monday the Delhi High Court granted a permanent injunction in favour of global entertainment company Warner Brothers while restraining “rogue” torrent websites from distributing, broadcasting, transmitting and streaming its content.  (Warner Brothers Entertainment v. http.otorrents.com & Ors)
    • The defendants have no real prospect of successfully defending the claim of copyright infringement and have further not chosen to contest the said claim…On basis of the evidence placed on record, and keeping in mind the factors identified by this Court in UTV Software (supra), I find that there is sufficient evidence to hold that the defendant no. 1 and 51 websites are “rogue websites” and that this is a fit case for passing a summary judgment invoking the provisions of Order XIIIA of CPC, as applicable to the commercial disputes.
    • Warner Bros thus sought the following relief from the Court:-
      •  Issue order and decree of permanent injunction restraining Otorrents from hosting and streaming its content.
      • Issue an order to ISPs to block access to Otorrents’ website.
      • Issue an order directing the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and other government departments to issue a notification calling upon various internet and telecom service providers registered under it to block access to the website.
    • the Court also noted that in 2019, it had directed the MEITY and internet service providers to block the domain name “Otorrents.com‟ and its URL https://otorrents.com. It was informed that pursuant to a notification issued by the government departments, ISPs had blocked access to the infringing websites.
  4. On Monday Venture capital fund Sequoia Capital sent out a letter notifying a select group of its portfolio companies that it has stopped working with law firm Algo Legal, which was founded by former Sequoia General Counsel Sandeep Kapoor.
  5. On Monday Two judicial officers took oath as judges of the Bombay High Court taking the working strength of the chartered High Court to 57.
  6. On Monday two new judges were sworn in as additional judges of the Madras High Court taking the working strength of the High Court to 58.
  7. On Monday the Delhi High Court refused to give urgent hearing to a petition against stay on prayers at the Mughal Mosque inside the Qutub Minar Complex in Delhi.
  8. On Monday Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court Justice Dipankar Dutta recused himself from hearing a plea seeking a permanent mechanism to fill up vacancies of judges in the High Court.
  9. On Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear a plea filed by medical students seeking a special stray round of counselling to fill vacant postgraduate (PG) medical seats under the All-India Quota (AIQ) in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test 2021. (NEET 2021)  (Dr Ashima Goel and ors vs Medical Counselling Committee and ors)
  10. On Monday Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Nawab Malik and former State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh have approached a Mumbai court seeking bail for a day to cast his vote at the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled to be held on 10th June 2022.
  11. On Monday the Karnataka High Court recently pulled up the State police for its shoddy probe in a complaint filed by a wife accusing her husband of forcing her to have unnatural sex with him [Vikram Vincent vs State of Karnataka)
    • the Court said, The crime was no doubt registered for all the offences, but the shady probe conducted by the jurisdictional police (Bangalore City Police) has led to filing of a charge sheet only for an offence under Section 498A of the IPC. Therefore, this becomes a classic case where the investigation has been so shoddy that a further investigation in to the matter is needed.
    • In view of the preceding analysis, it also becomes a case where the head of the department, either the State or the Commissioner of Police should take stock of such shoddy investigations by investigating officers, who either lack competence or deliberately indulge in such investigations. It is high time the head of the Department sets its house in order, by appropriately dealing with such investigating officers on the departmental side.
    • Single-judge Justice M Nagaprasanna was hearing a plea filed by a woman seeking directions to the police authorities to conduct further probe in her complaint lodged in 2017 alleging that her husband forced her for unnatural sex and on her refusal tortured, harassed and even assaulted her physically.
    • The complaint further stated that the husband clicked some obscene photos of the complainant-wife and even shot some video clips which he later circulated to her father and some friends on social media platforms WhatsApp and Facebook.
    •  the Bangalore City Police in its chargesheet filed in September 26, 2019 didn’t invoke either section 377 (unnatural sex) of Indian Penal Code or the relevant provisions of the Information and Technology (IT) Act, 2000.
  12. On Monday the Delhi High Court observed that the practice of registering cases under Sections 376 (rape), 354 (assaulting a woman) and 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which are later brought to court for quashing, needs to be curbed.  (Arshad Ahmad & Ors v. State of NCT of Delhi)
    • The fact that now-a-days Sections 376 and 354 of IPC are being used along with Section 498-A IPC, which later on are compromised and are brought to this Court for quashing, needs to be curbed.
    • The Court was dealing with a petition for quashing of an FIR registered under Sections 376/377/498-A of the IPC. It was informed that the charge-sheet has been filed under Section 376 of the IPC but, in her statement given under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the complainant stated that only an attempt to rape had been made by her father-in-law.
    • The complainant is a young lady who is looking for a bright future for herself, which depends on quashing of the present FIR pursuant to a settlement which she states before this Court, she has entered out of her free will and without coercion, pressure or threat. She also states that it was a family dispute and she no more wants the same to be tried in any Court of Law in any form.
  13. On Monday the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) notified that admit cards for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2022 are now available.
  14. On Monday the Supreme Court highlighted the need for minimal judicial interference within the framework of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) by reiterating that National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) should not sit in appeal over the commercial wisdom of the Committee of Creditors. (CoC) (Vallal RCK v M/s Siva Industries and Holdings Limited & Ors)
    •  the Court said,  in our view, the adjudicating authority or the appellate authority cannot sit in an appeal over the commercial wisdom of CoC. The interference would be warranted only when the adjudicating authority or the appellate authority finds the decision of the CoC to be wholly capricious, arbitrary, irrational and de hors the provisions of the statute or the Rules.
    • the Supreme Court was considering an appeal against an order of the NCLT rejecting the application filed by a Resolution Professional under Section 12A of the IBC read with Regulation 30A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) Regulations, 2016, for withdrawal of the application filed under Section 7 of the IBC in view of the settlement plan submitted by the appellant.
    • The NCLT, while rejecting the application, said that the said settlement plan was not a settlement simpliciter under Section 12A of the IBC, but a “Business Restructuring Plan”. The Tribunal also ordered initiation of the Corporate Insolvency Proceedings (CIRP) against the corporate debtor, of which the appellant is the promoter, even after the CoC had passed the settlement plan with voting majority of 94.23%.
  15. On Monday the Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind (applicant) has moved the Supreme Court seeking impleadment in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay challenging the Constitutional validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
    • The applicant organisation claimed that it functions for the protection of Islam, Islamic Culture, tradition, Islamic heritage and places of worship.
    • The plea contended that from the petition by Upadhyay, it was apparent that he has sought to indirectly target places of worship which are presently of Islamic character. Therefore, the applicant wished to be impleaded so as to put forth the views of the Muslim community.
    • the applicant highlighted, It was further observed that it was a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution.
    • the application said, Above all, the Places of Worship Act is an affirmation of the solemn duty which was cast upon the State to preserve and protect the equality of all faiths as an essential constitutional value, a norm which has the status of being a basic feature of the Constitution.
  16. On Monday the Calcutta High Court came down heavily on the Central Administrative Tribunal for failing to dispose of a matter within a month despite its earlier order, by labelling it to be a ‘sordid state of affairs’.
  17. On Monday the Kerala High Court stayed the operation of the recent amendments to the Kerala Education Rules (KER) for one month as an interim relief in a plea that challenged certain provisions of the said amendment.
  18. On Monday the Madras High Court reserved orders on a plea filed by S. Nalini and RP Ravichandran for their premature release.

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