Bombay high court
TERI Pachauri: RK Pachauri, accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague, has returned to TERI in a new role created just for him - executive vice chairman - after a decision by the governing body. (India Today).
Many decade-old cases pending in lower courts: More than 10 per cent of 2,00,60,998 (2 crore) pending lower court cases have been unsettled for longer than 10 years, according to data from the law ministry’s new National Judicial Data Grid, while 41 per cent of cases have been pending for less than two years (PTI).
SC rejects Arunachal Pradesh rebel plea against a Gauhati high court decision upholding the then speaker’s decision to accept their resignations: Senior advocate L Nageshwar Rao, appearing for two rebel MLAs, unsuccessfully told the Supreme Court: “I have never seen such kind of resignation letters in my whole life where the maker cannot take it back. The language of the resignation letters warranted an inquiry by the Speaker. The letters were written under duress and coercion.” (The Hindu).
Headley talks: Terrorist David Headley’s deposition before a special court continued into its second day today over video conferencing, telling judge GA Sanap and special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam about how he was not paid by any terrorist outfits to assist in the Mumbai 2008 terror attacks (The Hindu).
Haji Ali woman ban: Bombay high court reserves judgment on banning women from entering inner sanctum of Haji Ali Gurgah in Mumbai (Indian Express).
Justice Rakesh Ranjan Prasad transferred from Jharkhand high court to Manipur high court (PIB).
Google capture failed: A US federal judge threw out a proposed class-action lawsuit against Google alleging fraud for wasting seconds of time of people signing up for a free Gmail account, because half the two-word CAPTCHA does not actually need to be solved... (Ars Technica).
The Bombay high court has issued a criminal contempt notice against author Arundhati Roy on Wednesday commenting that she believed she was “above the law”, reported the Indian Express and others.
The contempt notice was issued for her views on the arrest of Delhi University professor G N Saibaba and the rejection of his bail plea, which was published in Outlook magazine earlier this year.
The court issued the notice while rejecting Saibaba’s bail plea on Wednesday who was arrested last year for alleged links with Maoists. He has been on bail since June, extended later till 31 December.
Justice A B Chaudhari of the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court commented on the language in the article as “nasty” and was quoted as saying that “calling the government and police as being ‘afraid’ of the applicant, ‘abductor’ and ‘thief’, and the magistrate from a ‘small town’, demonstrate the surly, rude and boorish attitude of the author in a most tolerant country like India.”
Roy’s article was also reproduced in the judgment.
Chaudhari also read into the article to have a “game plan” to secure an order in Saibaba’s favour and said that the article was written with “prima facie with a mala fide motive to interfere in the administration of justice.....The author has even gone to the extent of scandalising and questioning the credibility of the higher judiciary by giving examples of the orders of bail granted to Babu Bajrangi, Maya Kodnani and Amit Shah.”
She has to reply to the notice by 25 January 2016.
A session court has ordered the police to return the driving licence and car of Janhavi Gadkar, the Reliance Industries in-house lawyer and former Talwar Thakore Associates associate who allegedly killed two passengers in a taxi when driving drunk in June 2015.
The 305-page judgment that overturned the drunk driving conviction of Salman Khan has been uploaded on the Bombay high court website.
The Bombay high court’s acquittal of Salman Khan raises disturbing questions about the court’s approach to prioritizing cases, according to Daksh, a Bengaluru-based NGO, which researches political and administrative processes in order to create and evolve methods of accountability and transparency in governance.
The Supreme Court today sought a response from Nestle and the Maharashtra government on an FSSAI plea seeking a stay of the Bombay high court order prohibiting food testing by government labs not accredited under new food safety law.
An apex court bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C Pant also issued notice on a FSSAI plea for putting the sale of Maggi on hold as it was a proprietary product and it’s sale was contrary to the Section 22 of the FSSAI Act.
However, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that FSSAI for now was not pressing for this prayer.
The court directed the hearing of the matter on 16 January as Nestle, represented by the senior counsel Harish Salve, said that it would file its response by 5 January.
The Bombay high court today said Bollywood megastar Salman Khan “cannot be convicted” on the basis of the evidence produced by the prosecution in a hit-and-run case, acquitting him.
The Supreme Court will examine the validity, with the help of central and state governments, of a decision of the Bombay high court that the Protection of Women from the Domestic Violence Act, 2005 can be used by a mother in law to initiate action against her daughter in law, reported The Hindustan Times.
The Bombay high court had in September 2015 held that the daughter in law can be prosecuted under the act after which she petitioned in the Supreme Court before the bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi which took cognizance of the matter and asked the Central as well as the Maharashtra governments to respond about their stand on the issue.
The petitioner has claimed in the case that as per the act a mother, sister or mother in law can only prosecute men and not women.
The next date of hearing of the matter in the Supreme Court is 17 February 2016 when the Attorney General’s office will also assist the court.
The Bombay high court today said it was difficult to believe the testimony of late Ravindra Patil, the police bodyguard assigned to Bollywood actor Salman Khan who was in the vehicle during the 28 September, 2002, hit-and-run accident case involving the Bollywood star.
Terming him as “an unreliable witness” Justice AR Joshi said it was difficult to accept Patil’s answer that the car tyre burst due to the impact” (of the crash).
The court also observed that in his police statement recorded hours after the accident that day, Patil made no mention about Salman being drunk, but said this only on 1 October (that year) after the blood sample tests reports were received.
Since Monday, the judge has been in the process of dictating in an open court his verdict on the appeal filed by the actor challenging the Sessions Court order of May 2015. Yesterday, he cast doubt on the accuracy of the blood samples provided by Khan.
By that order the Sessions Court sentenced Salman Khan to five years’ jail on, among other things, charges of “culpable homicide not amounting to murder”.
The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a petition seeking cancellation of bail of Bollywood star Salman Khan who was convicted and sentenced in a hit and run case.
A bench of Justice FMI Kalifulla and Justice Amitava Roy refused to entertain the plea saying the order of Bombay high court doesn’t require interference.
Khan was granted bail by the high court on the very day he was convicted and sentenced by the sessions court. The plea filed by Sushila Bai Himmat Rao Patil challenged the bail order.
The actor was on 6 May found guilty in the 28 September, 2002 hit and run case and sentenced to five years’ jail for various charges, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder. One person was killed and four injured when the actor’s car ran over them while they were sleeping on a pavement.
In August the Supreme Court had also dismissed a petition seeking cancellation of Khan’s bail.
Nestle Maggi’s comeback was challenged in the Supreme Court yesterday by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), reported The Economic Times.
The FSSAI has filed an appreal against the Bombay high court order that had lifted the ban that was imposed over five months ago on the popular noodle brand in India. The ban was imposed due to the alleged presence of lead in the noodles, making them unfit for human consumption.
FSSAI chairman and CEO Ashish Bahuguna was quoted by Economic Times as saying, “We have appealed in the Supreme Court on two accounts, one is the allegation that our officials acted against the system of natural justice and second the validity of operations of our labs. Our labs follow provisions as stated in the FSS Act and a question on them will bring all our enforcement to a standstill putting the safety of consumers under risk.”
The FSSAI, in the Supreme Court, has challenged the “sanctity” of the samples provided to the government-approved labs for the re-test. Nestle suffered losses of Rs 450 crores due to the destruction of already produced and distributed Maggi, and due to the ban on it since June.
The government had also filed a first-of-its-kind suit for damages of Rs 640 crores against Maggi before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), as reported by Legally India
Nestle resumed manufacturing the product after tests done on all fresh Maggi samples by government approved labs, as authorised by the Bombay high court, declared it safe. It is still awaiting clearances to make Maggi at its Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh plants, it was reported.
India Law won a gag order for the Tata Group in the Bombay high court against Tata’s ex employee Nityanand Sinha whom the court has ordered to remove all libelous material and forbade him from making any disparaging remarks about a wide section of Tata employees reported [Times of India].
India Law advocate Tushar Cooper was acting for Tata in favour of whom justice Gautam Patel made an order restraining Sinha - a former general manager at HL Homes - from issuing derogatory statements about the firm including “then directors, principal officers, agents, representatives, employees, servants, clients, business associates, business partners, companies forming a part of the Tata group of companies”.
Justice Patel also barred Sinha from using “emails, letters, SMSs, social media posts, websites, newspapers print or electronic, or in any other manner whatsoever, to any third parties/ general public including but not limited to newspaper editors, journalists, clients, business associates/business partners of the Plaintiffs/Tata group of companies or any other third parties/ general public”.
Sinha had allegedly made derogatory posts about the company on Facebook and Twitter, and sent emails to the company’s investors/financiers, after his engagement with the Tata was terminated.
Justice Sinha observed: “This is no sense journalism or fair reportage. The plaintiffs are not a public body to be held to have to prove a high standard of actual malice. I do not see how it is possible to conclude that the defendant’s posts meet a good faith standard or can be said to have been made in the reasonable belief of their truth. They appear, prima facie, to be allegations levelled only to further a private agenda and a vendetta of some kind.”
No “fresh permission or renewal of permission” shall be granted by the RBI to foreign law firms seeking to open a liaison office in India “till the policy is reviewed based on final disposal of the matter by the Supreme Court”, the _Reserve Bank of India (RBI) _said yesterday in a notification reported by the PTI.
This was possibly issued to comply with the Supreme Court orders in the AK Balaji case, most recently in September, directing the RBI to maintain the status quo, or there is an outside chance the notification was prompted by a foreign law firm inquiring about the status of the policy.
The [https://www.legallyindia.com/News/download-the-judgement-lawyers-collective-v-ashurst-chadbourne-parke-white-a-case Bombay high court had first artculated the ban in 2009 against Ashurst, White & Case and Chadbourne & Parke that had representative or liaison offices in India.
Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) couldn’t save apparel exporter, the Tavoy Group, from the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) imposing Rs 5 lakh in costs against it.