High Courts Weekly Round-Up

• A full bench of the High Court held that in absence of a specific remedy in Employees' Service Regulations, an employer may invoke civil liability to recover the loss incurred by him due to the actions of an employee.
• Dismissing a petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution on account of availability of an alternate remedy, the High Court held that the bar against appeal from a compromise decree shall not apply in cases where the court records some part of the compromise while declines to record the remaining part.
• Quashed criminal proceedings for medical negligence against two doctors and opined that "risk is always involved and when the patient/family members give consent for being operated, they give consent for such kind of operation to be conducted and to bear the consequences".

Bombay High Court

• The Goa bench of the High Court came down heavily on certain Police officials for posing in front of the media with a mother arrested for allegedly abandoning her new-born child. The division bench of Justices M. S. Sonak and N. D. Sardessai had taken suo motu cognizance of the newspaper article, published in a Marathi daily 'Tarun Bharat', which featured the photograph.
• Dismissed a writ petition filed by human rights activist and journalist Gautam Navlakha seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him by Pune police alleging his involvement in inciting the violence at Koregaon Bhima in Pune on January 1, 2018.

Chhattisgarh High Court

• Reiterated that a counsel has an implied authority to enter into compromise on behalf of the parties unless it is motivated by malafide intentions such as fraud, misrepresentation, etc.

Delhi High Court

• Dismissed the writ petition seeking directions to be issued to the central government to make requirement of One Time Password (OTP) mandatory for transactions made on international websites.
• Held that Diocese of Delhi is not an industry under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (ID Act) and consequently, the employees therein are not workmen.
• Restrained Balaji Telefilms from using the song 'Dhagala Lagli' in its latest release 'Dream Girl'. The court held such use to be a copyright violation as neither the licence fee or the credits were given to the Plaintiff who owned to. copyright in the sound recording.
• Held that the scope of the investigation conducted by the Director-General on directions received under Section 26 of the Competition Act, 2002, is not limited to the prima facie opinion expressed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
• Asked the CBI to file a status report in 7 days replying to the application moved by P Chidambaram for regular bail in INX Media case.

Jammu & Kashmir High Court

• Allowed Two Members of the Parliament (Lok Sabha), belonging to National Conference Party, to meet Dr Farooq Abdullah and Mr Omar Abdullah, President and Vice President of their party, respectively.

Karnataka High Court

• overturned a divorce decree granted ex-parte to a husband and remanded the matter back to the family court for fresh consideration, after it was found that husband gave wrong address details of the wife, so that she could not be called upon to file her reply to his divorce petition.
• Granted time till September 13, to the Union Government to give details of petitions pending for hearing before the Supreme Court in regards to the alleged communication blackout in Jammu and Kashmir, post the abrogation of Article 370.
• Observing that "The word company cannot be imported from any other statute in order to bring in the purview of BDA Act, (Bengaluru Development Authority)," the High Court dismissed a petition filed by a private construction company, claiming BDA is a State Government company and should be wind up, for not paying dues.
• Deferred adjudication on a plea filed a Kashmiri student challenging communication blockade in Jammu and Kashmir, taking note of the fact that the petition filed by journalist Anuradha Bhasin in the Supreme Court substantially covers the larger issue of communication black out.

Madras High Court

• The Family Court Judges are under judicial suffocation, remarked the High Court while dismissing a contempt petition filed against a Family Court judge. A litigant had filed a contempt petition against the Family Court judge alleging that he did not comply with the High Court direction to dispose of the case within six months.

Patna High Court

• Clarified that signs and gestures made by nods or head by a dumb witness possess evidentiary value.
• In a unique order passed by the High Court, the Division bench of Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad recalled an earlier order passed by a division of the high court on July 23, 2018 and held that High Court cannot scuttle investigation at the stage of Sec.156(3) CrPC when FIR Is yet to be registered.
• Referred to the full bench the issue whether a revision petition against an interim maintenance order passed under second proviso of Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is maintainable? The bench comprising Justice Hemant Kumar Srivastava and Justice Partha Sarthy also referred the issue whether an interim maintenance order passed is an interlocutory order or an intermediate order?

Punjab & Haryana High Court

• Refused to stay the ban on telecast of TV serial 'Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush'.
• Issued notice to the Union Government on a petition filed by a law student challenging the constitutionality of the Hindu Succession Act 1956.

Sikkim High Court

• Refused to live stream the proceedings of the Nishan Sahib Case. The order was passed in a petition seeking action against the State authorities who were alleged to have removed the holy Guru Granth Sahib Ji and to have uprooted Nishan Sahib from the Gurudwara at Gurudongmar Lake in Sikkim by, in August 2017.