Madras High Court Weekly Round-Up: March 13 to March 19, 2023
Upasana Sajeev
20 March 2023 9:45 AM IST
A weekly round-up of important cases from the Madras High Court: Citations: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 85 To 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 92 NOMINAL INDEX Kowsalya v. State, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 85 P Sathish @ Sathish Kumar v. State and another, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 86 Surajlal v. Pradeep Stainless India Pvt. Ltd and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 87 S Murugesan v. The Commissioner HR&CE...
A weekly round-up of important cases from the Madras High Court:
Citations: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 85 To 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 92
NOMINAL INDEX
Kowsalya v. State, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 85
P Sathish @ Sathish Kumar v. State and another, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 86
Surajlal v. Pradeep Stainless India Pvt. Ltd and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 87
S Murugesan v. The Commissioner HR&CE and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 88
R Balasundaram v. The Tamil Nadu State Level Scrutiny Committee-III and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 89
S Nithya v. The District Collector and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 90
G Sundararajan v The Secretary and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 91
S Manoharan v. Reserve Bank of India and others, 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 92
REPORTS
Case Title: Kowsalya v. State
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 85
The Madras High Court has permitted Kowsalya, wife of Sankar who was hacked to death for marrying from a different caste, to conduct a meeting in memory of Sankar. Kowsalya had approached the court after State denied permission for the meeting citing law and order problems.
Justice G Chandrasekharan noted that the offense of Honour killing was increasing every day and that honour killing was not eradicated in Tamil Nadu.
In such a situation, the court noted that the scope of starting the Sankar Social Justice Trust and organising a meeting to disseminate information against honour killing and promoting inter caste marriage was laudable. The court added that such object should not be prevented and prohibited by the court.
Case Title: P Sathish @ Sathish Kumar v. State and another
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 86
The Madras High Court has held that appointing Deputy Commissioners of Police as Executive Magistrate is violative of the Constitution and the District Police Act.
A bench of Justice N Satish Kumar and Justice Anand Venkatesh thus declared two Government Orders as unconstitutional, which gave Deputy Commissioners the powers of an Executive Magistrate while dealing with bonds for keeping peace.
The court added that if the police were allowed to continue with such powers, it would lead to anarchy as the entire process of investigation, prosecution and adjudication will be done by one branch of the executive - the police.
Case Title: Surajlal v. Pradeep Stainless India Pvt. Ltd and others
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 87
The Madras High Court has recently held that an order passed by the High Court granting leave to institute commercial suit will be an order passed under the Commercial Courts Act.
The full bench of Justice R Subramanian, Justice RMT Teeka Raman and Justice Bhavani Subbaroyan thus noted that an order granting leave or refusing to revoke the leave granted is not appealable.
Case Title: S Murugesan v. The Commissioner HR&CE and others
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 88
The Madras High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation filed by a man seeking postponement of Panguni festival celebrations in light of the public examination.
The bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy held that while it was important not to cause any inconvenience to the students preparing for the exam, stopping an annual temple festival was not the solution. The court however directed the concerned village authorities not to use loudspeakers on the days of the examination.
Case Title: R Balasundaram v. The Tamil Nadu State Level Scrutiny Committee-III and others
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 89
While criticizing a retired Upper Division Clerk for fabricating a false community certificate, the Madras High Court held that reservation policy was a matter of great pride and its exploitation could not be justified even if it was detected late.
Justice VM Velumani and Justice R Hemalatha added that at present there were systems for determining the genuineness of a person’s SC/ST lineage which did not exist earlier. Thus, when a vigilance committee had clearly established with sufficient proof that the person in question did not belong to the ST community as claimed by him at the time of employment, the court had no reason to sit in judgment or examine the full-fledged report.
Case Title: S Nithya v. The District Collector and others
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 90
The Madras High Court recently imposed ten thousand rupees cost on a Revenue Divisional Officer/Sub Divisional Magistrate who had rejected the community certificate for two kids belonging to the Kattunayakan community.
The cost was imposed on a plea by the kid’s mother seeking to quash the rejection order and to direct the authorities to issue the community certificate. In the present case, the mother of the kids belonged to the Kattunayakan Community (a Scheduled Tribe community) while their father belonged to the Pallar Community (a Scheduled Caste community).
The bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy took note of two Government Orders passed by the State in 1975 and 2021 which clarifies that when a child is born out of marriage between parents of two different caste, the children would be considered to belong to either of the caste based on the declaration by parents
Case Title: G Sundararajan v The Secretary and others
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 91
The Madras High Court has recently observed that exemption from payment of entertainment tax is a concession granted by the government for promoting usage of Tamil language and merely using Tamil letter in the title of the movie is not a ground for claiming exemption from payment of entertainment tax.
Justice SM Subramaniam was hearing a plea by G Sundararajan, proprietor of Sri Vijalakshmi Films and producer of the 2015 tamil movie "I".
Case Title: S Manoharan v. Reserve Bank of India and others
Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 92
The Madras High Court recently observed that when “individual borrower” was clearly defined by the Reserve Bank Of India as per law, only the RBI could consider expanding the scope of the definition and not the High Court. The court was hearing a plea filed by famous food chain Murugan Idli Shop's proprietor.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
The Madras High Court has issued notice to the State Police on a plea by Pay Games 24x7, an online gaming company based out of Mumbai challenging the notices issued by CB-CID in connection with the investigation into the suicide of a gamer.
Justice G Chandrasekharan has directed the Tamil Nadu Government, CB-CID and Chennai police to file their counters by March 14. The court noted that unless there were allegations of malafide or violation of statutory provisions, the court should not interfere with the decision of the Expert Committee.
Lawyer and Uttar Pradesh BJP Spokesperson Prashant Kumar Umrao has approached the Madras High Court for anticipatory bail in an FIR lodged by the Tamil Nadu police against him for allegedly spreading false information on the alleged attacks against the migrant workers from Bihar in Tamil Nadu.
The FIR was registered under Section 153, 153A, 504 and 505 of the IPC. Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan has sought a counter affidavit from the Thoothukudi police and adjourned the plea.
The Madras High court on Sunday held a special sitting to hear the pleas of expelled AIADMK leaders Manoj Pandian, R Vaithilingam & JCD Prabhaka for stay on the election to the post of general secretary, which is scheduled to be held on Thursday.
Justice K Kumaresh Babu, who heard the applications against the conduct of elections, allowed the elections to go on as per the dates fixed. However, the party stands restrained from declaring the election results till the disposal of the applications.
