Chandigarh Man Sues Ex-Wife, Police And Witnesses In A 498A Case

All,

Though this is an old story, we have a 498A winner. After 5 years, Kuldip Babbar was acquitted and looks like he may have gotten some justice after all.

Here is the link to the article:

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SC Dismisses The Review Petition Of Mrs. Swarup Sarkar

Here it is:

ITEM NO.CHAMBER MATTER                        SECTION XVIA

        SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
            RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS

REVIEW PETITION (C) NO(s). 735 OF 2007 IN T.P.(C) 32/2007

SUSHMITA SARKAR                            Petitioner(s)

              VERSUS

SWARUP SARKAR                              Respondent(s)

Date: 22/08/2007 This Petition was circulated today.

CORAM :
   HON'BLE Dr. JUSTICE ARIJIT PASAYAT
   HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S.H. KAPADIA

                             By Circulation

      UPON perusing papers the Court made the following
                ORDER

                   The review petition is dismissed in terms of the signed

        order.

                   (Neena Verma)                           (Vijay Aggarwal)
              Court Master                         Court Master

                             Signed order is placed on the file.
             IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
              CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

                   REVIEW PETITION (C) NO.735 OF 2007

                                  IN

                         TRANSFER PETITION (C) NO.32 OF 2007

Sushmita Sarkar                                    ....... Petitioner

                         Versus

Swarup Sakar                                       ....... Respondent

                     ORDER

          We have carefully gone through the review petition and the connected

papers. We do not find any merit in the petition for review. The same shall stand

accordingly dismissed.

                                                   ...................J.
                                                   (Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT)

                                                ...................J.
New Delhi,                              (S.H. KAPADIA)

August 22, 2007.

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Laws And Acts From The MP Police Web Site

Here is the link

It has the CrPc etc

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Study On Police People Interface

A study by Anju Gupta, a UP cadre IPS officer (pdf).

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Flowchart Of An FIR

I couldn’t stay away.

Here is the flowchart of an FIR courtesy of the Madhya Pradesh police.

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Justice And Law

I don’t know where I found this, but here it is: Justice And Law

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Chennai HC: Spare Innocent in-laws-2004

This is an old news item, but very revealing as no one talks of amending the law to prevent its abuse as weapon of vengeance or a tool of extortion.

Here is the link: Chennai HC: Spare Innocent in-laws-2004

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SC Sets Aside Yet Another 498A Conviction-Jun 2007

I sometimes wonder what would happen if the present crop of judges were to retire. Will the next generation of judges display the same clarity of thought and action?

Here is the link to the judgment:SC Sets Aside Yet Another 498A Conviction-Jun 2007

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Global Warming And Water Wars

Here are two articles from the Washingtonpost.

• Climate Change And Water Supplies
• Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts
• Drying Up Water Supplies In China
• 

As a nation and a race, we have a lot to worry about. Meanwhile our national attention is being diverted towards issues like the 498A, the DV Act and the silliness of pussy politics.

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National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Here is the link. The source is the home page of Dr Arvind Verma

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SC: Concensual Sex Not Rape

NOTE: I sourced this judgment from a dynamic young lawyer.

I am amazed that it took the Supreme Court to drill some sense into the women who willingly consent to a sexual relationship and then scream ‘rape’ when the marriage doesn’t materialize.

We are turning into a land of promiscuous morons and wannabe victimized virgins.

Here is the link to the HT article

Here is the judgment: SC: Concensual Sex Not Rape

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A Guide To Court Procedures In India

Folks,
What are the procedures that are followed when a case goes to court?I don’t know and I am sure that you don’t know either. I am searching/looking for this info and it would be great if someone could gift me this information. I found this book called “A Handbook Of Court Procedures In India” at this site.
Here is an Alternative site.
Here is an overview of the book: ” There is a general feeling among Indians that resorting to court proceedings leads to empty-wallets and heavy heads. This feeling is partly attributable to lack of awareness among common folk about court procedures in India. The present work is an attempt to bring this basic awareness in the litigant’s mind that courts are meant to serve the people by providing the necessary relief. Basic knowledge of court procedures has become a necessity in the modern complex societies. This work envisages a utility not only for the general public but also for the students of law who enter the courts with no knowledge of court procedures.”
This is a good place to start. I will post more info as I go along.

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Clarification On NRI Divorces

I am revisiting an old case, the YN Rao vs Venkatalaxmi, NRI divorce case. The crux of the matter is that the Supreme Court has stated, according to the article in TOI given below, that a foreign court has no authority to dissolve a marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act, IF, the person who filed the case in the foreign court is not domiciled (a permanent legal residence) in the jurisdiction of the foreign court.

Here is the link to the YN Rao Vs Venkatalaxmi judgment

Please read this article to understand what the court meant.

Finally read this post to understand the reality of broken NRI marriages and Indian court judgments

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Students Who Find Jobs Abroad To Be Taxed

This is a deviation from 498A and related issues, but it fits in with the idiocy that appears to have taken over some of the ministries of the GOI. This time, it is the HRD ministry.

Here is the article

Basically the HRD ministry, headed by the accused in a 498A, Arjun Singh, has come up with another asinine proposal whereby students who graduate from the IITs and the IIMs (maybe other places too) will now need to pay if they find jobs in other countries. They are planning to call it “graduate tax” and “exit tax”,

If the country needs money so desperately, sure, no problem. I am sure the students will willingly pay taxes. Would GOI also consider widening the tax base to include, the friends and relatives of the ruling establishment? I guarantee that this will definitely bring in more money into the treasury than the taxing a few students.

GOI should remember, that it is the Indian students who have gone on to hold high positions in high tech US companies, and it is they who are contributing to the outsourcing boom in the country by steering business to India.

Any moron who suggests that expat students have not given back to their motherland, is just that, a moron.

Just another question. All of us pay taxes regularly and honestly. No choice there as we are taxed at source. The question I have is, what has the GOI given back to us, the average citizens? We can’t even walk into a govt office without having to pay a bribe.

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Sexual Harassment Bill Criticized

More egg on the face of the WCD.  The morons in the ministry botched the drafting of the law. Here is the full story:

I pulled this from the Indian Exress. The link is no longer displaying the news article.

Saturday August 18, 01:52 AM

While Women and Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury announced to the delegates at a women’s conference in the capital that the Bill against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace 2007 would be tabled before Parliament this session, the delegates spent Friday afternoon trashing the “loosely drafted” Bill and the “glaring loopholes” in it.Justice J S Verma, who penned the Vishakha judgment (the still extant Supreme Court guidelines for prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace), also “severely criticised” the Bill for its vague and loose definitions.

“Its been exactly a decade since the judgment was passed on August 13, 1997, but the present Bill does not seem to have improved upon it any way,” he said, adding that the Bill of this nature should stress on prevention rather than punishment.

Inaugurating the second annual convention of Women Power Connect, a national organisation of women’s groups, Chowdhury said the best was being done to push through 33 per cent women’s reservation in Parliament.

Delegates stressed the need for the sexual harassment Bill to explicitly state several criteria, for instance who appoints the crucial Complaints Committee, which decides on the complaints before it.

“As of now, less than 40 per cent of Government organisations have constituted the mandatory Complaint Committee,” said Ranjana Kumari, President of Women Power Connect.

Displeased with the lack of implementation of the mechanisms for sexual harassment, Justice Verma said it was imperative that any new legislation should also include a “monitoring mechanism” to check on the constitution and functioning of the Complaint Committees.

Underlining the experiences of working with sexual harassment cells in corporates and PSUs, Soma Sen Gupta of SANHITA, said more than half the complaints that were submitted to the committees were rejected by the “pre-liminary inquiry”. ” The new legislation has to ensure that such means cannot be adopted to deny women justice.”

Concluding the session, lawyer Priyea Narula said, “With the Bill in its present form, most women will not have the confidence of raising their voice against harassment at the workplace. The Bill has to incorporate these suggestions before it is passed and takes final shape.”

Please pass this Bill in its present form !!

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How A Bill Becomes An Act

 Think of this as  a refresher in civics. Here  is the link

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The Center For Policy Research

Apparently, The Center For Policy Research is the premier institution in our country for framing policy debates. Here is the link to their website.

I found a couple of interesting articles that should be of interest to the guys. These are about the new legislations being introduced in Parliament.

• The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2006
  
• The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill, 2007

The amendments to the CrPC. are pretty interesting and so are the bill for senior citizens. I’ll add my comments later.

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Criminal-Politician Nexus Getting Stronger

Here is the article from Tribune India

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Woman Fined For Abusing DV Act

The original article has been taken down by The Statesman.

You can read the pdf, think of it like a news clipping, here: Woman Fined For Abusing DV Act

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An Example Of A Writ Mandamus-The Shankaracharya Case

I had written about restraining a police officer from abusing his powers in a previous post

Here is the excerpt from the judgment from that post that explains writ mandamus:

“It appears to us that, though the Code of Criminal Procedure gives to the police unfettered power to investigate all cases where they suspect that a cognizable offence has been committed, in appropriate cases an aggrieved person can always seek a remedy by invoking the power of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution under which, if the High Court could be convinced that the power of investigation has been exercised by a police officer mala fide, the High Court can always issue a writ of mandamus restraining the police officer from misusing his legal power”

I was looking for a good example of a judgment in response to a writ mandamus petition. I found a great example. This is the case of the Kanchi Shankaracharya who got entangled in a criminal case.

Looks like the police froze the accounts of the trust he runs and subsequently, the writ mandamus was filed and upheld by the Chennai High Court.

The Hon’ble judge says:

“Prof.Wade, in his magnum opus “ADMINISTRATIVE LAW”, (9th Edition – Page 343), observes as follows, while dealing with “Restriction of Discretion”: ” The first requirement is the recognition that all power has legal limits. The next requirement, no less vital, is that the courts should draw those limits in a way which strikes the most suitable balance between executive efficiency and legal protection of the citizen. Parliament constantly confers upon public authorities powers which on their face might seem absolute and arbitrary. But arbitrary power and unfettered discretion are what the courts refuse to countenance. They have woven a network of restrictive principles which require statutory powers to be exercised reasonably and in good faith, for proper purposes only, and in accordance with the spirit as well as the letter of the empowering Act.”

I am adding this here, as the cops play the role of the intimidator, bounty hunter, goon and extortionist in almost all 498A cases. A writ mandamus is one of the means to put them in their place. If you need more convincing, re-read the excerpt from the judgment above.

Here is the judgment: Chennai HC: An Example Of A Writ Mandamus

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