Kerala HC restrains Kerala govt from participating in Islamic Bank

The Kerala High Court issued an interim order restraining the state Government or any other instrumentalities of the Government from participating, financially or otherwise, in the functioning of a bank popularly known as Islamic Bank. The interim order was issued by a Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice J Chelameswar and Justice C N Ramachandran Nair.

The court made it clear that Al-Barak company could function on its own according to the law of the land after obtaining the necessary clearances.

The interim order was issued by the High Court while considering writ petitions filed by former Union Law Minister Dr Subramanian Swamy and R V Babu, State Secretary of the Hindu Aikya Vedi.They had challenged the Government Order directing the KSIDC to have 11 per cent equity participation in the bank by Al-Barak private company.

The Government order was challenged by writ petitioners on the grounds that it was against the basic tenets of secularism as enshrined in the constitution. So the petitioners raised that the functioning of the bank would be against the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines. The court also directed the Union Government and RBI to file counter affidavits in the case.

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Delhi HC allows lawyer to argue in Hindi

The Delhi High Court for the first time allowed a lawyer to bypass the official English language and argue in Hindi as he was more competent in his mother tongue. Allowing lawyer Das Goninder Singh to argue in his mother tongue Hindi, Justice Rekha Sharma for the first time responded to his arguments and put the questions to him in the same language.

Singh in his written submissions to the court, though in English, said he has had Hindi as the medium of his education throughout his educational career. He will be able to express himself more effectively about the facts of law if he is allowed to argue his case in Hindi, he stated. When asked why he did not write the application in Hindi itself, Singh replied that if I would have done so, my application would have been rejected at the outset at the filing counter itself. This is just the beginning he said. There is already a petition pending in court to allow Hindi to be used as official language in the court.

Some other High Courts like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan have recognised Hindi as official language of the courts, but Delhi is still lagging behind, he said. So much so that many Hindi newspapers are not on the subscription list of the Delhi Courts, Singh said.

Since many lawyers are not well versed in English they have to seek the help of English speaking lawyers, the cost of which has to be borne by the litigants, making litigation very expensive, Singh said. ‘I am sure allowing Hindi to be used as official language in High Courts will reduce the cost of litigation too as many Hindi speaking lawyers who till now are reluctant to appear in the courts will get a chance to practise,’ he added.

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HC sends notices to IIT’s against its selection process

The Delhi High Court sent notices to 15 IITs across the country and to the HRD Ministry to clarify their selection process which is through the annual Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).

Aggrieved by the selection process, one Rajeev Kumar, who is a professor at IIT-Kharagpur, filed a Public Interest Litigation in the court stating that ‘the entire IIT-JEE selection process is an eye wash. The system is neither transparent nor has any set norms. No one knows what is the criteria for selection,’ the petitioner alleged.

The petitioner claimed that he has been fighting against the system for the last four years, finally the Delhi High Court has agreed to issue notices to the respondents, he said.

The Court has issued notices to the Ministry, the IIT council and the Joint Admission Board that conducts the entrance exams, the petitioner said.

‘The entrance in its current format is not transparent. No one knows how they select the candidates,’ he said.

India is known for the brilliant students 15 IITs across the country produce but many eligible’s are still left out for reasons not known to them, the petitioner alleged.

Eight new IITs have started operation in the last two years, the petitioner stated.

Since this year over 400,000 students will appear in the IIT-JEE, scheduled for April 11, they should have a right to have a transparent system, the petitioner added.

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Death sentence to 17 Indians challanged before Higher Court

An appeal was filed on Thursday on behalf of the 17 Indians who were recently found guilty by a Sharjah court of killing a Pakistani national and injuring three of his compatriots. The appeal was filed in a Sharjah Court of Appeals, India's Consul-General Sanjay Verma has said.

The Consulate had earlier said that they have hired a Dubai-based law firm, Mohamed Salman Advocates and Legal Consultants, to represent the Indians. Consulate officials had met all 17 Indians earlier this week and said that they were in good health. The convicted, 16 from the Punjab and one from Haryana, were recently found guilty by the Sharjah Court of killing a Pakistani national and injuring three of his compatriots allegedly during a clash in an illegal alcohol business in January 2009.  About 50 people were involved in the attack, in which the Pakistani man was beaten to death with metal bars. The men on death row are accused of being the gang leaders.

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High Court rejects premature release plea of Nalini

The Madras High Court on Tuesday held that the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination-case life-convict Nalini Sriharan who had committed the crime in a cunning and meticulous manner cannot seek premature release.A Division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and K K Sasidharan dismissed a plea of Nalini, a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, seeking premature release under the general amnesty scheme.

While rejecting her petition, the bench observed that 44-year-old Nalini had committed the crime in a cunning and meticulous manner which killed the former Prime Minister in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991. “So she cannot seek premature release as a right, though she does have the right to seek consideration of her plea,” the Bench said.

“She had committed a crime which was cunning in conception, meticulous in plans and wreckless in execution, taking away the life of the former prime minister,” the judges held. In 2008, the High Court had rejected Nalini’s plea for release on the ground that her case was investigated by CBI under 435 of Cr PC, which says all cases probed by the central agency cannot be decided by the state without consulting the Central government. Nalini had filed her appeal contending that the Governor had powers under Article 161 of the Constitution, which the court rejected. She had filed the plea for her premature release in 2006, when 421 prisoners were released by the Governor exercising his powers under Article 161, contending she had already served 14 years in prison and was eligible for release.

The bench held that the governor had then exercised the powers granted to him under Article 161 judiciously.

Nalini had argued that just because CBI investigated her case, her plea for premature release was rejected. Noting that the nature of offence also played a major role in considering a case of premature release, the court said she could not claim equality with other life convicts.

"As a citizen of India the convict colluded with foreign terrorist out fit (LTTE) and killed the former Prime Minister of this country was unforgettable", the bench observed and said, once the capital punishment awarded to her by the trial court was confirmed by the Supreme Court and on a mercy the same was commuted to life is notable.

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Delhi HC to hear first petition under Right to Education

A class VI girl has moved the Delhi High Court against her school’s decision which chose to expel her because she failed in her final examinations and has asked for the court’s intervention to get her studies resumed in the same school.

Accusing St Xavier’s Senior Secondary School for violating her fundamental Right to education, the VI class student Suman Bhati has alleged that the school expelled her on the grounds that she failed in her final examination. Now she has no place to go her father Naresh Bhati alleged.

The writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution in the Delhi High Court yesterday by the lawyers Ashok Agarwal and Ms Kusum on behalf of Bhati against St Xavier’s Senior Secondary School for violating the child’s fundamental rights as well as violating the law of Right to Education and also against the Director of Education, GNCT for failing to take action against the school in accordance with law to allow the girl to continue her studies in the school.

The petition has alleged that the action on the part of the Xavier’s Senior Secondary School against the student for expelling her from the school on March 17, 2010 is illegal, anti-child, arbitrary, unjust, punitive in nature, unethical discriminatory, unconstitutional, violative of the provisions of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973, The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, hit by the provisions of Article 14 (right to equality), Article 21 (right to life with dignity), Article 21-A (right to education) and Article 38 (right to social justice) of the Constitution of India read with UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

The petitioner has submitted that she has been a regular student of the respondent-school since KG. While the petitioner was studying in class IV, she failed in the examination and was detained in the same class. Thereafter, she qualified the Class IV examination and promoted to Class V.

On March 27, 2010, the Principal handed over the marks-sheet of Class VI to the petitioner’s father with the following remark: detained and withdrawn. It was also told to the parent verbally that the student had been removed from the school from now on. Mr Bhati requested the Principal of the school to not to remove his daughter as it would ruin the future of his child. He also submitted in written to the Principal with a request to permit her child to continue her studies in the school.

However, the principal remained adamant throughout and declined to accept the request of the parent.

Mr Bhati then approached Social Jurist, A Civil Rights Group with a request to help the child. It is submitted that the Social Jurist sent a phonogram on March 31 to the school followed by a representation requesting the school to forthwith allow the petitioner to continue her studies in the school. However, no response has been received so far, Mr Agarwal said.

Mr Agarwal in the petition said, it is unfortunate that in a time when the Government is coming up with laws, schemes and policies to encourage the girl child to study more, here is a school that is trying to jeopardize a class VI girl’s future by expelling her from the school. It is highly unjust as well as illegal to expel a student who wishes to study further and make her career, he said.

The petition will come up for hearing before Justice Kailash Gambhir on Arpil 5.

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