Hearing a batch of contempt petitions, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has come down hard on Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh for what it called ‘paper compliance’ with the Supreme Court’s directions in Arnesh Kumar and Satender Kumar Antil on avoiding unnecessary arrests. The Court rejected an illegible Chief Secretary affidavit, noted that Section 41A CrPC notices were being issued in the wrong format and even over WhatsApp, and summoned the SHOs of three police stations to appear with their actual records.
Holding that liability under Section 82 of the BNS attaches to the spouse who already has a subsisting marriage and not to the person they marry, the Madras High Court granted anticipatory bail to a woman arrayed as the second accused, observing that on her case she and the complainant stand as two women wronged by the same man rather than as accused and victim.
