The Calcutta High Court has granted interim bail for three weeks, till October 21, to Congress’s Nandigram bypoll candidate Milan Pradhan in cases arising from the 2007 Nandigram agitation, observing that he was taken into custody only after filing his nomination papers.
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.
The Delhi High Court has directed the CBI to issue a Red Corner Notice through INTERPOL against a contemnor who has remained outside India and has not appeared despite non-bailable warrants. The Court also directed the Ministry of External Affairs to inform the authorities in the United States, where his IP address was traced, and ordered the Cyber Cell to ascertain the location from which he joined the proceedings virtually.
The CBI has registered an FIR on a complaint by the Life Insurance Corporation of India against Reliance Capital, its former chairman Anil Ambani, former group managing director Satish Seth and others, over an alleged wrongful loss of Rs 2,684.57 crore on LIC’s investment in the company’s debentures. A spokesperson for Anil Ambani has denied any wrongdoing. The allegations are untested.
A railway parcel clerk caught in a 1995 trap accepting a Rs 100 bribe to book a motorcycle, and convicted in 2004, has had his conviction upheld by the Jharkhand High Court, which found the demand and acceptance of illegal gratification proved on the Neeraj Dutta standard. But given that the case had run for three decades, the appellant is now over 75 and ailing, it was his first offence and he had already lost his job, the Court reduced his sentence to the statutory minimum.
Acquitting a former Railway Protection Force officer convicted of taking bribes for transfers and postings through intermediaries, the Supreme Court held that proof of money reaching an intermediary does not, by itself, establish that the public servant demanded or accepted it. It stressed that approver testimony needs independent corroboration, and that the Section 20 presumption arises only once the foundational facts of demand and acceptance by the accused are proved.
Hearing the Manipur sexual-violence cases, the Supreme Court expressed shock at a report of an unnatural death resulting from sexual assault, and at deaths of internally displaced persons in relief camps where post-mortems were done in few cases and compensation of only Rs 20,000-30,000 was paid. It directed the Manipur Chief Secretary to file a detailed affidavit and the Legal Services Authority to ensure FIRs in every unnatural death, while reviewing the progress of the CBI, NIA and SIT trials.
The Supreme Court held that a trust is not a juristic person capable of suing or being sued, and therefore cannot be arrayed as an accused in a criminal case. It directed that proceedings in the IMAP deposit scam not continue against an educational trust, while leaving the prosecution of its trustee and the other accused untouched.
Disposing of a batch of about 271 appeals by the Union against the grant of disability pension to ex-servicemen, the Supreme Court held that the 2008 Entitlement Rules, though they removed the automatic presumption of attributability, did not dismantle the claimant-protective structure, and that the primary burden of proof stays on the establishment for claims made within fifteen years. Most of the appeals were also barred by delay.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has given the CBI a week to respond to the regular bail application of former district judge Giribala Singh in the Twisha Sharma dowry death case. Singh, mother-in-law of the deceased, denies the allegations. The matter is listed for September 21 and nothing has been established at trial.