There were several High Court judgments where to protect the fundamental rights of the accused, directions were given to respective state police to upload the FIR to state police website within 24 hours or so of lodging of FIR.Finally in 2016, in a PIL filed by Youth Bar Association of India, Supreme Court made it mandatory for all States’ police nationwide to upload copy of FIRs within 24-72 hours of lodging of FIR. There are other directions too regarding how an accused can get certified copies of FIR. The full judgment text is given below, with the paras containing directions regarding upload of FIRs (paras 12 and 13) made in bold:WP(Crl.) … [Read more...] about Mandatory uploading of FIRs to state police websites – SC judgment to protect rights of accused
SC Judgment
Modified directions in IPC 498A cases upon review of Rajesh Sharma judgment by Supreme Court
Note: this judgment has been overridden by a later decision of the Supreme Court, so the article below can be read basically as a historical reference. The Rajesh Sharma judgment with new guidelines to be followed in IPC 498A cases was pronounced in 2017 by a two judge bench, and it was much celebrated by some people and hailed as a path-breaking judgment, as if following of those guidelines would automatically take away all fear of arrest, roping in of all family members, or the possibility of facing criminal trial in Indian system for 5-10 years! Several guidelines/directions were issued in that judgment, and the gist of those were: constitution of Family Welfare Committees (FWC), designated IO for IPC 498A cases, possibility/promotion of culture of less arrests/more settlements … [Read more...] about Modified directions in IPC 498A cases upon review of Rajesh Sharma judgment by Supreme Court
SC 2017 guidelines on IPC 498A misuse: family welfare committees, designated IO, less arrests/more settlements, easier bail, recovery of articles, personal exemption to family members etc
Update 14/09/2018: The Rajesh Sharma judgment covered here has been reviewed by Supreme Court, and this article covers the salient points of judgment along with its full text. Update 13/10/2017: The judgment is now up for a revisit by SC (so soon!), and the reason for review is: "We can’t write law. We can only interpret the law.” SC To Revisit The Judgment By Two Judge Bench On Abuse Of Section 498A IPC [Read Petition] The women's NGO (comprising of women advocates) which wanted a review of the judgment gave reasoning and statistics about how rural women benefit from IPC 498A and how the 'evil' well-educated women misuse the law, but surprisingly in the end they mainly prayed only for addition of women members to FWC. It seems like the gender of who gets to be the committee … [Read more...] about SC 2017 guidelines on IPC 498A misuse: family welfare committees, designated IO, less arrests/more settlements, easier bail, recovery of articles, personal exemption to family members etc
Allow DV complaints on females in household by removing requirement of “adult male” from definition of respondent – Supreme Court judgment
This judgment from Supreme Court in October 2016 changed PWDVA (Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act), 2005 in a fundamental way. Until this SC judgment, the DV Act allowed for complaint to be filed only against an adult male of the household, and whether other females could also be included as respondents along with adult male(s) was interpreted differently in different judgments, because the basic definition of word respondent included only adult males under Section 2(q) of the act. Basically the DV Act was created on behest of feminist lobby by roping in the beta males and virtue signalling crowd and easily shamed aspiring middle classes as useful idiots; and it was practically made only for wives to file complaints on their husbands and ask for various reliefs like … [Read more...] about Allow DV complaints on females in household by removing requirement of “adult male” from definition of respondent – Supreme Court judgment
Wife’s attempt to separate husband’s parents, suicide attempt, unfounded allegation of extra-marital affair considered mental cruelty on husband for divorce – Supreme court judgment
News about this Supreme Court judgment have started appearing in many newspapers with the headlines which like “forcing husband to separate from his parents” or “forcing Hindu son to separate from parents” amounts to cruelty, and so on. As it happens, news headlines may a time don’t reflect the full picture of logic inside a judgment, and sometimes news reports may even highlight a secondary part of the judgment as the main reason when in fact the judgment was based mainly on other factors. This site contains very few judgments on topic of divorce, and the reasons are explained in detail in this and this post. The reason of covering this judgment here are that people shouldn’t get complacent that one judgment (though important one given that it’s by SC) about … [Read more...] about Wife’s attempt to separate husband’s parents, suicide attempt, unfounded allegation of extra-marital affair considered mental cruelty on husband for divorce – Supreme court judgment
Husband’s EMI towards house to be considered in CrPC 125 Maintenance to wife – SC Judgment
This is somewhat old judgment of Supreme Court, and it brings an important consideration which was overlooked by lower courts: Which was neglecting to consider monthly EMI paid by husband towards housing loan. The order reduced maintenance amount from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5,000 p.m. While this may cause cheers to readers, it should be noted that the in-hand salary of husband is Rs 9,000 p.m, so effectively he has to now survive on Rs 4,000 p.m. Somehow the facts of the case don’t add up for me. There must be more to it than the numbers mentioned in the judgment. The logic of going for an EMI of 21K on a salary of 35K itself seems questionable. Surely reducing maintenance might be considered a sacred goal by many husbands, but taking such huge loan thereby living on the … [Read more...] about Husband’s EMI towards house to be considered in CrPC 125 Maintenance to wife – SC Judgment