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The District Council Courts are conferred with powers and jurisdiction to try suits and cases between members of the Scheduled Tribes community residing within the territorial jurisdiction of such courts as upheld by the High Court of Meghalaya through the learned bench led by Justice W. Diengdoh in the case of Smti. Clarinda Momin Vs. Smti. Brishmony G. Momin (FA. No. 1 of 2019)

The brief facts of the case are that the Appellant herein is the executor of the last Will and Testament of her elder brother (Late) Pleander G. Momin, who during his lifetime had executed his last Will and Testament on 31.08.2004, bequeathing all his landed property including four residential standing houses and other belongings, moveable and immoveable to the Appellant to the exclusion of the Respondent who was his first wife. The said elder brother of the Appellant expired on 23.09.2004. The Appellant had made an application before the Garo Hills District Council Court at Tura for administration of the last Will and Testament as stated above and the learned Court vide order dated 10.05.2007 had granted probate of the Will in favour of the Appellant. Respondent being aggrieved by the said order had approached the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court, Shillong Bench with a revision application and the Hon’ble High Court after hearing the parties vide judgment and order had allowed the said revision application and has set aside the probate of the Will and has further directed that the case be transferred to the learned Judge, District Council Court, Shillong. On being pending before the said court for a long time, the Learned Additional District Magistrate (Judicial) has concluded that the court is a wrong forum for the parties to pursue the matter both being tribal belonging to the Garo community and as such, only the Garo Hills District Council Court has got jurisdiction to try the matter. The Appellant has failed to array the Respondent herein as a necessary opposite party in the said Probate which prompted the Court of the Judge District Council Court, to pass the impugned order rejecting the application of the Appellant herein. Hence, this appeal.

After the perusal of the facts and arguments, the Hon’ble Court held “Given the facts as stated above and having held that the said Court of the Judge, District Council Court, GHADC has the jurisdiction to try the matter, the issue of limitation ought to have been taken up taking into account the provision of Sub-Section 2 of Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 which squarely covered the case of the Appellant/Petitioner. In view of the above, this appeal is allowed. The impugned order is hereby set aside and quashed.”

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Judgment reviewed by Vandana Ragwani

The die-in-harness scheme was framed by the State Government to bring solace and benefit to the family of the deceased Government employee who suddenly became without a source of income on the death of the Government employee as upheld by the High Court of Manipur through the learned bench led by Justice M.V. Muralidaran in the case of N.Thangkhankhual v. The State of Manipur and ors. (WP(C) No.393 of 2021)

The brief facts of the case are that the Petitioner’s father John Chithang Naulak, while working as an Inspector in the Sericulture Department, died on 4.10.2002 and the petitioner being the eldest son submitted an application for compassionate appointment under the die-in-harness scheme. However, at the relevant point of time, the Government had withdrawn the dis-in-harness scheme for some time only to restore it after a few years. After the restoration of the scheme, it was notified that the family members of the deceased employees who had died during the period of withdrawal and restoration will be eligible for compassionate appointment as per the death of the deceased employee, subject to the family member applying for compassionate appointment.

The petitioner, who has earlier applied at the time of the death of his father, again applied to the authorities for giving him compassionate appointment to a suitable post, preferably Class-III 3 post like Lower Division Clerk as he was a graduate having passed his B.A (Hons) in political Science. In the meantime, it came to the notice of the petitioner that, some tampering had been made in the list of the claimants for compassionate appointment, whereby a person lower to him was placed have him. Not only that, the date of the petitioner’s father expiry was tampered with by pushing it back by a year later. Aggrieved by such tampering, the petitioner has filed to quash such tampering and sought for compassionate appointment. By an order dated 11.2.2015, this Court allowed the writ petition. However, the petitioner’s claim was rejected on the ground that there were two more claimants to the post of LDC, Grade-III above the petitioner will the available post of LDC was only one and the petitioner was advised that his claim will be considered when there are vacancies available in the Department.

The Hon’ble Court held, “In the present case, as stated supra, the petitioner has been making for almost 20 years waited and in fact, the petitioner and his family members, including his widowed mother continued to live in a penuries condition without any employment. Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, particularly the penury condition of the family of the petitioner, this Court is of the view that there is merit in the grievance of the petitioner and accordingly, the writ petition filed by the petitioner is liable to be allowed.”

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Judgment reviewed by Vandana Ragwani

The writ of Habeus corpus is provided in the constitution in Article 226. The definition of habeas corpus has not been in the constitution but has been interpreted in zillions of different cases in India. The literal meaning of habeas corpus is “you shall have the body”. Mr Amit Kumar Pandey has not been allowed for this writ as he had not been illegally and unauthorizedly detained provided in the case, Smt. Astha Pandey v. State of Chhattisgarh & Ors.[WPHC/13/2021] through the division bench led by Mr Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Mr Justice Sanjay K. Agarwal in the High Court of Chhattisgarh.

The facts of case are Shri Amit Kumar Pandey has been produced before this Court though this Court has not directed for his production. The petitioner was seeking directions to the respondents to free her husband from the crutches of respondents stating enter earlier that she has married Shri Amit Kumar Pandey but the respondents have illegally detained him without the authority of law. The petitioner in person had submitted that Shri Amit Kumar Pandey was her legally wedded husband and has been detained unauthorisedly and without the authority of law by respondents specifically No. 5 to 7. The petitioner argued that the husband was willing to stay with her and she wanted to continue his treatment as he was unwell. But the petitioner wants to stay with him.

Shri Amit Kumar Pandey was present in the court and he submitted that though he was married to the petitioner but due to some objectionable behaviour read by the petitioner he was not ready and willing to stay with the petitioner and wanted to stay with his parents. He clearly stated that he was not willing to meet his wife, the petitioner. He submitted that he is staying with his parents out of his free will and there is no pressure or force applied by the respondent No. 5 to 7 to stay with them as was submitted by the petitioner.

The High Court decided that “We are of the considered opinion that it is not the case where Shri Amit Kumar Pandey has been illegally and unauthorizedly detained by respondents No.5 to 7 and we hereby close the present Habeas Corpus petition accordingly. However, the petitioner is at liberty to avail other remedies available under the law for redressal of her grievances, if any. It is also made clear that we have not expressed any opinion on rights of the parties.”

The court closed the writ petition accordingly.

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Judgement reviewed by- Pranav Vyas.

The landlord-tenant disputes are arbitrable but landlord-tenant disputes covered and governed by rent control legislation would not be arbitrable when specific court or forum has been given exclusive jurisdiction to apply and decide special rights and obligations as was provided by the Supreme Court in the case of Vidya Drolia and Other’s case. But it was not applicable in the case of Swaroop Sen v. Ajay Kumar Boral & Anr.[AP/512/2019] through the Hon’ble Court of Calcutta through the single bench led by Hon’ble Mr Justice Rajesh Bindal.

The facts of the concerned case are that the application was filed under section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act,1996 for the appointment of an arbitrator in a tenant-landlord matter.

The counsel from the applicant side argued that there was an arbitration clause in the lease and license agreement dated August 10, 1987 between both the parties. Further, the albatross proceedings could not be commenced as both the parties fail to appoint an umpire. Thus, an application was filed for the appointment of arbitrator. It had been greatly argued through the Vidya Drolia and Others vs. Durga Trading Corporation, (2021) [2 SCC 1], that landlord/tenant disputes or arbitrable, and resend that through the readings in the Vidya Drolia and Other’s case, any issue regarding the arbitrability of a dispute was also to be decided by an arbitrator, the counsel for the applicant pleaded.

The counsel for the respondent side submitted that the arguments raised by the applicant’s counsel were not applicable in this hand as the 1997 act had come after the signing of the lease agreement also that the present agreement was a mere Leave and License agreement rather a lease agreement.

The court after a perusal of Section 3(c) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, decided that for exemption from application the provisions of the 1997 Act, the lease deed has to be registered after the commencement of the 1997 Act, which came into force w.e.f. July 10, 2001. In the case in hand, neither the agreement in question is lease agreement nor the same was signed after the coming into force of the 1997 Act as the agreement is dated August 10, 1987. The court also took notice, “the Vidhya Drolia and Other’s case also does not come to the rescue of the applicant for the reason that long drawn complicated arguments are not required to be addressed and considered in dealing with the arguments raised regarding non-arbitrability of the dispute in question. Once it is found that the dispute is non-arbitrable, it will be waste of time to refer the same for arbitration.”

The High Court of Calcutta dismissed the application for the appointment of the arbitrator.

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Judgment Reviewed By Pranav Vyas.              

It is of the considered opinion that there is no material on record that necessitates the continuance of the criminal proceedings against the petitioner when there is even no recorded confession of the co-accused except the disclosure statement as upheld by the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh through the learned bench led by Justice Rajnesh Oswal in the case of Sandeep Kumar Vs State of J&K (Bail App No. 253/2021 [CrlM No. 1515/2021])

The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner through the medium of the present petition under section 561-A Cr.P.C. (now 482 Cr.P.C.) has prayed for quashing of the criminal proceedings titled “State versus Ghulam Mohammed & Anr”, those are pending against him before the Court of learned Principal Sessions Judge, Kishtwar (hereinafter to be referred as trial court) arising out of FIR bearing No. 13 of 2013 for commission of offences under sections 295, 457, 380, RPC. The petitioner has sought the quashing of the criminal proceedings primarily on the grounds that the evidence relied upon by the prosecution is legally inadmissible because as per the prosecution case the accused No. 1 in the case i.e., Ghulam Mohd made an admission/confession of the guilt before them, where he stated that the petitioner herein was also an accomplice in that act and in law, no confession is admissible, if the same is made not only to Police Officer but even if it is made in presence of Police Officer. Further the proceedings those are pending against him do not disclose commission of any offence by the petitioner, as such, the proceedings are nothing but an abuse of process of law.

After the perusal of facts and arguments, the Hon’ble Court held, “ In the instant case, there is even no recorded confession of the co-accused except the disclosure statement as mentioned above. So, this Court is of the considered opinion that there is no material on record that necessitates the continuance of the criminal proceedings against the petitioner. In view of this, the present petition is allowed and the criminal proceedings titled “State versus Ghulam Mohammed & Anr” pending before the court of learned Principal Sessions Judge, Kishtwar are quashed qua the petitioner only and the proceedings against the Ghulam Mohd shall continue. Since the petition has been allowed and the charge-sheet filed against the petitioner before the trial court has been quashed, therefore, the application has been rendered infructuous.”

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Judgment reviewed by Vandana Ragwani