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CASE OF GODELLI v. ITALY(Application no. 33783/09) is a landmark case that was dealt by the European Court of Human Rights which laid down the importance of the Right to Family Life granted under Article 8 of the Convention. 

FACTS OF THE CASE : 

Anita Godelli didn’t get to know her mum. She was raised by foster parents after being abandoned at birth and placed in an orphanage. She discovered she was adopted when she was ten years old. Anita enquired about her birth mother with her adoptive parents, but they withheld any information from her. Anita, who had by this point reached old age, didn’t inquire into the matter until her adoptive parents had passed away. A copy of her birth certificate was given to her, but it was missing her birth mother’s name.Anita discovered that Italian law stopped her from receiving information about her ancestry after filing a lawsuit that learning about her ancestry after filing a lawsuit because her biological mother wanted to keep her identity a secret when she gave birth. 

JUDGMENT : 

The European court concluded that the applicable Italian statute did not strike a fair balance between Anita’s right to know her origins and her biological mother’s right to privacy, which was given primacy, on the one hand, and both. Italia went against Anita’s rights. Anita Godelli was able to get a court order in Italy allowing her to find out who her birth mother was after the European court’s ruling in her case. The relevant section of the law was deemed illegal by the Italian constitutional court in 2013.

JUDGMENT REVIEW BY SREYA MARY. 

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The Supreme Court has ordered the government to hold early elections in Punjab, the nation’s most populous province, on May 14.

FACTS OF THE CASE : 

The decision by Pakistan’s election commission to postpone the assembly elections in two provinces was deemed “unconstitutional” by the country’s Supreme Court.

The nation’s highest court ordered on Tuesday that the government call early elections in Punjab, the province with the largest population, on May 14.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI party, led by former prime minister Imran Khan, submitted a petition that led to the court’s decision.

After the Punjab elections were postponed from April 30 to October 8 due to the government’s refusal to provide funding due to the economic crisis, Khan’s party appealed the ECP’s decision.

In an effort to force early national elections, the PTI decided to dissolve the provincial assemblies it controlled in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in January. Khan has been calling for early elections ever since he was ousted from power a year prior.

JUDGEMENT : 

The Supreme Court directed the poll commission to declare the election calendar for the two provinces in a divided 3-2 decision in February after receiving a suo motu notice. Suo motu refers to when a court initiates proceedings on its own initiative after taking note of an issue that it determines to be of public interest.

The ECP declared the Punjab elections will take place on April 30 last month. To force the PTI to reschedule the highest court, it canceled the schedule on March 22 and announced October 8 as the new date.

It has been held that the undue delay of the election, is unconstitutional and thus has to be conducted accordingly. 

JUDGEMENT REVIEW BY SREYA MARY. 

 

The Karnataka High Court has said that a gift deed executed by a senior citizen can be declared as null and void under the Senior Citizens Act only if a stipulation is contained therein that the transferee shall maintain him or her in return. This was in the case of Nanjappa v. State of Karnataka & OthersWRIT APPEAL No.573/2022) and was presided over by a division bench of Justice B Veerappa and Justice K S Hemalekha.

FACTS OF THE CASE:

It is the case of the 3rd respondent, who is the petitioner before the learned Single Judge that he had purchased a property bearing Municipal Assessment No.3327/3081 measuring East to West 30 feet and North to South 50 feet situated at K.R.S. Agrahara, Ward No.22, Kunigal Town under a registered Sale Deed, dated 1.12.2006, in the name of the appellant/Nanjappa with a condition that the same has to be re-conveyed in his name (3rd respondent) and the entire sale consideration was paid by the 3rd respondent. Thereafter, the appellant/Nanjappa herein executed a registered Gift Deed, dated 23.2.2011, in favour of the 3rd respondent/M.B. Nagaraju in respect of the said property clearly mentioning in the Gift Deed that the entire sale consideration is paid by the 3rd respondent. Thereafter on 25.2.2016, the appellant/Nanjappa filed an application before the Assistant Commissioner for a declaration that the Gift Deed is null and void and in turn, the Assistant Commissioner by the order, dated 20.8.2016, allowed the application filed by the present 4 appellant/Nanjappa, who was the 3rd respondent before the learned Single Judge and cancelled the registered Gift Deed, dated 23.2.2011, with a direction to the Sub-Registrar, Anekal, to reregister the right in respect of the said property in favour of present appellant/Nanjappa, which was challenged by the 3rd respondent/M.B. Nagaraju by filing a writ petition i.e., before this Court for the relief sought for.

JUDGEMENT:

The court said in the absence of any condition stipulated in the documents, the provisions of Subsections (1) and (2) of Section 23 of the Senior Citizens Act are not attracted.”The bench placed reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Sudesh Chhikara -vs- Ramti Devi and noted that that the commissioner ignored the conditions stipulated under the provisions of Sub-sections (1) and (2) of the Senior Citizens Act, as held by the Supreme Court.

It further added “Though our conscious is in favour of the welfare of the Senior Citizens considering the scope and object of Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, but our hands are tied in view of the dictum of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Sudesh Chhikara, wherein while interpreting the very provisions of Sub-section (1) of Section 23 of the said Act, it has been held that the two conditions must be stipulated in the document, which is binding on all including this Court as contemplated under Article 141 of the Constitution of India,”

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JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY PRATIKSHYA P. BEURA

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Hindu American Foundation’s defamation lawsuit against five defendants stemming from an Al-Jazeera article in the case of Hindu American Foundation v. Sunita Vishwanath was dismissed by a US court. 

FACTS OF THE CASE : 

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) brought a lawsuit against five defendants, alleging defamation, but the judge in the case dismissed it. Sunita Vishwanath and Raju Rajagopal, co-founders of Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), were named in the lawsuit along with Rasheed Ahmed, executive director of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), John Prabhudoss, chairman of the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA), and Audrey Truschke, a professor at Rutgers University.

The lawsuit concerned two online pieces that were posted on aljazeera.com, a website run by the Al Jazeera Media Network. The stories dealt with federal COVID-19 relief funds and loans given to five US organizations that were reportedly connected to Indian Hindu nationalist parties. One of the organisations mentioned in the articles was HAF. HAF claimed the Defendants colluded to spread allegedly false and defamatory statements, and that the statements seriously harmed HAF, including by causing it to lose donations and suffer reputational harm.

Mi funding granted to “support hate,”with the title “Demand for US probe into Hindu right-wing groups getting COVID fund.” The HAF was referred to as “US-based front organizations” in the Second Narrative.It is important to remember that the defendants in the lawsuit were not the article’s publishers or authors, but rather individuals who were either quoted in the articles or who tweeted or reposted the content.

Due to lack of personal jurisdiction, lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and failure to establish a claim, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case. The Court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss the case after accepting their initial objections.

JUDGEMENT : 

The court went on to say that it was not conceivable to assume that any of the defendants’ remarks were made with actual malice. The existence of readily accessible financial accounts is the sole claim of malice made by HAF. According to the court, these accusations were insufficient to support a claim.

According to District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling, “..this court finds that HAF fails to show genuine malice and, hence, fails to raise a claim of defamation against all Defendants.”

The court added, “Some of Truschke’s allegations are perhaps verifiably incorrect. See e.g. (“Full disclosure that the HAF Board member in question [Rajiv Pandit] has been going after me, along with a growing list of people, in recent days.”). Yet, the Court stated that even if the statement were to be proven untrue, HAF’s defamation action would still fail since it is not false.

The court also pointed out that Viswanath’s assertion that HAF had “parent organizations” in India is blatantly untrue and can be independently verified. But, HAF’s defamation suit against Viswanath is unaffected by the likely falsity of this assertion, it claimed.

JUDGEMENT REVIEW BY SREYA MARY.