Consumer is King » Court

Stock exchanges are public bodies, covered under the RTI rules and have to provide information

ashish — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:56:14 +0000

When the RTI Act came into existence, many bodies still felt that they were outside the scope of the RTI act and could their flow of information secret and their functioning secret. However, over a period of time, the mandate of RTI has been fully revealed, covering Government and quasi-Government bodies, ensuring that people get the required information which they need. But many of these bodies in the past have been hesitant to accept that they are covered under RTI, with the bodies such as the Judiciary being the most hesitant to accept RTI as being valid for their decision making.
In this case, the RTI Commission, also known as the Central Information Commission, ordered that Stock exchanges are also covered by the RTI law, and when challenged in the High Court, the Court also confirmed this order of the Information Commission. The court did not accept the plea of the stock exchanges in this regard (link to article):

The court dismissed the plea of National Stock Exchange and Jaipur Stock Exchange which submitted that they cannot be forced to reveal information to public under the transparency law as they are autonomous bodies incorporated under Company Act and not controlled by the government.

Madras High Court strikes down college fees deemed excessive, with education being Government aided

ashish — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 06:51:47 +0000

Government aided colleges are a special case of various educations institutions where the Government gives a substantial chunk of the expenses of the educational institution, so that the course fees charged by the education institution (school or college) are subsidized, and typically cannot be raised easily or at will (and are not supposed to reflect the market rate for the fees). In many cases, this aid by the Government could be in the order of as much as 95% or above of the total expenses of the school or college (and while the educational institution retains management control, the education department of the state will have a stake in how things are run).
In this case, Loyola College (a reputed college in Chennai) was charging students fees for a course that was in the range of Rs. 5000 per semester, while the Government had set a mandate that the fees to be charged for the course where the Government was providing aid was much less than the charged amount, the mandate being only approx Rs. 250 as the feed. When the fees charged by the college was challenged in court, the college really did not have any way that they could justify the fees that they were charging; and as a result, the court made an interim order restraining the college from charging this amount as fees (link to article):

The Madras high court has retrained Loyola College, a leading government-aided arts and science college in Chennai, from collecting excess fees from students in the coming academic year. Significantly, the college has not denied the allegations that it was collecting excess fees. In a related development, the director of collegiate education has informed the court that a special audit of accounts would be undertaken at Loyola College to verify allegations about collection of excess fees raised by the Tamil Nadu Catholic Minorities Welfare Association, Choolaimedu.
The association’s secretary, V Amalraj, had in a petition alleged that as against the government-fixed fee of Rs 265 for the arts group courses (BA) conducted with the government aid, the college was collecting Rs 5,146 per semester. The college was charging approximately Rs 10,000 per annum from students who joined courses in the science stream (BSc), as against the government-fixed fee of Rs 500, he said. The petitioner argued that since the college received the government aid, it has to charge the fees as prescribed by the state government.

Court rules against a tenant sub-letting property to anybody else, including family members

ashish — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:12:54 +0000

Property disputes are one of the most hotly disputed cases in India, especially the disputes between a landlord and his tenant. Till some years back, the cases and law favored the tenants (with the law favoring the poorer person, typically the tenant); however recent years have seen cases slowly turning back to an even level, with a respect for property rights. Landlords have started winning cases where a tenant almost started acting as if ownership of the property vested in them, and even though many of these cases have remained in the judicial system for a very long time (many decades in many cases), these cases also act as precedents that can be used in other cases.
What would you consider when a tenant has family members or other relatives living with them ? Sounds fine, right ? What about when the tenant is actually staying elsewhere and the flat or property is now occupied by the relatives, that too without the consent of the landlord (or even the knowledge of the landlord). Well, the Court now rules in favor of the landlord (link to article):

MUMBAI: Allowing your brother or kin to stay in your tenanted flat while you stay elsewhere may cost you your tenancy and get you evicted on grounds of sub-letting. This is what the Bombay high court held recently in a case that was fought for over 30 years. The judgment passed by Justice Nishita Mhatre held that allowing one’s brothers to be in “exclusive possession of the tenanted flat without consent of the landlord could be presumed to be a case of sub-letting and attract eviction’’.
The fight before the court was between the tenant Harakchand Shah and his landlord V V Relan in Mumbai. In 2000, the Small Causes Court had ordered that Shah be evicted for having sub-let his flat as he had acquired alternate premises for himself in London and was living there, visiting Mumbai and his flat only infrequently. The HC, citing several Supreme Court judgements, held that to prove that the tenant had sub-let the premises, it was enough for the landlord to establish that the flat was in exclusive possession of the relatives of the tenants.

Court awards compensation to the family of a missing junior office of the Indian army

ashish — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:50:50 +0000

The Indian Army, like any other army in the world, has a high level of discipline. This discipline is necessary for any military force, and complementary to these practices is also the practice of ensuring that the relationship between a superior and junior is also based on this discipline and following of orders. In normal life, a person may question orders given by a person senior to him, but this is drastically reduced in the case of the military; where questioning of the orders given by a superior is frequently punished. However, what happens in the case where the superior officer is wrong, or indulges in ill-treatment. Military services the world over tussle with this question, and in many cases, are able to handle such situations correctly; and in other cases, are not able to handle such situations. What happens in the case where a junior army officer is ill-treated by a superior office, and then vanishes ? What happens to the family of such a person ? Well, in such case, without getting into the actual disappearance of the officer, the Court (18 years after the disappearance) orders compensation to the family of the officer (link to article):

The Delhi high court has awarded a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family of a junior officer of the Indian Army who went missing from his unit 18 years ago and is now presumed dead. A division bench headed by justice A K Sikri asked the government to compensate the wife of G L Sharma, after it found he was threatened and harassed by his superiors at the unit, forcing him to leave. The court refused to label Sharma an absconder the way army’s court of inquiry had done, and said it was the harassment he faced at the hands of his commanding officer that led Sharma to quit the unit.
Sharma was posted as a religious teacher in a unit of the Army. The court found that he opposed the activities of his CO who was a brigadier. Apparently, the CO indulged in corrupt activities that were opposed by Sharma due to which he drew his senior’s ire.