Legal briefs

HC allows termination of pregnancy of a minor

• The Madras High Court has allowed the abortion of the six-month pregnancy of a 17-year old girl who was sexually assaulted by a 44-year old man
• The father of the girl from Vadipatti in Madurai district had filed a petition seeking permission for medical termination of his daughter's pregnancy
• A judge of the High Court Bench in Madurai pointed out on Thursday that the doctors had advised terminating the pregnancy of the girl, who was raped by a bus driver
• The doctors had said the health of the girl would not be affected by the termination. A team of doctors from Madurai Govt Rajaji hospital should take steps to abort the child

Plea seeking quashing of symbols allotted to BJP, Cong rejected

• The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea seeking quashing of the recognition and symbols allotted to the BJP and the Congress
• A bench passed the order on a PIL moved by Sheshmani Nath Tripathi, who claimed to be a primary member of the Samajwadi Party
• Passing the order, the court considered several Supreme Court verdicts and found that the petition was not maintainable for the petitioner had not arrayed the BJP and the Congress as opposite parties
• The court also did not find any public interest in instituting the PIL

U'khand HC puts on hold new mining policy

• In a blow to the state govt, the Uttarakhand High Court has put a stay on its new mining policy that was rolled out on Oct 28, 2021
• A bench, acting on a petition, also issued a notice to the govt and asked to submit its response within four weeks
• The petition, filed by a resident of Nainital, alleged that the new mining policy was rolled out without taking approval from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
• It also alleged that due process was not followed while issuing mining leases to private parties and potential damage to the environment was ignored
• The state, for its part, said the decision to bring the new mining/quarrying policy, locally known as khanan came in order to end the foothold of the illegal operators which caused considerable revenue loss to the govt

CBI pulled up for tardy progress in probe into judge's murder

• The Jharkhand HC on Friday reprimanded the CBI yet again for the tardy progress in the probe into the murder of Dhanbad judge, Uttam Anand, and directed it to file an affidavit on the new developments in the investigation
• Seeking time to come out with new facts, the CBI told a division bench that it has quizzed as many as 200 people in the past couple of months to unearth the identity of the conspirators responsible for the killing of the judge
• Chief Justice Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad posted the matter for hearing again on Jan 14 and directed the CBI to furnish the affidavit on the new developments as mentioned by it
• Uttam Anand, an additional district judge, was run over by an autorickshaw on July 28, 2021, when he was out for his morning walk