Legally Sane

The ongoing truckers’ protest against the recently enacted criminal law (yet to be notified) relating to the hit-&-run is completely misconceived and absurd by virtue of the following reasons:-  Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) provides that the act of causing the death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide shall be a punishable offence and the offender shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years and a fine.   Further, if the offender escapes from the scene of the incident or fails to report the incident to a Police officer or Magistrate soon after the incident, he shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to ten years and a fine.  Misconceptions about the law :- 1. The offender, in case he is a driver, shall be punished in all cases of road accident   2. The compulsory imprisonment shall be ten years 3. The compulso...

On 01.12.2023, a Division Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Crminal Appeal No. 3578 of 2023 titled Mohit Singhal & Anr. Vs. The State of Uttarakhand & Ors. has decided on a substantial question of law relating to the abetment of suicide, wherein, t he widow of the deceased had borrowed a sum of Rs. 40,000/- from the father of the 1st Appellant and she again borrowed Rs. 60,000/- from the same person. While paying the said amount, a sum of Rs.15,000/- was deducted towards interest. The first Appellant demanded money from her deceased husband and he requested some more time to which the first Appellant abused the deceased and assaulted him with a belt. It is further alleged that the first Appellant assaulted the widow of the deceased and the mother of the deceased and threatened to abduct her daughter. It is alleged that the first Appellant had taken 10-12 cheques from the widow of the deceased and one cheque was dishonoured, hence, he issued a legal notice to t...

Once I appeared before a Principal Judge at Family Court in Gurugram, Haryana, and witnessed a strange practice of hearing the parties on the issue of whether they should be allowed to be represented by an advocate or not. I wondered as to which provision of the law allowed the same and discovered to my amazement that Section 13 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the FCA’) provides that no party before a Family Court is entitled, as a matter of right, to be represented by a legal practitioner. I immediately recalled my law school days when I read that an advocate has a right to appear before courts throughout the country. I referred to the Advocates Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the AA’), and observed that Section 30 provides that every advocate is entitled, as of right, to practise in all courts including the Supreme Court. After analyzing both provisions, I noticed a huge contradiction and therefore decided to research further to understand how a law...