LEX ASPIRANTS

  25 handpicked key judgments delivered by the Kerala High Court in 2021: 1. Marital Rape A Valid Ground For Divorce [X v. Y] A Division Bench of Justice A. Muhamed Mustaque and Justice Kauser Edappagath in a significant judgment upheld that marital rape, although not penalised in India, is a good ground to claim divorce although the law does not recognise marital rape under penal provisions. The Court while empathising with the situation of the woman observed that a husband's licentious disposition disregarding the autonomy of the wife is marital rape, albeit such conduct cannot be penalised, it falls in the frame of physical and mental cruelty. 2. Muslim Women Entitled To Invoke Extra-Judicial Divorce [X v. Y and other connected matters] Overruling a 49-year-old judgment that barred Muslim women from resorting to extrajudicial modes of dissolving marriage, a Bench of Justice A. Muhamed Mustaque and Jus...

 In the year 2021, there were many instances where Madras High Court placed constitutional freedoms and citizens' rights on a higher threshold. They are: 1. 'Right To Be Funny Can Be Mined In Article 19(1)(a)' : Madras High Court Quashes FIR Over Humorous Facebook Post [Mathivanan v. Inspector of Police & Ors.] While quashing an FIR registered against an office-bearer of CPI (ML) who uploaded vacation pictures with the caption 'Trip to Sirumalai for shooting practice', the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court went on to make some interesting observations about the 'duty to laugh' and the 'right to be funny'. Justice G.R Swaminathan quashed the FIR against the 62-year-old accused while underscoring that the case registered by Vadipatty Police, booking the latter for 'making preparations to wage war against the State', is 'absurd and an abuse of legal process'. The Court went on to observe that the correlative right to be funny can be...

  In  Sapna and Anr v. State of Punjab while dealing with the protection plea of a young couple in a live-in relationship, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on observed that merely because the adult boy is not of marriageable age, it would not deprive the young couple of their fundamental right as enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution.  Justice Harnaresh Singh Gill was adjudicating upon a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution wherein the petitioners (young couple) had sought police protection against their parents who had objected to their live-in relationship. boy although a major, had not yet attained marriageable age which is why the parents had been issuing threats to the couple.  Directing the Senior Superintendent of Police, Gurdaspur to grant protection to the couple in case any threat to life and liberty is perceived, the Court observed,  "It is the bounden duty of the State as per the Constitutional ob...

  Right to appeal in criminal law jurisprudence acquires a special position, since it draws  ideological base of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. As per Article 21 of the constitution, life and personal liberty of a person cannot be taken away by state except in accordance with the procedure established by law. The procedure established by law has been creatively interpreted by the Supreme Court in many cases. Right to appeal in guarding against any suffering due to errors of the court ensures fairness of this procedure and therefore forms an essential part of the criminal law system. Under Criminal Procedure Code, there is a distinction made between right to appeal against acquittal and that of conviction; the latter being more wide, and less restricted. This distinction seems, as is so held in several cases, to be intelligible since the initial presumption in favour of accused has been duly vindicated by the decision of the court and so appeal in such...