The Week That Was: The Delhi High Court

Right before the winter vacations, and despite the fact that several benches were not in session during the week, the Delhi High Court saw its fair share of important cases..Here are some highlights from the past week..Monday, December 12.Unilateral withdrawal of consent during mutual divorce is mental cruelty.The division bench of Pradeep Nandrajog and Yogesh Khanna, JJ. held that withdrawal of consent by a spouse at the time of mutual divorce without justifiable reasons amounts to mental cruelty..The bench held that the,.“Unilateral withdrawal of the consent by the husband rather leads to an anomalous situation where the wife, a law-abiding lady, adhering to the terms and conditions of settlement, dated May 24, 2014 was left high and dry with a dead marriage and whereas the husband kept on enjoying his freedom without paying any maintenance, alimony”..Tuesday, December 13.Child born out of rape entitled to compensation.The Bench of Justices Gita Mittal and R.K. Gauba, has held that a child born out of rape, either of a minor or a woman who is an adult is a victim of the act of the offender and entitled to compensation independent of the amount of compensation paid to the rape victim..The verdict was delivered after the bench observed that there was no provision dealing with this specific issue under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act or under the Delhi government’s Victim Compensation Scheme..[Download judgment].Wednesday, December 14.Demonetization petitions adjourned once again.The batch of petitions were adjourned, this time to December 22, with the Chief Justice’s bench not in session for the most part of the week. The two PILs before the court deal with the new Rs. 2,000 notes along with the government notifications, which the petitioners say are “contradictory to each other”..One of the petitioners, Pooja Mahajan, who runs a designer showroom in Delhi, has questioned the government’s stand of allowing certain public utilities including hospitals and petrol pumps to use the old notes as “legal tender” but not private citizens..Thursday, December 15.Delhi auuthorities to map high pollution areas.The division bench of Badar Durrez Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar, JJ. directed the concerned authorities to map areas in Delhi leading as polluters. The bench gave the directive after the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) told the judges that stubble burning in Punjab had put about 9000 tonnes of particulate matter in the air..The court said it wanted the figure for the average ambient air quality for Delhi by excluding the figures from Anand Vihar, which recorded the highest air pollution level in Delhi..The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) said Anand Vihar’s high pollution level was due to the presence of a railway station, an inter-state bus terminal and chaotic traffic..The PIL will now come up for hearing on January 12..Friday, December 16.Vodafone challenges levy of TRAI’s ₹1,050 crore penalty .Vodafone has filed a petition against Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for their recommendation of levying ₹1,050 crore penalty on Vodafone for allegedly denying points of interconnect (PoIs) to Reliance Jio stating that the move was “arbitrary and biased” and outside the jurisdiction of TRAI..Vodafone’s petition, listed before Sanjeev Sachdeva, J, claims that TRAI’s show cause notice served September 27 this year did not give the telecom company the complete picture that the regulator wanted to recommend levy of penalties of Rs. 50 crore per circle against the company..The counsels for TRAI sought time to seek instructions and the matter was adjourned to December 21.