It?s not murder

In a fight between two persons arising over the issue of teasing a woman, one person died. The Orissa High Court confirmed conviction for ?murder? under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. On appeal, the Supreme Court held that the act was not murder. Death was not consequential to unilateral provocation. Even if one party started it, it would not have turned serious had the other not aggravated it. The act falls under the fourth exception to Section 300 of the Code which provides inter alia that culpable homicide is not murder if committed without premeditation upon sudden quarrel and the offenders have not taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel and unusual manner (Sudhir Bhuwan vs State of Orissa).

Setting a precedent

An applicant who failed to qualify in the Judicial Services (competitive) Examination, 1999, filed a writ petition for re-evaluation of one of the papers. The Commission contended that no mistakes were found in the scrutiny. A uniform method is followed in evaluation and there are no provisions for re-evaluation of papers. The Supreme Court held inter alia that in absence of clear rules to this effect, re-evaluation could create practical problems as many candidates would pray for re-evaluation and declaration of the final result would get unduly delayed (Pramod Kumar Srivastava vs Chairman, B.P.S.C. Patna).

The real family

When a monk of a monastery died in a road accident, the parents of the monk as well as the monastery filed claim for compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act. The Kerala High Court held that compensation was not payable to his parents, since they were not dependant on him and were thus not entitled to compensation for loss of dependency income. His entire income was given to the monastery. There was loss of service to the monastery due to his death, and compensation was payable to the monastery (Varghese vs Krishnan Nair).

Solon