Section 397 of the Indian Penal Code inter alia provides that whoever ‘uses’ deadly weapons in the course of a robbery shall be imprisoned upto a period of seven years. Explaining the term ‘uses’, the Supreme Court has recently said that its meaning is not confined to actual use or inflicting injury. Section 397 is attracted even if the offender is capable of creating terror with the deadly weapon. Cutting, stabbing, shooting, etc. is not necessary (Ashfaq vs State {Govt of NCT of Delhi}).

A person selected in 1982 as law officer-cum-draftsman by the Tripura Public Service Commission, a single cadre post with no scope of promotion, filed a writ petition for either upgradation of post or for providing him with two promotional avenues. The Supreme Court held that the state cannot take a stand that an employee being fully aware of the limitations of the job profile cannot ask for promotion. In that case, the employee would never get promoted throughout his career. The state should have introduced a scheme of granting the next higher scale of pay upon completion of a specified time period without promotion, as practised in other states. The court directed inter alia that the employee be granted at least two higher grades (State of Tripura vs K.K. Roy).

Section 27 of the Consumer Protection Act inter alia prescribes punishment if the orders of the District Forum, State Commission, National Forum, etc. are not complied with. The Karnataka High Court earlier held that being in the nature of criminal contempt, proceedings under Section 27 should be tried before a criminal court. Disagreeing with the view, the Allahabad High Court held that from the language of Section 27 it is clear that such proceedings are in the nature of civil contempt, i.e. disobedience of any order of the court. Therefore, punishment can be imposed by the District Forum, State Commission and the National Forum themselves (Ghaziabad Development Authority vs Union of India).

SOLON