A marriage registrar refused to officiate at the marriage of an Indian to a French national under the Special Marriage Act, contending that the Act applied only to “the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir” and to “domiciled Indians”, not to foreigners. The groom went to court. Orissa High Court ruled that the provision does not restrict marriage between an Indian and a foreigner. Also, Section 15 of the Act does not bar marriage to a foreigner. So the registrar should sanction the marriage, the high court said (Firoz Khan and another vs Union of India and others).
A man was offered a job on compassionate grounds after the death of his father. A compassionate appointment is given only if a family faces dire financial problems following the death of the breadwinner. In this case, the man’s mother and his wife were both employed but the man suppressed this fact. When his employers came to know of this fraud, they terminated his service. The man took his employers to court, contending that they had not given him the opportunity of a hearing before sacking him. The Supreme Court ruled that where the job had been obtained by fraud, it was not necessary to issue a show cause notice before giving him the sack (Secretary AP Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions vs Pindiga Sridhar and others).
The daughter of a man who was killed in a truck accident claimed compensation. The insurance company refused to pay up because she was married. The woman approached the insurance tribunal for justice. The tribunal as well as the high court held that while a married daughter is a legal representative of the deceased, she is not entitled to compensation as she cannot be considered a dependant of the victim. The Supreme Court held that as the statutory compensation she had claimed was a fixed amount, it was payable to her despite the fact that she was not dependent on her father. The compensation should be considered as part of the estate she would inherit as the only heir of the deceased (Smt. Manjuri Bera vs Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd).
SOLON
