Legal Reference Library

The Supreme Court in Prakash Nagardas Dubal Shaha vs. Sou Meena Prakash Dubal Shahhas has held that unsuccessful divorce proceedings cannot adversely affect the maintainability of application filed under the Domestic Violence Act. Division Bench comprising of Justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh made this observation in an appeal filed by the Husband against the order of High Court which had held that his wife was entitled to seek maintenance from him. By way of maintenance the Magistrate had fixed Rs. 5,000/- per month for the wife, same amount for the daughter and Rs. 4,000/- for the minor son, which was later upheld by the High Court. The order of Sessions Court reversing the findings of the Magistrate on the ground that the wife had initiated divorce proceedings at an earlier point of time, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act which came into force only later in 2005 was wrongly invoked by the wife, was also set aside by the High Court. Supreme Court said that i...

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that an investigating agency cannot be allowed to add or delete offences during the progress of trial. It can also not be permitted to convert a magisterial trial into sessions’ trial or vice versa. Depending on the gravity of offences and the punishment prescribed, a criminal trial is classified into magisterial and sessions’ trial. The offence is triable by a court of session, if it is punishable with imprisonment for life or more than seven years under the special law. The ruling by Justice Rajan Gupta came on a bunch of two petitions filed by Neetu Dheer and other petitioners against the State of Haryana and other respondents. They were seeking directions for quashing supplementary challan submitted by the police. The challenge was made primarily on the ground that the investigating agency carried out reinvestigation on its own before including attempt to murder and another offence under Sections 307 and 333 of the IPC. The reinvestiga...