Legal Circles: The return of 'Award Wapsi' gang !

Exactly after 6 years once again the drama of Award Wapsi has been enacted. While one can understand the anguish of farmers over rightly or wrongly perceived the consequences of recently passed 3 Bills touching upon various aspects of agriculture and agro produce by the parliament, but one fails to understand how this matter is related to the coveted awards given by the nation to distinguished personalities in different fields for their excellence!

Therefore, one smells a rat in the recently re-enacted drama of Award Wapsi. Truly speaking, it amounts to insulting the President of India under whose signature these awards are given usually and thereby the people of the country as a whole. No person whether of small stature or of giant stature irrespective of his achievements and glory has any right to heap insult on the nation for any reason whatsoever.

The ongoing farmer's agitation aims at picking up the threads of the abruptly ended over two months long Shaheen Bagh agitation. The Shaheen Bagh agitation which turned violent leading to the communal riots in Delhi, had to be called off by the organisers following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that COVID-19 threat has receded considerably and its vaccine is within sight, the anti-national forces like Jehadis, terrorists, extremists and secessionist elements have become active without losing time.

Now it is the responsibility of the government to see that the anti-nationals masquerading as 'kisans' are handled with iron hand and no damage to the life and property is allowed to be caused.

In fact, the term farmer has wider connotations in our country. It covers from a person struggling for two square meals to one rolling in millions and billions of rupees. As the income from agriculture is exempt from the income tax, the wealthy farmers who are in the real sense of the term are just land owners, enjoy this tax free booty. As such, there is no justification in granting unlimited tax exemption to the agricultural income. The real benefit should go to the farmers and farm labours who toil and sweat in the fields. Therefore, it is high time to tax all the wealthy farmers having incomes beyond the normally exempted taxable income for other categories.

In case of farmers, there are indeed some legitimate doubts about the resultant fall-out of the recently enacted three laws on removal of stock restrictions and free movement, contract pricing and ensuring the Minimum Support Price (MSP). But these are certainly not the matters which cannot be resolved by negotiation in peaceful methods. Despite several rounds of high-level meetings with the central ministers, if no light is seen at the end of the tunnel, then either the viewers are blind or they refuse to see the light.

The situation is similar to the Shaheen Bagh agitation where the agitators surcharged with political motivation refuse to accept the fact that neither the CAA nor NRC were against the Indian Muslims. Therefore, it is the need of the hour that the administration gets fully equipped to tackle the war like situation thrown open by the defiant anti-national elements with the overt and covert political support from within and outside the country in blatant violation of the Supreme Court's judgment in Amit Sahani v/s CBI which clearly stated that blocking public roads and obstructing free movement of the people is an offence as it violates the fundamental rights of the people.

Eminent lawyers honoured by BAI

Country's Pioneer Lawyers' Federation, The Bar Association of India (BAI) honoured 4 eminent Advocates and an another legal luminary on the occasion of the Lawyers Day celebrated online on November 3. The recipients of coveted awards are: Senior advocates C.S.Vaidhyanathan, Pallavi Shroff, Uday Holla, S K Kapoor and Prof. Kalpesh Joshipura.

SC on anticipatory bail

In a judgment of far reaching consequences the Supreme Court has held that a long delay in filing the FIR can certainly be a valid consideration for grant of anticipatory bail.

A bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice R.Subhash Reddy and Justice M.R.Shah observed while allowing the anticipatory bail plea of former Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Sumedh Singh Saini, who had sought the bail in relation to the 1991 Balwant Singh Multani murder case.

Granting the bail the bench note that 29 years had passed since the incident and questioned as to how Sec. 302 (Murder) of the IPC was added against the accused. Earlier, the case had been registered against Saini under Sec. 364, 201, 344, 330, 219 and 120 B. Subsequently, Sec. 302 of IPC was added. The allegation against Saini is that Balwant Singh Multani was killed in the State-managed elimination in the month of December 1991. Consequently, Saini was granted anticipatory bail against personal bond of one lakh rupees.

Courts should lean for fundamental rights: SA court

The Constitutional Court of South Africa has held that it is unconstitutional to criminalise the act of incitement of another person to commit an offence.

Stating that the courts should always lean in favour of respecting, protecting and promoting the Fundamental Rights rather than settle for the easy and more deleterious option of taking them away. Consequently, it struck down Sec. 18(2)(b) Riotous Assemblies Act.

TS High Court defers Dharani case to December 8

All eyes are set on December 8 when the Telangana High Court is expected to further hear the matter involving the newly introduced portal, Dharani, for land registration by the State Government. The court has sought some clarifications from the Advocate General on the matter of law and its implementation.

HC judge dies of Covid-19

Justice G R Udhawani, a sitting judge of the Gujarat High Court passed away on December 5 due to COVID-19. The 59 years old judge is perhaps the first victim of COVID-19 who was the serving judge of a High Court.

Mask in the grip of trademark law

After the sanitizers, now it is the turn of mask. Both the goods have the common characteristics of their use as COVID-19 pandemic combatants.

The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAE) has stayed the operation of registration of 'N-95' as Trademark. Explaining the reasons for the state, the Board said that the term N-95 is a generic term in the mask industry. Hence, it is not capable of being registered or protected as Trademark and the same cannot be appropriated by any one entity.

M/S Sassoon Fab International Pvt. Ltd., the company engaged in the business of mask had filed the application u/s 57 of Trademark Act, 1999 for removal of the 'N-95' label under Reg. No. 4487559 in class 10 registered in favour of one Sanjay Garg.

The company contended that Garg had frivolously and fraudulently obtained the registration of the generic term N-95. As a result, the company's N-95 masks were removed from e-commerce platform, www.amazon.in on the basis of the complaint lodged b Garg. Elaborating on what is a generic terms, the Board observed that these face masks were designed to filter 95% of dust particles to enter the nose or mouth which is considered as the standard in the health care sector.