Legal News Wrap August 9: Supreme Court Delhi court India court news latest court news: Supreme Court hearing on abrogation of Article 370, Karnataka HC granting divorce to husband on ground of cruelty & more

The Karnataka High Court granted divorce to a husband who submitted that his wife levelled baseless allegations against him and consistently insulted him on his dark skin colour, saying that it is well-settled that the cruelty need not be physical, it can be even mental cruelty and charges by the husband against wife certainly will constitute cruelty.

1. On the fourth day of hearing in the Supreme Court on petitions challenging the abrogation of 370, senior advocate Zafar Shah, submitted in the court that the instrument of Accession (signed by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir with India) was akin to an action of the state of Jammu and Kashmir shaking hands but not embracing India.

Also read: Jammu and Kashmir shook hands but did not embrace India, counsel opposing abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir tells SC

2. The Karnataka High Court granted a divorce to a husband who submitted that his wife levelled baseless allegations against him and consistently insulted him on his skin colour, saying that it certainly will constitute cruelty. “As far as the principle relating to cruelty, it is well-settled that the cruelty need not be physical, it can be even mental cruelty,” the High Court said. A bench comprising Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde was hearing a plea of a husband challenging a Bengaluru Family Court order refusing to grant him divorce from his wife filed under the Hindu Marriage Act and said that the plea of cruelty alleged by the husband is duly established.

Also read: Wife insulting husband on his skin colour amounts to cruelty, Karnataka High Court while allowing plea for dissolution of marriage

3. Calling a rape case lodged by a woman after being in a sexual relationship for six-long years a classic example of misuse of the process of law, the Karnataka High Court quashed charges of rape against a man. Justice M Nagaprasanna quashed the rape case, saying that if the proceedings against the man continue in the case, it would run foul of a plethora of judgments rendered by the Supreme Court on the issue. The accused and the victim met through social media in 2013 and were in a relationship for six years. The woman claimed that they had sexual intercourse on various occasions after the accused promised to marry her. The woman filed a complaint in 2021 alleging cheating and criminal intimidation after the accused allegedly refused to marry her. She also filed a second complaint against the man. The Karnataka High Court said that it was not one, two, three, four or five, but six years of consensual sexual relationship between them and the intimacy between them waned from December 2019.

Also read: Consensual sex: Here’s what Supreme Court, Karnataka HC and other courts ruled in certain complex cases

4. Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik on Wednesday appeared before the Delhi High Court virtually in a terror funding case in which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has sought death penalty for him. Malik, who is the chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is serving life sentence in the Tihar jail in terror funding case. Malik was produced before the High Court virtually following a modification of an order of the High Court on the plea of Tihar Jail.

Also read: Separatist leader Yasin Malik appears virtually from Tihar Jail in Delhi HC in terror funding case

5. Supreme Court judge Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra on Wednesday recused himself from hearing a bail filed by former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case related to the 2020 Delhi riots. The bail plea of Khalid came up for hearing before a bench comprising Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra on Wednesday. “This will come before some other bench. There is some difficulty for my brother (Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra) to take up this matter,” Justice Bopanna said, without assigning any reason for recusal of Justice Mishra. Khalid has challenged a Delhi High Court order refusing to grant him bail.

Also read: Supreme Court judge recuses himself from hearing Umar Khalid bail plea in Delhi riots 2020 case

6. Outgoing Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing charges of sexual harassment level by women wrestlers, told a court on Wednesday that hugging or touching a woman without sexual intent is not an offence. The submission was made by advocate Rajiv Mohan, representing the outgoing WFI chief, before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Harjeet Singh Jaspal while opposing the framing of charges against him in the sexual harassment case.
Mohan submitted before the court that only in three cases, Indian jurisdiction lies and the offences committed outside India cannot be tried by the court due to the lack of sanction and the court had no jurisdiction to try the case since the “offences are alleged to have been committed outside India”.

Also read: Wrestlers sexual harassment case: Hugging or touching a woman without sexual intent is not an offence, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh tells Delhi Court