Strengthen School Tribunal, frame rules for execution of orders: HC to Delhi government
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the city government to "strengthen" the Delhi School Tribunal and frame rules, preferably within three months, for effective implementation and execution of its orders.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia observed that in spite of the suggestion made by the High Court's full bench in 2010 to frame such rules, the authorities had not done so.
Noting that at present, the law had no provision for implementation of the order of the Delhi School Tribunal, the bench stated, "such a situation cannot be permitted to go on".
"You have to strengthen the tribunal. What is the difficulty in empowering the tribunal," the court remarked.
"We hope and expect that the need for having an execution mechanism shall be considered by the appropriate authorities and adequate steps shall be taken to provide for such a mechanism. We hope appropriate decision and action warranted will be completed as early as possible preferably within three months from today," the court ordered.
"We dispose of the petition with a direction to the LG or administrator to consider the issue raised in the petition and take appropriate steps to address the same by framing appropriate rules or evolving any other legally permissible mechanism," it added.
The court added that the Centre shall immediately consider any proposal made to it by the Delhi government in this regard.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation by an NGO, Justice for All.
The petitioner argued that the present legal framework did not permit any aggrieved employee of a private school to initiate execution proceedings for an order passed by the tribunal.
The counsel for the Delhi government said the petition was an abuse of process of law and the petitioner had failed to show any orders that were not executed.
The court stated that a tribunal must function within the four corners of its statute and unless the statute provided for execution, the same could not be permitted simply as a matter of "practice".
"We are of the view that suggestion as given by the full bench way back in 2010 ought to have been considered and appropriate mechanism ought to have been provided by framing the rules or evolving any other legally permissible mechanism. The judgement was rendered on August 27, 2010, i.e. about one and half decade ago.
"However, till date neither rules have been framed nor any other alternate mechanism has been evolved. Such a situation warrants immediate attention of the authorities," the court said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
I-PAC raids: Cal HC disposes of TMC's petition, adjourns ED's application
Kolkata (PTI): The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday disposed of the TMC's petition praying for protection of its data, saying the ED has informed that it has not seized anything from I-PAC director Pratik Jain's office and home during its raids last week.
TMC had moved the court seeking an order for preservation of personal and political data that may have been seized by the ED during its raids on these two premises on January 8.
Representing the ED, additional solicitor general SV Raju stated before the court that the agency had not seized anything from these two sites.
The ASG submitted that whatever the agency had seized was taken away by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Disposing of TMC's petition, Justice Suvra Ghosh observed that in view of the submissions made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Union of India, nothing further remained to be adjudicated in the matter.
ALSO READ: Madras High Court quashes police notice to journalist, says summons without FIR is illegal
The court also adjourned a separate petition filed by the ED seeking a CBI probe into the events of January 8, when Banerjee visited the political consultancy firm’s office in Salt Lake and its director’s residence on Loudon Street in south Kolkata during the raids.
The high court adjourned the central agency's plea on the ground that the ED has filed two special leave petitions before the Supreme Court with prayers "which are almost identical with the present application before it."
He argued that when a similar issue is pending before the apex court, a high court should refrain from hearing a matter on the same subject.
TMC’s counsel Menaka Guruswamy submitted that political parties have a right to privacy, as upheld by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.
Banerjee had visited the agency's operation venues on January 8 and alleged that investigators were attempting to seize sensitive data of the TMC ahead of the upcoming assembly polls.
Following the developments, both the TMC and the ED had approached the high court.
While the TMC in its writ petition sought judicial intervention to restrain the ED from "prejudice, misuse and dissemination" of seized data during the search operations, the agency moved the court alleging interference in its investigation, and prayed for transferring the probe to the CBI.
The ED has named Banerjee and some state officials as respondents in its petition, while the TMC petition was filed against the Union of India.
Justice Ghosh heard the matters with restricted courtroom entry, allowing only lawyers connected with the cases.
The direction to hold the hearings with regulated entry was given by Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul on Tuesday in view of unmanageable chaos inside the courtroom of Justice Ghosh on January 9 when these matters were to be taken up for hearing.
Justice Ghosh had adjourned the hearing till January 14, and left her chair after repeated requests to those not connected with the petitions to leave the courtroom fell on deaf ears.
