Legal Edge

The appellant, Dr Narayan Ganesh Dastane, passed his M.Sc. in Agriculture from the Poona University and doctorate from Australia. The respondent, Sucheta, comes from Nagpur but she spent her formative years mostly in Delhi. She passed her B.Sc. from the Delhi University. In April 1956, the parents of respondent arranged the marriage between the petitioner and respondent, but before that the parents of Respondent mentioned about her mental illness which was cured. The marriage was performed at Poona on May 13, 1956 but they stayed in Delhi. Both of them had three children. In January, 1961, the Respondent went to Poona to attend the Appellant’s brother’s marriage ceremony. The Appellant got the Respondent examined by Dr. Seth, a Psychiatrist at the Yeravada Hospital, fortnight after the marriage. As per Appellant’s claim, she had promised to see Mr. Seth but she denies the fact that she had made that kind of promise. The Respondent believed that the Appellant was concocting a case of un...

Facts: 1.       The marriage took place on 31.01.1975 at Madras and the consummation of the marriage took place on 01.02.1975. Thereafter he started teasing her alleging insufficiency of gifts by her parents and also the presence of a small congenital lump on the respondent’s shoulder. Even though it was known to him even before marriage, he ignored it as inconsequential.  2.       On 13.02.1975 the respondent-wife was sent away from the house by the appellant-husband asking her to come back with larger presents and jewels. On 28.07.1975 the appellant issued a notice to the respondent alleging that she had left the house on her own accord, to which she sent a suitable reply on 02.08.1975 denying the allegations and stating she was deserted by the appellant and that she was anxious to join the appellant. 3.       Thereupon, he filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights. The court allowed the petition...

  Dharmendra Kumar v. Usha Kumar Facts: In this appeal filed by the Appellant, Mr Dharmendra Kumar, he argued that the Respondent had not complied with the court’s order to restitution of conjugal rights and had taken the benefit of it. The restitution of conjugal rights states that “the guilty party has to stay with the aggrieved party to resolve their marriage by cohabitation for a period of time specified by law. On 27th August 1973, the Respondent was granted a decree of restitution of conjugal rights on her application by the Additional Senior Sub-Judge, Delhi. On 28th October 1975. The Respondent proceeded with a petition under S. 13(1A) (ii) of the Act[4] which asked for the dissolution of the marriage in the Court of Additional District Judge, Delhi. A decree of divorce was petitioned stating there had been no restitution of conjugal rights amongst the parties after the decree was passed. Although, as claimed by the Appellant, he had attempted to comply with the court’s ord...

S. Nagalingam v. Sivagami: In this case the following sections are put into consideration: 1.       Section 7A, HMA (Hindu Tamilian weddings) 2.       Section 494, IPC (Offence of Bigamy) Facts:  1. The appeal of the case was filed in Madras High Court by S. Nagalingam (Appellant) who married Sivagami (Respondent) in 1970 and they had 3 children.  2. The respondent alleged that the appellant and his mother started ill-treating her and on many occasions she was physically tortured. As a result she left her marital home and started staying with her parents. 3. While the time respondent was staying with her parents, the appellant married another woman, named Kasturi in 1984 in the state of Tamil Nadu,    while he was still married to the respondent. 4. The respondent first filed the criminal complaint for biagamy. The respondent pled “ Saptapadi ”  had not been performed  therefore,  the second marriage wa...

Imagine when you enter a house in England and the windows of the house look like the picture below, weird isn’t it?     In England, a window tax was introduced in 1697 during the reign of William and Mary. One of their first acts on assuming the throne had been to abolish the hated hearth tax, brick- or stone-lined fireplace tax levied based on the number of a fireplace in a municipal area that had been imposed in 1662. However, England faced continual financial difficulties during their reign, caused for example by the war with France. To defray these costs, a tax was imposed in 1696 in the form of a tax on windows.  [1]  This tax was based on the number of windows one had in their house. It was intended to be a progressive tax in that houses with a smaller number of windows, initially, ten were subject to a 2 shilling house tax but exempt from the window tax.  Houses with more than ten windows were liable for additional taxes which increased in line with ...

In simple words, Constitutionalism is a doctrine that a government’s authority is determined by a body of laws or constitution. More generally constitutionalism refers to efforts to prevent arbitrary government.   [1]    Constitutionalism is based on the idea of political theories of John Locke and the founders of the American republic, that government can and should be legally limited in its powers, and that its authority or legitimacy depends on its observing these limitations. The central point of Constitutionalism is a “Limited Government”. Constitutionalism recognises the need for a government but at the same time also insists upon restraining its (government’s) power.  [2]   Epitome of Constitutionalism is Magna Carta issued in 1215 that limited the power of England’s King John. Constitutionalism places limits upon the arbitrary    powers of the three government power: legislative power (making new laws), executive power (implementing laws) and j...