Indian Customs officials have arrested five individuals from West Bengal and Assam for their involvement in smuggling high-end used cars from Bhutan. The investigation revealed a widespread network of forged documents and illegal vehicle registrations.
Preventive detention is an extraordinary power in the hands of the state that must be used sparingly, said the Supreme Court as it set aside an order to detain a man indulging in money lending in Kerala.
The Supreme Court granted bail to Abdul Sathar, a former PFI leader, in the 2022 murder of RSS leader Srinivasan in Kerala's Palakkad district. The court stated that there is no direct role attributed to Sathar in the assassination. The Kerala High Court previously granted bail to 17 PFI members accused of instigating communal violence. The NIA is investigating the case.
In the fresh complaint, the woman allegedly stated that Mamkootathil had grievously exploited, assaulted, and emotionally abused her under "the false promise of marriage."
Vishnu, who was involved in a habeas corpus petition, cut his wrist using a sharp object, the police said.
The searches by the ED also covered certain vehicle owners, auto workshops, and traders in Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Kottayam and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).
George stated that a girl should be married off by the time she is 22 or 23 and that such decency should be maintained.
The Kerala High Court was informed that Arundhati Roy's book 'Mother Mary Come to Me' has a disclaimer against smoking on the back of its cover, in response to a plea seeking to prohibit the book's sale due to the author being shown smoking on the cover.
At a time when there is no mechanism in place to appoint or elevate judges to the higher judiciary, 8 high court judges have retired in a month, raising the vacancies from 384 in August to 392 this month.
The Kerala High Court has ordered a further probe into an allegation that state Fisheries Minister Saji Cherian insulted the Constitution in a speech in July 2022. The court found that Cherian's words, including 'ideal Constitution to loot the people', and the use of certain Malayalam terms, could be interpreted as disrespectful to the Constitution. The court also criticized the initial investigation, finding it insufficient and biased, and directed the State Crime Branch to conduct the further probe.
BJP leader PC George was granted bail by a court in Kottayam, Kerala in a hate speech case. George had surrendered before the court on Monday and was remanded to police custody. The High Court had rejected his anticipatory bail plea, observing that granting bail would send the wrong message to society. George was accused of delivering a hate speech against a minority community during a TV channel discussion. He was booked under sections 196(1)(a), 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and section 120(o) of the Kerala Police Act.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Tuesday mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea challenging the Election Commission's decision to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal. The court is also addressing concerns about disenfranchisement and citizenship issues related to the revision process.
The high court's 111-page order came on the appeals moved by the 26 accused against the special court's orders denying them bail.
Outgoing Chief Justice of India BR Gavai defends the Supreme Court's verdict on governors' powers, emphasizing the principle of separation of powers and judicial independence.
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Kerala high court order rejecting NCP leader Mohammed Faizal's petition seeking suspension of his conviction in an attempt to murder case, an order which may lead to revocation of his disqualification as Lok Sabha MP for a second time.
The Bharat Mata controversy in Kerala shows how political and symbolic fights between the state and the Centre have taken attention away from education, throwing the state's oldest university into confusion and disorder, observes Shyam G Menon.
The Karnataka high court has refused to grant bail to a man accused in a rape case, invoking a verse from Manusmriti pertaining to respecting women and a remark by Mahatma Gandhi while underscoring the need to safeguard women's dignity.
In her plea, the victim claimed that a mere reading of the inquiry report with regard to the illegal access of the devices indicates that the authority carrying out the probe "never conducted a fair, free and complete" investigation as directed by the high court.
"The high court is an institution. It should not be allowed to encourage this sort of superstitions," the SC bench told Senior Counsel T V Viswanatha Iyer, appearing for the Kerala High Court on the matter.
The Kerala High Court has quashed a case booked under the POCSO Act against six journalists of Malayalam news channel Asianet for allegedly disclosing the identity of a minor victim of sexual assault in a program on the ill effects of drug abuse. The court said that the channel's intention was not to disclose the victim's identity and that the program was intended to alert the public about the increasing drug abuse among youngsters in Kerala. The court also criticized some media outlets for reporting allegations without proper investigation or inquiry.
The Supreme Court has directed the CBI to conduct a pan-India investigation into digital arrest scams and questioned the RBI about its lack of AI usage in detecting and freezing accounts used by cybercriminals.
The matter pertained to an estranged couple fighting over their daughter's name.
The Kerala high court on Friday refused to stay the release of the controversial multi-lingual film The Kerala Story and said the trailer does not contain anything offensive to any particular community as a whole.
The chargesheet filed at the Ernakulam judicial magistrate court claims that there is digital evidence against Mukesh in the case.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Kerala high court order suspending the conviction and sentence of Lakshadweep Lok Sabha MP Mohammed Faizal in an attempt to murder case and remanded the matter back to the high court for fresh adjudication in six weeks.
The Kerala High Court has stayed all proceedings in a lower court against Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, his associate Acharya Balakrishna and their company Divya Pharmacy in a "misleading" advertisement case. The court found merit in their claim that cognisance of the offence was taken after the period of limitation.
The current situation in Kerala politics is perhaps best described as a case of the state's traditional two front politics now seeing a third front (the BJP) muscling in with the potential outcome being either a messy three front affair or a renewed endorsement of the two front pattern but with one of the old fronts compromised or quashed, observes Shyam G Menon.
The Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna has assured bar leaders that he will consider their demand for withdrawal of the collegium's recommendation to transfer Delhi High Court's Justice Yashwant Varma. The decision came after representatives of six bar associations of different high courts met with the CJI and other collegium members. The bar associations are protesting the proposed repatriation of Justice Varma to his parent high court, alleging that the evidence in a fire incident at his residence was tampered with. The bar associations have also raised concerns about the non-registration of an FIR in the incident.
The Supreme Court's opinion on the presidential reference can impact on any number of cases if and when governors, if not the President, take a literary view of the Supreme Court's 'ppinion' on their 'discretionary powers' without reference to the rider on 'reasonable time', points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
A group of retired judges has criticized Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks about opposition vice-presidential candidate B Sudershan Reddy and the Salwa Judum judgement, calling them 'unfortunate'.
The Deepa Thoon controversy, if not allowed to die a natural death, could take the election focus away from the anti-incumbency impacting the DMK and into the secular space. Stalin would love to have it that way, all over again, after the three past elections, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The court made the observation while hearing a plea which claimed that the depiction of a Bible concealing a gun in the Malayalam action movie Antony denigrates Christianity.
The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) has decided to dissolve the advisory committee of a temple in the Kollam district where the RSS 'Gana Geetham' (prayer song) was sung during a musical concert.
The Union government on Monday barred the telecast of Malayalam news channel MediaOne citing "security reasons", but the Kerala high court stayed the implementation of the order for two days.
A private marketing firm in Kerala has been accused of subjecting its underperforming employees to degrading treatment, including making them walk on their knees like chained dogs and lick coins from the floor. The state Labour department has ordered a probe into the alleged inhuman workplace harassment after disturbing visuals were aired by local television channels. The incident has sparked outrage and prompted investigations by the Labour department, the State Human Rights Commission, and the Kerala State Youth Commission.
The Bombay High Court has dismissed the petitions of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) challenging arbitral awards of over Rs 538 crore (Rs 5,038 million) in favour of the now-defunct Indian Premier League franchise Kochi Tuskers Kerala.
The Supreme Court has requested the Election Commission to respond to petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. The court has also asked the Madras and Calcutta High Courts to keep proceedings on similar petitions in abeyance.
Her lawyers told the court that it was impossible to get informed written consent of the husband and if the matter was delayed any further, the worst may happen.
A court of chief judicial magistrate granted the police 60 days to carry out the probe and directed it to provide progress reports every three weeks, public prosecutor K Balachandra Menon said.
