Author: kkslawoffices

The Delhi High Court (DHC), in a petition for quashing of Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), held that the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) power to arrest under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) is not unrestricted & the ED cannot arrest a person on its whims and fancies. The DHC further pointed a 3-fold requirement that the ED must follow before arresting a person: “Firstly, the Director must entertain a reasonable belief that the person arrested is guilty of an offence under the PMLA, and not under any other enactment; Secondly, the reasons for such belief must be recorded in writing; and Thirdly, such belief must be based on material that is in the Director’s possession.” However, the DHC rejected the petition stating it to be pre-mature.

The Allahabad High Court (AHC), setting aside an order of a Family Court, granted divorce to a husband-wife and reiterated that filing false complaints against a spouse constituted an act of cruelty. The AHC further stated that “forcing them to live together despite their intense hate towards each other will amount to cruelty.”

The Supreme Court (SC) has issued Contempt of Court Notice (Notice) against two members of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and asked them to be physically present before the SC. The Notice was issued because the two members defied the order of the SC, to not pass an order till results of the Annual General Meeting of Finolex Cables were submitted in the form of a report by the scrutinizer. The SC, further, stated that “NCLT and NCLAT have gone down to a rot. This case is an object illustration of the rot.”

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has released the new Draft Competition Commission of India (Lesser Penalty) Regulations, 2023 for public comments till 06.11.2023. The key provisions of the Regulations include: i) leniency plus provisions; ii) withdrawal of leniency and leniency plus application; iii) conditions when the leniency and leniency plus application can be forfeited.

The SC unanimously has held that there was not any fundamental, unequivocal right to marry in India. Another unanimous finding of the judgment, on queer marriages, was not to strike or tinker with the Special Marriage Act and its allied laws and holding that any such tinkering could have “a cascading effect” across various laws.

The majority, despite a contrary view of the minority of the bench of Hon’ble SC, also did not approve civil unions of queer persons.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), United Kingdom, has cleared the $69 Billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. (Activision) by Microsoft Inc. (Microsoft) after a restructuring of the deal. The acquisition was earlier blocked by CMA over the concern that it could stifle the competition in the gaming industry. However, after Microsoft agreed to sell Activision’s streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment and allowed non-Windows operating system users to have access to Activision’s content the CMA has now cleared the deal.

The Chhattisgarh High Court, setting aside an order of a Family Court allowing an application filed by a husband to bring on record the phone conversations recorded by him with his wife, held that “the Right of Privacy is an essential component of right to life envisaged by Article 21 of the Constitution, therefore, in the opinion of this Court, the learned Family Court has committed an error of law in allowing the application under Section 311 of the CrPC along with the certificate issued under Section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act.”

The Central Information Commission (CIC) in an appeal by a husband asking for the gross and net income details of his wife, denied by Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) by invoking Section 8(1)(j) of Right To Information Act, 2005, has directed the CPIO to provide the “generic details of the net taxable income/gross income”. The CIC held that such information can be granted for corroborating the evidence in a maintenance case.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) in an appeal filed by cable operators against Star India Pvt. Ltd. (Star), alleging that Star is providing free broadcast of ICC Cricket World Cup on mobile devices through its App, Disney+Hotstar, while charging the cable operators for broadcasting its TV channel is discriminatory and violating Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines, observed that “prima facie, OTT platforms are not covered by the definition of ‘distribution platform’ under regulation 2(r) of TRAI Regulations, 2017”. The TDSAT further observed that OTT platforms are not TV channels, therefore, does not require any permission or license from the Central Government.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), UK, has initiated a probe into the acquisition of Autotalks, a specialist in chips designed for crash-prevention technology in vehicles, by Qualcomm to assess potential implications for competition in the UK market. The European Commission, the competition regulator of European Union had previously ordered that Qualcomm must seek antitrust approval for this potential takeover of Autotalks, underlining the international scrutiny the deal has attracted.