Web Sites Useful for Lawyers

(Compilation of P.B. Sahasranaman, Advocate, Kerala High Court)

AH India Reporter -http://www.allindiareporter.com/start.htm. This site contains the full text of the judgments which are reported in the famous old law journal All India Reporter. The judgments reported on All India Weekly Reporter are available.

Butterworths-http://www.butterworths.com/ - Butterworth's online services offer authoritative legal and taxation information services to fit every need. LEXIS-NEXIS Professional provides access to full-text online legal, news and business information services.

Enviro Legal Kerala-http://personal.vsnl.com/sahasram/. This site contains the necessary law for protecting the environment of our country. Several notifications and case laws are available. Site maintained by RB. Sahasranaman, Advocate.

Cause List & Orders of Courts in India -http://indiancourts.nic.in/maintcause.htm This site contains the cause list of the courts in India, like Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Kerala, J & K, Andhra Pradesh. It also gives the daily interim orders and judgments of the Supreme Court of India and Delhi High Court. This Site maintained by National Informatics Centre.

Cause List of Kerala High Court -http://164.100.9.209/kerala/indexl.html Cause list of Kerala High Court can also be searched through the site of the NIC as stated above. But you can reach same directly, without any side windows in this page.

Environmental Law -http://www.elaw.org/ The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW) gives public interest lawyers and scientists around the world the skills and resources they need to protect the environment through law. E-LAW advocates serve low-income communities around the world, helping citizens strengthen and enforce laws to protect themselves and their communities from toxic pollution and environmental degradation. E-LAW advocates are building a sustainable future by helping citizens participate in policy decisions about the environment. By giving grassroots advocates access to critical legal and scientific resources, E-Law strengthens these advocates to challenge environmental abuses and pursue environmental justice.

Find Iaw.com -This is US site is one of the most famous web sites on law. It also gives links to US Supreme Court, various job opportunities, etc. Law news are arranged in different heads. It also provides you e-mail facility.

Government of Kerala -A State Government web site. You can even sent e-mails to Chief Minister through this site. Format of applications to be made to Motor Vehicle Departments, Kerala State Electricity Board, Revenue Department, Municipal Corporations, Rationing Office and the current policies of the State Government is available on the web site.

Indian Courts -http://courtnic.nic.in/ This site connects you to the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court. You ascertain through this site the position of the case as on date. You can search by giving the name of Advocate, by giving the case number at Supreme Court or at the concerned High Court or by giving the petitioner/respondents' name.

Indian Property Laws.com-http://www.indianpropertylaws.com/ The most comprehensive web site on property laws. The sub heading provides information for registration of documents, important case laws and a bundle of specimen agreements like agreement for sale, gift deed, trust, power of attorney, partnership, etc. Besides this it also contains the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, Co-operative Societies Act, Relevant provisions of Income Tax Act, etc. Site maintained by Remani Legal Services Pvt. Ltd. Mumbai.

Indlaw.com.http://www.indlaw.com/ The largest electronics resource base on Indian legal, tax and regulatory issues. A good site for the lawyers. It has Indian law news, the frequently asked questions on certain legal matters, the essential law for business, and a large number of links to various sites on commercial laws, practice, international laws, Human rights and resources.

India info Law-http://www.indianinfo.com. This site contains useful information for the lawyers as well as for the public on Police, Tax, Labour, laws. This site is maintained by a group of students of National School of Law, Bangalore.

India Info Line -http:/www.indiainfoline.com/legal/ This site on law mainly concentrates on corporate laws. For Tax payers and share brokers this site will be more useful.

Judgment information system-http://caselaw.delhi.nic.in/caselaw/ Judis is a comprehensive On-line Case Law Library containing judgments of Supreme Court of India reported from 1950 onwards Good searching facility is also provided. Entry to the site is through membership and fees are at subsidized rates. There are two sections: Judis is a comprehensive and searchable online case law library containing all reportable Supreme Court judgments since 1950, and the India Code Text base a repository of all Central Acts of Parliament since 1834. Maintained by National Informatics Centre, New Delhi.

Judgments of Kerala High Court:http://www.geocities.com/sahasram 2000/This site hoisted by P.B. Sahasranaman, Advocte of Kerala High Court contains an index of the judgments of the Kerala High Court, a digest of Environmental and Public Interest Cases, and Laws relating to Telephones, etc. It also contains a lot of other details which are very useful to the lawyers and the persons who wanted to know about the law.

Kerala High Court - Official site -http://highcourtofkerala.nic.in/welcome.html. This is the official site of Kerala High Court, which contains the bio data of Judges, calendar, cause list and a lot more.

Kerala High Court -http://www.keralahighcourt.com. This site contains a lot regarding the Kerala High Court including judgments, details of pending cases and information about the lawyers in Kerala, Advocate General Office, Bar Council of Kerala, etc.

Kera Lawyer-http://www.keralawyer.com/.is a vertical portal that aims to provide free access to the latest judgments of the High Court of Kerala in Ernakulam. The portal is hosted and managed by Murti and Murti, Advocates.

Law schools and colleges in the world - A2 to Z colleges. comhttp://www.a2z.colleges.com/. This site gives a complete list of Law Colleges in the World in alphabetical order.- (Not Indian colleges).

Laws 4 India.Com -http://www.laws4india.com/ This site on Indian Laws is mainly related to corporate laws. This site is useful to those who practice taxation laws. Several formats of various documents are also available on this site. Circulars issued by the Reserve Bank of India, and Income Tax Departments are also available.

Law com Dictionary -http://dictionary.law.com/ As the name suggests it is good dictionary for the words for which we require definition. Search for any words relating to law or legal matters. Different types of search facility is also provided in this site.

Lawyers initiative-http://www.lawyersinitiative.net/Website providing legal advice. Court Fee Calculator, and links to various other sites useful to lawyers - maintained by group of lawyers from Kozhikode.

Legal Spider.com-http://www.legalspider.com Providing legal research services to the legal community. Certain services are free and certain are paid services. Formats of various documents, pleadings, etc. are available. Most of the central statutes are available on line.

Lex Site.com- http://www. lexsite.com/This site contains daily news on law. It provides information on direct taxes, indirect taxes, foreign exchange, corporate laws and provides links to a lot of other law related sites. A good compilation of bare acts is one of the good feature of this site.

Laws in India.com -http://www.lawsinindia.com/ A well maintained site for Indian site. The site contains a lot of information on civil, criminal, constitutional, environmental, company, labour, property, foreign trade, taxation laws. It also gives information on upcoming legislations.

Maha Library - http://www.mahalibrarv.com/ An on line collection of Indian Laws. It also provides search facility. Free registration.

National Informatics Centre : http://www.nic.in/. This site provides all the Government of India and some State sites maintained by the NIC. It has got links to all Government Departments, Ministries, Banking and Financial Institutions, Educational Institutions, Indian Missions, etc.

Peoples Council for Social Justice - http://councilforjustice.org/ People's Council For Social Justice (PCSJ) is a non Government, non-profit, welfare, service organisation founded on the initiative of Shri Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, former Judge of the Supreme Court of India in 1985. Provides legal assistance.

Railway - http://www.indianrail.gov.in/index.html- Site maintained by the Indian Railways. Provides a lot of information, like train timings, including the reservation availability.

Supreme Court on line - http://www.supremecourtonline.com/index.htm This site contains the more recent judgments of the Supreme Court of India. A private web site owned by M/s. Chawla Publications.

Supreme Court of India - http://www.supremecourtofindia.com/. This an unofficial site containing a lot of information who do not know anything about the institution. So far as lawyers it is less useful. This site is a dedication to the cause of propagating & spreading awareness about the various facets of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India and its, invaluable contribution to the fabric and growth of India through the medium of Internet. Besides a good photograph of the court, it provides a lot of information on the court.

Supreme Court case laws : http://www.supremecourtcaselaw.com/. This site provides you judgments of the Supreme Court of India, online, whether reportable or non-reportable. The accessibility to see and download the full text of the judgments is restricted to only the members of this site. However, non-members/visitors can search and see the subject index of the judgments on the site.

Telecom Directory-Through this site one can find out the telephone number of any person in the Kerala State. Site maintained by the Telecom Department.

Taxman - http://www.taxmann.com A site containing details of the Taxation laws. Recent issue of Taxman and SEBI and Corporate Law Reporter is available. Recent circulars issued by Finance Ministry and Income Tax Department are also available in the site.

Vakil No. l.Com. - http://www.vakilnol.com/ It provides online legal consultation. The site gives examples of agreements, legal forms, legal news, legal links, cause of lists of all Indian Courts, Court calendars, lawyers jokes, law riddles, law, vakil chat, legal bulletin board, judgments, etc.

Waqualat.com.- http://www.waqualt.com Containing a lot of information for lawyers.

Zee Next - http://www.zeenext.com/legal/index.asp - This site maintained by the Zee Television group is one of the best sites which provides information on a Indian Laws. It has inportant judgments, law lexicon, humor, and a lot of bare Acts. 

Does Contempt Jurisdiction Apply to the Administrative Side of Court?

(By M.P.R. Nair, Bar-at-Law)

In his article "No Retirement for Law" published in 2001 (3) KLT (Journal) Page, 61, Mr. Ramakumar, while criticising Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer for the opinion published in "The Hindu" dated 3.11.2001 in relation to the direction issued by a Division Bench of the High Court to furnish the qualifications of the lawyers appointed as Government Counsel, argues that in view of the progress made in the law relating to the field of public contracts and to appointment to public offices after Justice Krishna Iyer left the Supreme Court, his comments constitute contempt of court. Mr. Ramakumar relies for this purpose on a decision reported in AIR 1974 SC 710 (not AIR 1976 SC 716 as erroneously mentioned in the article), Baradakanta v. Registrar, Orissa High Court, and states that Justice Krishna Iyer was one of the parties to a judgment which extended the contempt jurisdiction even to the administrative side of the court.

It is not my purpose to contradict Mr. Ramakumar on the points he had laboured to establish in this article. I wish, however, to point out that the decision in Baradakanta's case is not only not an authority for the proposition that "contempt jurisdiction extends even to the administrative side" but Krishna Iyer J's judgment is a clear authority to the contrary position that contempt jurisdiction does not and should not extend to the administrative acts.

The contemner in Baradakanta's case was a District Judge. The Orissa High Court convicted him and sentenced him under the Contempt of Courts Act for multiple contempt. The alleged multiple contempt related partly to (i) an administrative act of the High Court narrated in representation filed by him to the Governor against the suspension order of the High Court and (ii) averments in a Special Leave Petition filed by him to the Supreme Court.

As regards the applicability of contempt jurisdiction to the Administrative side of the High Court, Justice Krishna Iyer said:

"If we accept this slant on judicialisation as a functional limitation on the contempt jurisdiction we must exclude from its ambit interference with purely administrative acts and non-judicial functions of Judges."(Para: 68 at page 729)

Justice Krishna Iyer relied on several decisions to support the above proposition of law including a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Damodaran v. Induchoodan (AIR 1961 Ker. 321) to hold that administrative acts of the court was not a fit subject for Contempt action. In this case, the transfer of a Magistrate was criticised as promoted by extraneous pressure. At para 6 of the judgment, the Court observed as follows:

"But before making the final order in the case, we would deal with the other complaint, that any comment on the administrative side of the judiciary, does not amount to contempt, and reliance has been placed on Debi Prasad v. Emperor, AIR 1943 PC 202. This principle has also been upheld by the Supreme Court in Brahma Prakash v. State of U,P., AIR 1954 SC 10. It is clear that had the insinuations and suggestions in the publication been against the High Court alone, they would not have persuaded us to take any step against the respondents, for the question of transfer of Magistrates, is administrative in character and would have given the benefit of the doubt in this case to the printer and the publisher..."

In Baradakanta's case, however, Justice Krishna Iyer, confirmed the conviction and imposed a lesser punishment of fine for different reasons altogether, stated very succinctly at para 81 of the judgment.

"The first part of the present case directly raises the question whether statements made in an appeal to the Governor against an order of the High Court on the administrative side attracts the contempt law".......Obviously, the impugned conduct of the contemner was qua judge and the evil criticism was of a supervisory act of the High Court and the critic would - and should - necessarily court contempt action."

No, therefore, is the answer to the captioned questioned posed by me.

A Critical Note on the Article- “Concurrent and Consecutive Sentence” - Published in 2001(3) KLT Page 67

(By Pramod Krishnan, Advocate, Tellicherry)

In the above mentioned article the author has come to a conclusion that consecutive prison sentence is unknown to Criminal Law of our country and therefore it is illegal. The same is not correct according to me.

To support my contention I may quote the following relevant portions from the Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Penal Code:-

S.31 of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973 deals with sentence in cases of conviction of several offences at one trial. It reads:-

(1) When a person is convicted at one trial of two or more offences, the court may, subject to the provisions of S.71 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860), sentence him for such offences to the several punishments prescribed therefore which such court is competent to inflict such punishments, when consisting of imprisonment to commence the one after the expiration of the other in such order as the court may direct, unless the court directs that such punishments shall run concurrently.

(2) In the case of consecutive sentences, it shall not be necessary for the court by reason only of the aggregate punishment for the several offences being in excess of the punishment which it is competent to inflict on conviction of a single offence, to send the offender for trial before a higher court:

Provided that-

(a) in no case shall such person be sentenced to imprisonment for a longer period than fourteen years;

(b) the aggregate punishment shall not exceed twice the amount of punishment which the court is competent to inflict for a single offence.

(3) For the purpose of appeal by a convicted person, the aggregate of the consecutive sentences passed against him under this section shall be deemed to be a single sentence.

Similarly S.427 of the Criminal Procedure Code which deals with sentence on offender already sentenced for another offence. It reads:-

(1) When a person already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment is sentenced on a subsequent conviction to imprisonment or imprisonment for life, such imprisonment or imprisonment for life shall commence at the expiration of the imprisonment to which he has been previously sentenced, unless the court directs that the subsequent sentence shall run concurrently with such previous sentence.

Provided that where a person who has been sentenced to imprisonment by an order under S.122 in default of furnishing security is, whilst undergoing such sentence, is sentenced to imprisonment for an offence committed prior to the making of such order, the latter sentence shall commence immediately:

(2) When a person already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for life is sentenced on a subsequent conviction to imprisonment for a term or imprisonment for life, the subsequent sentence shall run concurrently with such previous sentence.

So by the reading of Ss.31 and 427 of Cr. P.C. it is clear that the court is at liberty to impose consecutive sentence of imprisonment.

And further S.64 of the Indian Penal Code reads as follows:-

In every case, of an offence punishable with imprisonment as well as fine, in which the offender is sentenced to fine, whether with or without imprisonment, and in every case of an offence punishable with imprisonment or fine, or with fine only, in which the offender is sentenced to a fine,

it shall be competent to the court which sentences such offender to direct by the sentence that, in default of payment of the fine, the offender shall suffer imprisonment for a certain term, which imprisonment shall be in excess of any other imprisonment to which he may have been sentenced or to which he may be liable under a commutation of a sentence.

Similarly S.30 of Criminal Procedure Code deals with sentence of imprisonment in default of payment of fine. According to this section:-

(1) The court of a Magistrate may award such term of imprisonment in default of payment of fine as is authorised by law:

Provided that the term-

(a) is not in excess of the powers of the Magistrate under S.29;

(b) shall not, where imprisonment has been awarded as part of the substantive sentence, exceed one-fourth of the term of imprisonment which the Magistrate is competent to inflict as punishment for the offence otherwise than as imprisonment in default of payment of the fine.

(2) The imprisonment awarded under this Section may be in addition to a substantive sentence of imprisonment for the maximum term awardable by the Magistrate under S.29.

So according to S.64 IPC and S.30 Cr. P.C. the sentence in default of fine cannot run concurrently with the substantive sentence.

The basic rule so far has been the single transaction rule for concurrent sentences. But this rule has no application if (a) the transaction relating to the offences is not the same or (b) if the facts constituting the two offences are quite different. So in such cases consecutive sentence may be imposed (Mohd. Akhtar Hussain, 1989 Crl. L.J. 283 = AIR 1988 SC 2143).

In a case where a convict prisoner jumped jail and after his re-arrest he was tried and convicted under S.225 B IPC and sentenced to imprisonment of 6 months. It was held that he could not pray for the subsequent sentence to run concurrently with the sentence which he had already been undergoing at the time of escape. That would mean that he would not have to suffer the consequences of the second conviction and may feel justified in making similar attempts. (Grahart, 1988 Crl. LJ 1351 (Ker.))

Sentences should not be made to run concurrently where to do so would make the sentences ineffective or the crime inconsequential. If habitual offenders with several convictions are allowed concurrent sentences, crimes may escape punishment and even dangerous criminals who must be segregated would be let loose. Court should not make it a meaningless exercise, missing the nuisances of the case. (Sarkar on Criminal Procedure, sixth edition, 1992 reprint page 1136)

Therefore it can be concluded that the consecutive sentence of imprisonment is known to criminal law of our country and therefore it is not illegal.

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"ARRACK" MEANS ANY "POTABLE" LIQUOR

(By Abhilash Joseph, Advocate, Kalpetta)

In prosecution under Ss.55(a) and 8(1) of Abkari Act, when it is alleged that the accused manufactured, imported, exported, transported, transited, possessed, stored or sold 'arrack' the proof that the seized liquid is 'potable' is highly necessary. In Statements of Objects and Reasons of Act 4 of 1996, it is discussed that in the old Statute, the term "Arrack" is not defined. So definition given. The definition for Arrack as per S. 3(6A) is "Arrack means any potable liquor other than toddy, beer, spirits of wine, Indian made spirit, foreign liquor and any medicinal preparation containing alcohol etc.........." The Act 4 of 1996 has redefined the word 'Spirit' also. There the words "whether it is denatured or not" are deleted. Since denatured spirit is not a potable liquor, it will not come under the purview of the Abkari Act. In the definition for liquor also (S.3(10)) "methyalated spirit" has been substituted by work 'arrack' by S.2(c) of Act 4 of 1996. So the intention of the Legislature is to exclude everything which are not potable or unfit for human consumption from the purview of Abkari Act for circumscription. So the proof that the liquid seized from the accused is potable or fit for consumption bears high importance.

Nowadays in the trials for offences under S.55(a) or 8(1) of Abkari Act, the prosecution does not furnish proof for the above. In the investigation also this is ignored. In the certificate of Chemical analysis which is admissible in evidence under S.293 Cr.P.C. also, it is not mentioned that the liquid tested is fit for human consumption of 'potable'. In that certificate, the Analyst usually furnish details on the physical appearance, smell and tests for the presence of ethyl alcohol and percentage of ethyl alcohol in the sample. From that data it cannot be conclusively presumed that the sample is potable. They are not conducting any tests for substantiating it also. Moreover the proof for the fact that something is potable and something is noxious are different. All liquids containing or consisting alcohol need not be potable and need not be noxious also. As per definition given for 'Liquor in S.3( 10), even sewage water mixed with any alcohol will become liquor.