Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-09-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc, a Canadian company, and the University of British Columbia are joint proprietors of European patent 0 706 376 which claims, among other things, a stent coated with taxol for “treating or preventing recurrent stenosis". For convenience I shall call the patentees Angiotech. Conor Medsystems Inc (Conor), an American competitor, applied in both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for revocation of the patent on the ground that the claimed invention was obvious. In the United Kingdom, before Pumfrey J and the Court of Appeal (Mummery, Tuckey and Jacob LJJ), it succeeded. In the Netherlands, before the District Court of The Hague (Robert van Peursem, Edgar Brinkman and Walter van Straalen) it failed. Angiotech appeals to your Lordships’ House and says that the Dutch court was right and that the patent should be declared valid. 2. Since the decision of the Court of Appeal, Angiotech and Conor have reached a settlement. C...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Gujarat
Decided on : Jul-08-2008
Reported in : AIR2008Guj183
ORDER:GUJARAT MUNICIPALITIES ACT, 1963:NO:KV-160-99-NPL-4598-1772-M : Whereas the VVF Limited (hereinafter referred to as Company) Vejalpore manufacturer of various Shaving Creams, Shampoos, Toilet Soap noodles and toilet soaps has expanded its manufacturing operations in the year 1995-96 and has represented to the State Government to give exemption, from octroi for the expanded capacity.AND WHEREAS on verification of the details on investment made by the Company for expanding its capacity it is found that the company has invested more than 50% in the land, buildings and plant and machinery for the expansion of its capacity of existing industrial undertaking and therefore, is entitled to be considered as 'New Industry'.NOW, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by Sub-section (1) of Section 99 of the Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963 (Guj. XXXIV of 1964) the Government of Gujarat hereby makes the following order, namely:No octroi shall be levied from the VVF Limited Vejalpore, ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Decided on : Jul-07-2008
Reported in : [2008(3)JCR141(SC)]; 2008(9)SCALE630; (2008)7SCC334; 2008AIRSCW5261; 2008(7)SCC334; (2008)3SCC(Cri)94
Arijit Pasayat, J.1. Leave granted.2. Challenge in these appeals is to the judgment of the learned Single Judge of the Delhi High court dismissing the MAC Appeal No. 219/07 and order dismissing the application for review.3. Background facts in a nutshell are as follows:Respondent-Bhupinder filed a claim petition stating that he was injured in an accident where scooter bearing No. DL 3S 7420 was involved. According to the respondent the accident occurred on 2.8.1995 at 11.20 a.m. He sustained injuries. The Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal, Delhi allowed the petition and granted compensation of Rs. 57,635/- alongwith 6% interest thereon. Appellant was impleaded in the claim petition as the sole respondent. Stand of the appellant was that his vehicle was not offending vehicle and in any event he was not driving the vehicle in question at the relevant point of time as claimed. He relied on certificate issued by his employer which clearly indicated that at the relevant point of time he was wo...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-02-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. In 2003 the pursuer Mr Spencer-Franks was employed as a mechanical technician by Kellogg Brown and Root Ltd (“KBR”), then a subsidiary of Halliburton, the multi-national company based in Texas which, among other things, supplies services to the offshore oil industry. KBR contracted to supply workers to operate the Tartan Alpha platform in the Scottish sector of the North Sea, which was operated by Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd (“Talisman”), a subsidiary of a Canadian oil company. The pursuer was one of the workers which KBR supplied to work on the platform. 2. On 12 October 2003 the closer on the door of the central control room was not working properly and the appellant was asked to inspect and repair it. The closer consists of a spring mechanism attached to the door and connected by a linkage arm to the door frame. According to the pursuer’s averments, which must for the purposes of this appeal be taken as true, he decided to remove...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-02-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. On 4 March 2005 the four appellants were convicted in the Crown Court at Leeds before Wakerley J and a jury of murdering Tyrone Clarke on 22 April 2004. The indictment contained a second count, of violent disorder, on which no verdict was returned. It was not alleged or proved that any of the appellants had personally struck the fatal blow or blows and they were convicted as accessories or secondary parties to the joint enterprise which culminated in the death of the deceased. The Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal (Hooper LJ, Gibbs and Roderick Evans JJ) dismissed their appeals against conviction on 23 February 2007, for reasons given by Hooper LJ: [2007] EWCA Crim 342, [2007] 1 WLR 2191. Their appeals to the House raise a narrow but significant question on the direction to be given to the jury concerning the liability of an accessory on facts such as arose in the present case. The facts 2. There was, it seems, a history of confrontation bet...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Karnataka
Decided on : Jul-02-2008
Reported in : AIR2008NOC2790(FB); ILR2008(3)KAR2895; 2008(4)KarLJ593; 2008(4)KLJ593; 2008(5)AIRKarR261; AIR2008NOC2790(FB)
ORDERN. Kumar, J.1. The destiny of India is now being shaped in her classrooms. In a world based on science and technology it is education that determines the level of prosperity, welfare and security of the people. On the quality and number of persons coming out of our schools and colleges will depend our success in the great enterprise of national reconstruction whose principal objective is to raise the standard of living of our people. The task is neither unique nor is it quite new. But its magnitude, gravity and urgency have increased immensely and it has acquired a new meaning and importance in the context of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation. If the pace of national development is to be accelerated there is need for a well defined, bold and imaginative educational policy and for determined and vigorous action to vitalize, improve and expand education.2. Education is to be used as a powerful instrument of social, economic and political change and therefore has to be ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Karnataka
Decided on : Jun-30-2008
Reported in : AIR2008Kant199; 2009(1)KarLJ177; 2008(4)KCCR2527; 2008(6)AIRKarR106
Cyriac Joseph, C.J.1. The petitioner in this writ petition is a senior citizen whose son died in the year 1996 at the age of 20 years in a rood accident at Bangalore. It is stated that after the death of his son in the road accident, the petitioner has been devoting considerable time and effort in espousing public causes relating to road safety, vehicular traffic, traffic discipline and other relevant issues. The petitioner claims that he has filed this writ petition to espouse the public cause relating to road safety and excessive speeding by commercial vehicles within and outside the city limits in the State of Karnataka.2. The immediate provocation for filing the writ petition was Annexure-J Notification dated 29.06.2007 issued by the Government of Karnataka extending the time to fit the vehicles with Speed Governors and specifying that fitting of Speed Governors shall be mandatory only from 01.01.2008. The writ petition was filed challenging Annexure-J Notification and seeking a di...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Patna
Decided on : Jun-27-2008
Sudhir Kumar Katriar and Samarendra Pratap Singh, JJ.1. The instant Government appeal is directed against the judgment dated 18.6.1988, passed by the learned 2nd Additional District & Sessions Judge, Begusarai, in S.T. No. 107 of 1985/4 of 1988, whereby and where under he has acquitted Opposite Parties 1, 2 and 3, namely, Md. Akhtar @ Md. Kari, Md. Jamal @ Fakira and Md. Sanjat, charged under Sections 148 and 302 read with Section 149 of the Penal Code. A criminal revision was also filed at the instance of the informant to the same effect which has been tagged with the instant Government Appeal.2. The prosecution case, as made out in the Fardbeyan of Md. Abu Daud (P.W.6) of village Saidpur, P.S. Matihani, District Begusarai, recorded on 5.1.1984, at 9 P.M., by Shri B. Das, Officer Incharge Matihani P.S., Village Saidpur, in short is as follows:i) The informant stated that he along with his younger brother Md. Nadir Sah @ Jumma went to the place of co-villager Md. Mobin (P.W.4) to coll...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-26-2008
District of Columbia v. Heller - 07-290 (2008) SYLLABUS OCTOBER TERM, 2007 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA V. HELLER SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA etal. v . HELLER certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit No. 07290.Argued March 18, 2008Decided June 26, 2008 District of Columbia law bans handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; provides separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but authorizes the police chief to issue 1-year licenses; and requires residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Respondent Heller, a D.C. special policeman, applied to register a handgun he wished to keep at home, but the District refused. He filed this suit seeking, on Second Amendment grounds, to enjoin the city from enforcing the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requi...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jun-25-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinions of my noble and learned friends Lord Scott of Foscote and Baroness Hale of Richmond. I gratefully adopt their summaries of the background and issues in this appeal. I can state my own conclusions relatively briefly. 2. The conduct of Mr Malcolm in subletting and ceasing to live in the flat let to him by the London Borough of Lewisham (“Lewisham”) had the effect of destroying the security of tenure he had previously enjoyed and breaching the terms of his tenancy so as to give Lewisham what was, in terms of housing law, an unanswerable claim to possession. To defeat that claim Mr Malcolm relied, unsuccessfully before Her Honour Judge Hallon but successfully before the Court of Appeal (Arden, Longmore and Toulson LJJ: [2007] EWCA Civ 763, [2008] Ch 129), on the terms of sections 22 and 24 in Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The question is whether, on the facts an...
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