Court : House of Lords
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, The three appeals 1. These three appeals are principally concerned with claims in tort for economic loss caused by intentional acts (a) In OBG Ltd v Allan [2005] QB 762 the defendants were receivers purportedly appointed under a floating charge which is admitted to have been invalid. Acting in good faith, they took control of the claimant company's assets and undertaking. The claimant says that this was not only a trespass to its land and a conversion of its chattels but also the tort of unlawful interference with its contractual relations. It claims that the defendants are liable in damages for the value of the assets and undertaking, including the value of the contractual claims, as at the date of their appointment. Alternatively, it says the defendants are liable for the same damages in conversion. (b) In Douglas v Hello! Ltd the magazine OK! [2006] QB 125 contracted for the exclusive right to publish photographs of a celebrity wedding at which all other pho...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Andhra Pradesh
Reported in : 2008(2)ALT611
ORDERP.S. Narayana, J.1. This Court issued rule nisi on 19-4-2007.2. Counter affidavits, additional affidavits and reply affidavits were filed and written arguments also were submitted in addition to the submissions made by the respective Counsel in open Court. Certain subsequent events also were brought to the notice of the Court and apart from the material papers initially placed, additional material papers as well had been placed before this Court.3. M/s. Ghanta Infrastructure Limited, a Company incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, represented by its Director Sri M. Raghuveer, filed the present Writ Petition for a Writ of Mandamus declaring the proceedings ARG-II/PJ/FY07/04568 dated 12-12-2006 and the consequential proceedings ARG 1/PJ/FY07/04730 dated 22-12-2006 of the 1st respondent as illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and consequently to direct the 1st respondent to accept the bid of the petitioner in respect of the bus...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : 2008(56)BLJR1292; 2008(3)CTC97; [2008(3)JCR176(SC)]; JT2008(5)SC1; (2008)3MLJ1105(SC); 2008(5)SCALE1; (2008)6SCC1; 2008AIRSCW2899; 2008(3)Supreme331; 2008(2)LH(SC)1534
K.G. Balakrishnan, C.J.1. Reservation for admission in educational institutions or for public employment has been a matter of challenge in various litigations in this Court as well as in the High Courts. Diverse opinions have been expressed in regard to the need for reservation. Though several grounds have been raised to oppose any form of reservation, few in independent India have voiced disagreement with the proposition that the disadvantaged sections of the population deserve and need 'special help'. But there has been considerable disagreement as to which category of disadvantaged sections deserve such help, about the form this help ought to take and about the efficacy and propriety of what the government has done in this regard. 2. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who presided over the Congress Expert Committee emphasized before the Constituent Assembly that the removal of socio-economic inequalities was the highest priority. He believed that only this could make India a casteless and cla...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. For my part, I would have been content to dismiss these appeals for the reasons given by Carnwath LJ in his lucid and convincing judgment. But since your Lordships are minded in one respect to differ from his analysis, I must explain why on this point I regretfully feel obliged to dissent. For this purpose, I gratefully adopt the recital of the facts and statutory provisions in the speech to be delivered by my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, which I have had the advantage of reading in draft. 2. The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 provided in section 9 that the price payable for the house should be the amount which, on certain specified assumptions, it would be expected to realise if sold on the open market. The open market means everyone who could reasonably be expected to be interested in buying. Among these potential purchasers there will sometimes be one or more to whom the property would be worth more than to others. In IRC v Clay [1914]...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder - 08-322 (2009) SYLLABUS OCTOBER TERM, 2008 NORTHWEST AUSTIN MUNICIPAL UTIL. DIST.NO. ONE V. HOLDER SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NORTHWEST AUSTIN MUNICIPAL UTILITYDISTRICT NUMBER ONE v . HOLDER,ATTORNEY GENERAL, etal. appeal from the united states district court for the district of columbia No. 08322.Argued April 29, 2009Decided June 22, 2009 The appellant is a small utility district with an elected board. Because it is located in Texas, it is required by 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Act) to seek federal preclearance before it can change anything about its elections, even though there is no evidence it has ever discriminated on the basis of race in those elections. The district filed suit seeking relief under the bailout provision in 4(a) of the Act, which allows a political subdivision to be released from the preclearance requirements if certain conditions are met. The district argued in the alternative t...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Kerala
P.N. Ravindran, J.1. The appellant is the 8th respondent in O.P. No. 18798 of 1995. The first respondent is the petitioner and respondents 2 to 9 are respondents 1 to 7 and 9 respectively therein. By judgment delivered on 22.7.2002, in N. Sreedharan Nair v. State of Kerala 2002 (3) KLT 307, the learned single Judge allowed the original petition. The 8th respondent in the original petition has, aggrieved thereby, filed this writ appeal. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as they are arrayed in the original petition. The brief facts of the case are as follows:2. A parcel of land, 91 cents in extent, comprised of 15 cents in Survey No. 1026, 34 cents in Survey No. 1342 and 42 cents in Survey No. 1421 of Ulloor Village, Trivandrum Taluk, was outstanding in the occupation of Viruthicars who were obliged to perform Oozhiyam services in Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Trivandrum and Sree Balasubramanya-swamy Temple, Ulloor. The lands described above were in the occupation o...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
LORD PHILLIPS Introduction "A feature of the trial is that in the public interest all those directly taking part are given civil immunity for their participationThus the court, judge and jury, and the witnesses including expert witnesses are granted civil immunity. This is not just privilege for the purposes of the law of defamation but is a true immunity" - Arthur JS Hall and Co v Simons [2002] 1 AC 615, 740, per Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough. In Stanton v Callaghan 2000] QB 75 the Court of Appeal held that the immunity of an expert witness extended to protect him from liability for negligence in preparing a joint statement for use in legal proceedings pursuant to RSC, Ord 38, r 38. The claim in this case relates precisely to such negligence and was, for that reason, struck out by Blake J on 22 January 2010. He certified, however, that the case involved a point of law of general public importance and granted a "leapfrog certificate" under section 12 of the Administration of Justice Ac...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
LADY HALE There are three cases before the Court, two on appeal from the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and one from the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland. This judgment deals with the two English cases, while a separate judgment will deal with the Scottish case. The issue common to all three is the scope for judicial review by the High Court or Court of Session of unappealable decisions of the Upper Tribunal established under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 (the "2007 Act"). It is no longer argued on behalf of the Government that such decisions are not amenable to judicial review at all. But it is argued that they are only reviewable in exceptional circumstances. The claimants argue that no such limit exists. The debate, therefore, has focussed upon the effect of the creation of a wholly new and integrated tribunal structure under the 2007 Act. The cases It has been helpful to hear three different cases together, all raising essentially the same qu...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Andhra Pradesh
Common Judgment: Writ Appeal Nos.1159 to 1166 of 2009 are filed by the State of Andhra Pradesh (the ‘State’); Writ Appeal Nos.1306 to 1313 of 2009 are by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) and W.P.No.29063 of 2009 is by five individuals. The eight appeals each filed by the State and the HMDA are against the common judgment dated 02-06-2009 in W.P.Nos.3421 of 2008, 12928 of 2008, 3750 of 2009, 22619 of 2007, 7747 of 2008, 10084 of 2006, 8761 of 2008 and 6425 of 2009; and the writ petition is by five individuals challenging memo No.1640/J.A1/03-09, Revenue Department, dated 21-05-2005 (the ‘impugned memo’), passed by the Principal Secretary (Revenue) of the State. It is this memo which was set aside by the learned single Judge, against which the sixteen (16) appeals are preferred. Several individuals filed eight writ petitions challenging the validity of the memo dated 21-05-2005 and in two of the writ petitions (W.P.Nos.22619 of 2007 and 7747...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Shelby County v. Holder NOTE:Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus SHELBY COUNTY, ALABAMA v. HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL, etal. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit No. 1296.Argued February 27, 2013Decided June 25, 2013 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to address entrenched racial discrimination in voting, an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301. Section 2 of the Act, which bans any standard, practice, or proce...
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