CHENNAI: SUO-MOTU taking cognizance of the honour killings rampant in Tamil Nadu, a division bench of the Madras High Court has directed the State Chief Secretary, Home secretary and the DGP, to file an affidavit with all details as to the steps the State has taken towards the implementation of the SC’s directions.
The bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad gave the direction, on Tuesday. The bench pointed out that in the Shakti Vahini vs Union of India case, the Supreme Court considered honour killing prevalent in India, in 2018. After considering the evils of honour killing, rights of the parties, inter-caste or inter-religion, as the case may be for marriage, the SC had issued various directions to the States to take preventive steps, remedial measures, and punitive measure. It had also observed that the measures should be carried out within six weeks by the respective States and compliance reports should be filed within that period before the registry of the court concerned.
There are newspaper reports recently, reporting honour killings in Tamil Nadu. Though the Supreme Court had directed the State government to submit reports of compliance within six weeks, the bench said that it was of the view that it is the duty of the High Court to ensure the enforcement of the SC’s orders.
Direction issued by the SC under the heads of preventive steps, remedial measure and punitive measure, should be strictly enforced, the bench added and posted the matter for further hearing on July 22.
HC vacates interim stay against Patanjali
Chennai: The Madras High Court has vacated its earlier interim order restraining Patanjali Biscuits Private Limited and Patanjali Ayurved Limited from using the term ‘Arokya’ on their milk products. On February 28, while passing interim orders on applications arising out of civil suits from Hatsun Agro Limited in Chennai, Justice S Vaidyanathan granted the stay. Vacating the stay, the judge said there is no inter-connectivity between the products sold by Hatsun and Patanjali.