BENGALURU: The Karnataka HC on Wednesday requested members of the Bar not to share the video conference IDs and password with litigants. Passing the order after the video conference connection snapped during the hearing of a batch of public interest petitions relating to the IMA scam due to the excessive number of users, a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Ashok S Kinagi said that advocates can accommodate their litigants in their offices, if they want, but they cannot be permitted to join the video conference directly.
Meanwhile, the bench cautioned the State that it will view the matter seriously if it fails to release non-salary grants to the Competent Authority (CA). It also added that it is necessary to provide all infrastructure to the CA and he cannot be neglected.
The government has released required salary grants to the office of the CA, but has not provided non-salary grants for payments towards purchase of office equipment, stationary, outsourcing of vehicles for officers and for payment towards forensic audit, videography, valuers, Centre for Smart Governance, etc. It has also not released office maintenance and contingency grants to take up renovation of the new office space allocated at Podium Block, VV Towers.
PIL challenges provisions of Transgender Persons Act
The HC issued notices to the state and Centre on a PIL questioning the constitutional validity of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 enacted by the Union government.A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Ashok S Kinagi heard the petition by Ondede trust and two others.The petitioners have alleged that the Centre is keen to operationalise the Act. They said offences of special assault in the IPC against women have a punishment of seven years and above, but similar offences against transgenders is only from six months to two years.