Advocate Chander Kalia

In the wake of Covid-19 outbreak, many countries across the world have put total lockdown in place, meaning thereby, the establishments or industries shall remain closed during the lockdown period. India, too, has already announced a 40 days lockdown in phases in order to implement social distancing. The non-essential factories, industries, business units as well as wholesale or retail shops are closed since 24th March, 2020. The employees working in these establishments had to face major sustainability hardships in absence of payment of wages. However, the Centre and state governments had come to their rescue by putting into place certain directions in this regard. In this article, we shall be going through the sequence of events in context of payment of wages to labour, following the lockdown caused due to outbreak of pandemic coronavirus. Initially, on dated March 20, 2020, an advisory note was issued by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, India, vide which all public an...

Government of India had imposed a 40-day lockdown in entire country to curb the spread of Coronavirus, which has already toppled the bigs and wigs of the world. Only essential services are allowed to function during this lockdown period. In these bizarre times, Indian judiciary has excellently responded to the crisis by suspending judicial work, except for urgent matters. To cater the requirement of social distancing, courts are functioning through video-conferencing and e-filing of files and documents. Even the fresh urgent matters are being filed electronically. Regarding the condonation of limitation for filing routine matters, kindly see my article Interpretation of the Supreme Court's order on law of limitation during the period of Covid-19 . Taking a historical step forward, Hon’ble Supreme Court of India bench comprising of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice L.N. Rao issued certain directions to reorganize the functioning of courts via vide...

In this article, I shall interpret the law regarding filing of written statement, governed by order 8 Rule 1 CPC, with the aid of laws laid down by Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in this regard. Hon'ble Supreme Court of India while interpreting Order 8 Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, had settled the law that the provision to file Written Statement within 30 days (further extendable to 90 days) from date of service of summons, is directory in nature and not mandatory. Lawyers across the country, have been relying on the two judgments of Supreme Court "Kailash v. Nankhu" {( 2005 ) 4 SCC  480 }  and "Salem Advocates Bar Association, T.N. v. Union of India" {( 2005 ) 6 SCC  344 }  which hold that that procedural law is for effective administration of justice and is not above the justice. These judgments have been referred while filing applications to condone delay in filing Written Statement beyond the limit of 90 days as prescribed in CPC. ...

The lockdown placed into effect due to Coronavirus pandemic has severely affected the functioning of courts and tribunals across the country. Almost all high courts and tribunals across the country and Hon'ble Supreme Court have issued circulars restricting the functioning of courts to only ‘extremely urgent matters’, resulting in the closure of courts for most of the matters. Many courts/tribunals have taken cognizance of issues that are likely to be faced because of the lockdown, including the matters that were yet to be filed and the matters where deadlines/limitation for filings would fall within the lockdown period. The issue of limitation during the lockdown period has been addressed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, on March 23, 2020, whereby exercising its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, passed an order in  Suo motu Civil Writ Petition bearing No. 3 of 2020  on the issue of law of limitation and observed that: “To obviate s...

The Supreme Court, in one of its recent judgement, has observed that the production of the account books/cash book may not be relevant in a criminal case filed under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. BACKGROUND OF THE CASE In the present case, the First Appellate Court reversed the Trial Court order in which the accused was convicted. The Appellate Court had held that the complainant didn't produce cash and account books to prove that the amount was due and payable by the accused. The complaint was that the accused purchased the pesticides on credit from the company and made part payments by issuing a cheque, which when presented for collection returned with the endorsement "insufficient funds". The High Court, on the other hand, restored the Trial Court judgement and observed that "the reason was given by the Lower Appellate Court that he didn't bring the cash book or order book, etc. could well be understood, if civil suit is tried"...