News Insights

While highlighting the economic and social adversities faced by orphans, a PIL has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking directions for the Centre to prepare a national level policy to deal with the legal and fundamental rights of the orphaned.

SC strikes down West Bengal's HIRA law owing to its encroachment upon the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 arriving at the conclusion that the WB-HIRA was repugnant to the RERA and hence unconstitutional. The 190 pages judgment mentions prospective striking down of the provisions of the HIRA under its extraordinary powers under Article 142 declaring that, in order to avoid uncertainty in respect of actions taken in the past, recourse to Article 142 is necessary wherein it was directed that striking down the law will not affect the registrations, sanctions and permissions granted prior.

In a plea before a Madras High Court bench headed by Justice N Anand Venkatesh, the Court has rendered protection to lesbian couples from their relatives. The Judgement ran into 104 pages capturing the outlook of society towards same-sex relationships and how the Judge himself opted to counsel himself to better understand the issue.

As Future Group was gearing up to go ahead with its Reliance deal after the Delhi High Court Order in Dec 2020 and expecting quick approvals from authorities, Amazon expectedly has approached the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court. One of Amazon's primary contentions is that the observations of the Single Bench has allowed Future to circumnavigate the Emergency Arbitration Order in Singapore.

The highly anticipated Delhi High Court Order in the Amazon vs. Future & Reliance battle has come out with no clear victor. While Amazon has not been restrained from writing to regulatory authorities blocking the Reliance deal, the Future Group suit in HC has been held to be maintainable and the resolution to sell to Reliance valid. Regulatory authorities are open to make their own decisions. However, the HC has held that any attempt to control Future by Amazon through conflation of agreements would be violative of FEMA FDI Rules.

Amazon has approached the Singapore Arbitration Court which in turn has restrained the Future Group from selling its assets to Reliance. It is expected that all parties will also surely lock horns in Indian courts as the Singapore arbitration court and its restraining order will be tested in the context of Indian transactions and arbitration law.