The Brave Pedestrian

This is the text of the impleadment application of Activist Ravi Krishna Reddy as an opposing Respondent in the matter referred to in my recent post titled  What makes Karnataka High Court the Darling of Tobacco Lobby? The below impleadment application was recently heard in open court . The application describes how the tobacco lobby, led by ITC Limited, is abusing the judicial process. ---------------------------------------------------- "The case above is part of a batch of cases. This batch is currently being heard by a Bench of this Hon’ble Court. Tobacco companies and tobacco trade groups have questioned the legality and constitutionality of the 85% pictorial warning on tobacco packs – the Cigarettes And Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling Amendment) Rules, 2014. The case above was filed in the Karnataka High Court itself. The 85% pictorial warning on tobacco packs alerts about the inherently dangerous, harmful and toxic nature of tobacco to the uns...

Justice CR Kumaraswamy excelled himself in the Jayalalitha disproportionate assets case, by “miscalculating” Rs 10.67 cr loans as 24.17 cr on page 852 of the judgment. As a result of this miscalculation, he could then show that her assets were not disporportionate compared to her known sources of income, as her balance loan (after deducting income) was Rs 18.17 cr... whereas actually, the balance  loan is only 4.67 cr. So, although there is no explanation for Amma’s assets worth 13.5 cr, Justice Kumaraswamy takes the help of his arithmetic error to say that there is! His judgment says: Pg. 901 – “The immovable properties were acquired by borrowing huge loan from the Nationalised Banks. It is difficult to infer that the properties were acquired by means of ill-gotten money. Therefore, in my view, confiscation of the properties by the Trial Court is not sustainable in law.“ Pg 909: "The case of the prosecution that Accused No.1 amassed wealth and acquired agricultural lands, si...