Citations: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 17 To 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 24 NOMINAL INDEX M/s. Unique Builders Vs The Union of India, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 17 Dr. C. Vijayabaskar v The State of Tamil Nadu, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 18Mohammed Tharik Anvar @ Thar v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 19HCL Technologies Ltd. v. X, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 20State Secretary v Additional Chief Secretary and...
Citations: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 17 To 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 24
NOMINAL INDEX
M/s. Unique Builders Vs The Union of India, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 17
Dr. C. Vijayabaskar v The State of Tamil Nadu, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 18
Mohammed Tharik Anvar @ Thar v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 19
HCL Technologies Ltd. v. X, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 20
State Secretary v Additional Chief Secretary and Others, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 21
Ganesan v. The Commandant, TN Special Police Force, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 22
C.Kohila v The Additional Chief Secretary and Others, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 23
Ameen Batcha v The State, 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 24
REPORTS
Case Title: M/s. Unique Builders Vs The Union of India
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 17
The Madras High Court bench of Justice P.B. Balaji has held that inordinate and unexplained delay in passing the arbitral award can be a ground to set it aside under section 34 of the Arbitration Act.
The court further referred to its own judgment in K. Dhanasekar v. Union of India, 2019 where the court while referring to Harji Engineering Works Private Limited (supra) held that when there is a huge gap between the last date of the hearing and the date on which the award is passed, the arbitrator is obligated to explain the inordinate delay and in absence of such an explanation it would cause grave prejudice to the aggrieved party.
Furthermore, the arbitrator is mandated to send signed copies of the award to each party to an arbitration agreement under section 31(5) of the Arbitration Act but in this case, the copy was served on the counsel of the petitioner and the petitioner got his copy only after 10 days from the date of passing the award. This indicates a serious irregularity being committed by the Arbitrator.
Case Title: Dr. C. Vijayabaskar v The State of Tamil Nadu
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 18
The Madras High Court has quashed the report of Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry with respect to former Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabhaskar citing irregularities in the report. The court primarily noted that Vijabhayaskar, who was initially called by the commission as a witness, was not given an opportunity to present his case after finding materials against him.
Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan observed that Vijayabhaskar was not given an opportunity of hearing or to cross-examine the witnesses as contemplated under Sections 8B and 8C of the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1952. Thus, the court held that the commission's conclusion ordering appropriate action to be initiated against Vijayabhaskar could not be sustained and was thus liable to be quashed. The court had previously stayed the recommendations against Vijayabhaskar.
Case Title: Mohammed Tharik Anvar @ Thar v. State of Tamil Nadu
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 19
The Madras High Court has held that passing of a detention order against an individual cannot be a bar on the Court to decide such person's bail application.
Justice Anand Venkatesh thus granted bail to a man against whom the State had passed a detention order, while the bail application was pending. The court had already passed the bail order when the Public Prosecutor informed the court that a detention order was passed. However, noting that the detention order could not be a bar, the court said that the bail order would stand and gave liberty to the man to work out his remedy against the detention order.
Case Title: HCL Technologies Ltd. v. X
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 20
The Madras High Court has emphasised that under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act [PoSH Act], the act of sexual harassment itself is given significance and not the intention behind the same.
Justice RN Manjula thus observed that in cases under the Act, what has to be looked at is not what the accused thought was 'decent' but how such a person made a person of another gender feel about his actions. Thus, the court held that if any action or gesture was not received well and was inappropriate and felt as unwelcoming behaviour, it would fall within the definition of sexual harassment.
Case Title: State Secretary v Additional Chief Secretary and Others
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 21
The Madras High Court has read down a circular issued by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) initiating action against all employees of a shop including the supervisor of the shop whenever it was found that an employee of the shop was overpricing the customers.
Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy made it clear that a collective action could be taken only when there was prima facie material to show that all the employees had colluded and shared the profits among themselves. The court added that unless there was prima facie material, community liability could not be fastened merely based on the circular. Thus, the court deemed it fit to read down the circular to such an extent.
Case Title: Ganesan v. The Commandant, TN Special Police Force
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 22
The Madras High Court recently granted relief to a Police Nayak who was discharged from service after acquiring 100% blindness during service and being declared medically unfit for service.
Justice R Vijayakumar of the Madurai Bench observed that though the proviso to Section 20(1) empowered the Government to exempt any establishment from the requirements of the Act, no such notification had been made exempting the Police Department. Thus, the court noted that the provision would be applicable to the uniformed service also and thus directed the Tamil Nadu Special Police Force to reinstate the workman.
Case Title: C.Kohila v The Additional Chief Secretary and Others
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 23
The Madras High Court recently observed that the Maternity Leave Rules have to be interpreted in such a way that a woman employee would be entitled to seek leave twice during her service period and not in such a manner to deny her maternity leave for her third pregnancy even if it is taken for the first time.
Justice R Vijayakumar observed that the legislative intent of the Fundamental Rules of the Tamil Nadu Government was to discourage having more children considering the health of the women, the financial constraints involved, the population control policy of the Government and the fact that the State exchequer may be burdened with more financial stress by extending maternity leave for many children. The court suggested that the rules should be given a purposive interpretation and when a female employee seeks maternity leave for the first time, the same could not be denied merely citing a third pregnancy.
Case Title: Ameen Batcha v The State
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 24
The Madras High Court has recently quashed a case against a 26-year-old man who was convicted and sentenced for allegedly raping his partner on a false promise to marry.
Relying upon the Supreme Court's decision in Mahesh Damu Khare v. The State of Maharastra & Another, Justice Sunder Mohan observed that the present case appeared to be one where a consensual relationship that prolonged for a long time had turned sour.
The court also noted that the victim's statement revealed that the couple's physical relationship was not merely due to the alleged promise to marry and that the couple shared a good relationship. The court also noted that the victim was aged 24 years at the time of the alleged occurrence and was aware of the consequences of her actions. The court also added that the victim was neither naïve nor gullible.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Case Title: M. Depalaksmi v. The Additional Chief Secretary to Government
Case No: WP NO. 1651 of 2025
The Madras High Court has directed the Accountant General of Tamil Nadu (Audit) to depute a team of Accounts Officers and conduct an audit of accounts under the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Fund Rules, to find out the correctness of accounts and genuinty of payments made under the scheme.
The bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice M Jothiraman directed the Accountant General to complete the audit within 2 weeks in all the eight central prisons across the State where a District level Committee has been constituted as per the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Fund Rules.
Case Title: Los Gatos Production Services India LLP v Wunderbar Films Private Limited
Case No: A 6748 of 2024
The Madras High Court has reserved orders on two applications moved by Netflix India to reject the plaint and to revoke the leave to sue granted to Actor Dhanush's Wunderbar films. Wunderbar had sought leave to sue Los Gatos (Netflix's Indian entity) in connection with the copyright infringement case against Nayanthara, Vignesh Sivan, and others.
Justice Abdul Quddhose reserved orders after hearing Senior Advocate Parthasarathy (for Netflix India) and Senior Advocate PS Raman (for Wunderbar Films).
Seeking to revoke the leave to sue, Netflix India argued that as per the provisions of the Copyright Act and the Letter Patent Act, leave has to be obtained for suing any of the defendants or any part of the cause of action arising out of the court's jurisdiction. It was argued that the plaintiff in the present case had obtained leave to sue only the 5th Defendant (Los Gatos - Netflix India) and only because the office was situated outside the jurisdiction of the court. He thus argued that the plaintiff ought to have obtained leave against all the defendants.
Case Title: LN Nithyanantham v The Director General of Police
Case No: WP 1820 of 2025
The Madras High Court on Thursday (January 23) issued notice to the Director General of Police on a plea seeking formation of guidelines for monitoring and regulating delivery partners of online delivery service providers such as Swiggy, Zomato, etc.
Justice P Velmurugan issued notice to the DGP on a petition filed by Nithyanantham and adjourned the case by 4 weeks.
In his plea, Nithyanantham submitted that though delivery partners of Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo, Zepto, etc were expected to wear the company's uniform, most often, they did not carry any identity card displaying their name and other details. It was also submitted that in some cases, the delivery partners came without uniforms or would come wearing helmets making it difficult to identify the delivery person's face.
Pointing to the recent trends of crimes being committed by persons posing to be delivery partners, he submitted that in many cases, people wearing delivery partner's uniforms would go unsuspected as people would assume that they are waiting for delivery. Thus, he pointed out that the same could be curtailed by formulating guidelines for the delivery partners. In the absence of regulations, he argued that there was a chance that people may use the uniform of delivery partners and be involved in crimes.
Case Title: Gaja Lakshmi v The State
Case No: HCP NO. 3189 of 2024
The Madras High Court has directed the State Government, the Director General of Police, the Commissioner of Police, Superintendent of Cuddalore Central Prison to submit a report regarding serious lapses in investigating pending criminal cases and subsequent delays in prosecuting offenders along with setting up a Witness Protection Scheme in the State.
Observing that the criminal justice system should repose confidence in the people, the bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice M Jothiraman noted that a 'serious action on a war footing basis' was required.
Though the court was informed that a periodical review was being conducted by the Superintendent of Police, Commissioner of Police and other higher authorities, the court wondered what transpired in these review meetings and directed the DGP and the Principal Secretary, Home Department to monitor the same. The court added that the dereliction of duty on the part of investigating officers and other police officers in prosecuting offenders would in turn embolden the offenders to commit further offences. Thus, the court opined that the lackadaisical approach of the investigating officers or the reviewing authority had to be viewed seriously.
Chargesheet Filed Against Three For Mixing Feces In Water Tank: CB-CID Informs Madras High Court
Case Title: K Rajkamal v. Secretary to Government and other
Case No: WP 8925 of 2023
The CB-CID has informed the Madras High Court that it has filed a chargesheet against three persons in connection with the unfortunate incident of mixing human feces in an overhead water tank in Vengaivayal in Pudukottai District.
Additional Advocate General J Ravindran made the submission before the bench of Chief Justice KR Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy. The court was hearing two pleas seeking a CBI inquiry into the matter.
The unfortunate incident came to light in 2022 when human feces were found dumped in a water tank which was the only source of potable water for the people belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the area. Unaware of the mixing, the villagers (mostly belonging to scheduled caste communities) consumed the water for almost a week causing various health problems and agony.
Case Title: Suo Motu v The Deputy Commissioner of Police
Case No: HCP 2408 of 2024
The Madras High Court has constituted a Special Investigation Team to probe into the alleged leakage of the victim's identity in connection with a sexual assault case of a minor in Anna Nagar, Chennai. The SC had also appointed an SIT to probe into the allegation of the sexual assault of the minor. The investigation into the same has already been completed.
A division bench of Justice R Subramaniam and Justice C Kumarappan, which was entrusted with monitoring the progress of the SIT investigation, had initially observed that the investigation into the alleged leak of the victim's statement and the assault on her parents could also be monitored by the same SIT constituted by the Supreme Court.
However, the bench was informed that there would be some difficulties as one of the officers in the SIT had been transferred and the other two were part of the SIT entrusted with the investigation into the sexual assault of a 2nd year engineering student in Anna University campus. The state thus suggested names of officers who could be part of the new SIT