Of curbs, cats, curses courtesy coronavirus

Despite Mr Bumble’s assertion, the law is not an ass, but it might well be called upon to decide on matters zoological. A resident of Kerala recently approached the high court online for permission to leave his house to buy non-vegetarian biscuits for his cats. The appellant said he did not cook meat and his feline cohabitants lived on a diet of such biscuits. The police having rejected his request to break curfew, he moved the court, which ruled in his favour, noting that as per the Supreme Court judgment of 2004, animals also have the right to life, according to Article 51A of the Constitution.

However, while cats got the judicial nod, it was not so with catty remarks. The Calcutta High Court started contempt proceedings against a lawyer who, in an intemperate outburst before the inception of the lockdown, invoked the “curse of coronavirus to befall” a judge who had reprimanded him for unruly behaviour in the courtroom, where he had “thumped the addressing table and then banged the microphone on it”.

Meanwhile, the Madras High Court dismissed a petition seeking to ban newspapers because they spread coronavirus — a piece of patently fake news categorically refuted by the medical profession — by ruling that the proscription would violate the right to free speech, an admonition that ought to deter false and frivolous charges being pressed against the press.