Important cases heard in Delhi High Court on August 12

* HC granted interim protection from arrest till August 21 to former IAS probationer Puja Khedkar, who has been accused of cheating and wrongly availing OBC and disability quota benefits.

* HC agreed to hear a plea challenging the exclusion of any provision in the new penal law, Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), relating to punishment for the offence of ‘unnatural sex’ and ‘sodomy’.

* HC refused to entertain a petition seeking directions to the authorities to reframe the guidelines for coaching institutes with criminal liability.

* HC asked the MCD to hand over one of its buildings of nursing college and hostel to the Department of Social Welfare to shift residents of the city government-run Asha Kiran shelter home, saying the space was urgently required.

* HC held that a female can face criminal proceedings for committing the offence of “penetrative sexual assault” on a child under the POCSO Act and that the offence is not restricted to male offenders only.