The Bench and the Bar

The Supreme Court’s Social Justice bench comprising of Justices Madan B Lokur and Uday Umesh Lalit pursued their quest for social justice on Friday, Sepember 18 with a combination of compliment, reprimand, and expression of dismay. The bench heard eight cases in two hours from 2 pm in Court 9.

On September 15, the Supreme Court bench of justices Anil Dave and Adarsh Kumar Goel expedited a pending hearing on admission of SLP, and granted leave thus converting it into a civil appeal, even while continuing the ad-interim relief granted earlier. In the normal course, it would not have raised eyebrows. But when it became known that the subject of the SLP is about the Government’s denial of tax exemption to a film on gay sex, Meghdhanushya, (meaning a spectrum or a rainbow) it made news and rightly so. The film centers around a young boy who finds himself attracted by persons of his own sex.

Opponents of the Aadhaar scheme have stepped up their campaign to expose instances of contempt of court in the Aadhaar case, which is pending for a resolution by the yet-to-be constituted Supreme Court’s Constitution bench.

An additional district and sessions judge posted in Bulandshahr town of Uttar Pradesh died on Friday after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Additional district judge (Ist) Jagdish Singh was working in his chamber at the district courts in Bulandshahr when he complained of chest pain and breathlessness.

Before his staff could take him to a hospital, the 52-year-old judge slumped on his chair. Rushed to the district hospital, he was pronounced dead on arrival by the doctors.

The district police have ordered a post-mortem examination of the body.

In a setback for the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana, the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the state law providing that a candidate aspiring to contest the panchayat elections should have cleared the class 10 examination.

A bench of Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre stayed the operation of the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015, passed by the state assembly on September 7, after the petition challenging the amended law was mentioned before the court.

While staying operation of the amended provision providing for educational qualifications for contesting local body’s elections, the court also issued notice to Haryana government and the Election Commission.

Under the amended law, a person from the general category should have passed the class 10 examinations and a Dalit should have passed class 8 to be eligible to contest local body’s elections.

The court was moved by the Communist Party of India-Marxist’’s woman wing, the All India Democratic Women Association, Rajbala and others.

The court order came after senior counsel Sanjay Parikh and Kirti Singh appearing for the petition mentioned the matter before the court.

The Supreme Court legal correspondent accreditation rules were changed to enforce stricter dress codes, and limits on permissible entry spaces, on journalists reporting the Supreme Court’s proceedings.

The Supreme Court legal correspondent accreditation rules were changed to enforce stricter dress codes, and limits on permissible entry spaces, on journalists reporting the Supreme Court’s proceedings.

According to Rule 7A, inserted in the new notified on 03.01.2007 rules, temporary and permanent court-reporters will have to dress in a “formal attire befitting the decor of the court"and prominently display their identity cards, and restrict their movement to an “area prescribed”.

The rule states that the journalists are supposed “to maintain decorum in court and refrain from doing such things as may disturb the proceedings of the court and shall confine to the area prescribed” and making a “serious endeavor of reporting a faithful account without any distortions and embellishments”.

The new rules also reduce the time for which a journalist has been continuously court-reporting, from the earlier five years to 3.5 years now, in case the journalist is only applying for temporary accreditation.

However, for permanent accreditation, journalists with law degrees still need to be continuously court-reporting for at least 5 years, like in the old rules.

The rules also note that grant of accreditation and its withdrawal are the prerogative of accreditation committee as constituted by the Chief Justice, and that the committee is not liable to give any reasons for its decision.

-- Prachi ShrivastavaReporterLegally India - News for Lawyershttp:// (India): +91 9810483059Twitter: http://twitter.com/legallyindiahttp://twitter.com/PrachiLI

Altum Law advised Exfinity Ventures and Inventus Law worked along with the in-house team of Helion Venture Partners on their $4.5 co-funding of Bangalore based analytics and mobile marketing start-up MoEngage.

Altum co-founder and senior partner Anindita Phukan acted for Exfinity.

Inventus partner Anil Advani acted for Helion.

The funding led by Helion Venture Partners was a series A funding which, along with Exfinity, also had Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and TaxiForSure founder Raghunandan G participating raising MoEngage’s total funds so far to over $5m, reported [http://techcrunch.com/2015 Techcrunch].

The Kerala high court has admitted a retired postal service official’s challenge to the Kerala bar council rules, reported the New Indian Express.

The rules prescribe advocate enrolment fee in excess of that prescribed in the Advocates Act 1961, in case the advocates seeking enrolment have retired from a job.

In his petition, the petitioner T Koshi stated that the Kerala bar council had illegally hiked the fee for enrollment through amendment in its rules with complete disregard to the Advocates Act passed by the Parliament.

The Act has fixed the enrolment amount to be Rs 600 for general category and Rs 100 for scheduled castes and tribes, according to the report.

A committee has been constituted by the bar council to look into the matter and submit a report to the court.

-- Prachi ShrivastavaReporterLegally India - News for Lawyershttp:// (India): +91 9810483059Twitter: http://twitter.com/legallyindiahttp://twitter.com/PrachiLI

The Supreme Court bench comprising justices TS Thakur and Kurian Joseph, in their order first granted permission to file the SLP in the appeal against Bombay high court order staying the Maharashtra government’s ban on sale of meat on some days of Paryurshan, an annual holy festival of Jain community. The ban was to be effective on September 10 and 17.

Indus Law advised India’s third-largest drug maker Cipla on its Rs 90 crore ($13m) buy of cosmetics maker Percos india’s brand rights. Percos was advised by N South Law Associates.

Indus partner Nishant Singh, senior associate Aditi Verma Thakur and associates Vaibhav Ganjiwale, Ramya Sridhar and Chhavi Jhanji acted for Cipla on the deal which, according to Business Today was valued at Rs 90 crore.

N South Law partner Inderraj Gill acted for Percos India which manufactures a wide array of skin care products.

According to the agreement signed by the two companies, Percos will continue to manufacture the products for five years, after which the rights will be transferred to Cipla, as confirmed by the Economic Times.

History was made in Court No.6 yesterday (Wednesday, 16 September) with justices J Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre hearing in camera, Ravi, who is in judicial custody at the police station in Khekhra, Bhagpat district, Uttar Pradesh, in connection with a crime registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act since May 28, 2015.