The Bench and the Bar

A total of 2,273 cases were disposed of and a settlement amount of over Rs. 28.37 crore was awarded to claimants by various Delhi courts during the seventh monthly National Lok Adalat held on Saturday.

A Delhi State Legal Services Authority spokesperson said 40 benches were constituted in which 2,236 cases were disposed of pertaining to traffic challans, criminal compoundable cases and a settlement amount of Rs 16,28,18,058 was awarded to claimants.

It was the seventh monthly Lok Adalat organised in district court complexes -- Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Patiala House, Saket, Rohini and Dwarka -- under the supervision of Delhi high court Chief Justice G Rohini.

Lok Adalats were organised in all the three debt recovery tribunals where 23 cases were disposed off and the settlement amount was approximately Rs 11,38,89,204.

Lok Adalats were also organised in district consumer forums in which three benches were constituted. Fourteen cases were settled and the settlement amount was Rs 69,30,025.

The social justice bench of the Supreme Court comprising justices Madan B Lokur and Uday Umesh Lalit heard six cases on Friday, September 11, and made significant interventions in at least two.

As Common Cause vs Abhijat & Others came up before Justices Kurian Joseph and Arun Mishra at court No.13 on Friday (September 11) morning, Justice Arun Mishra tried to persuade Prashant Bhushan, counsel for Common Cause, not to go ahead with the contempt petition, as it would not serve any purpose. Justice Mishra said the onus is on the bar, which has to control the striking lawyers. “You have to discipline yourself”, he told Bhushan.

Cannabis remains contraband in India, after the Bombay high court dismissed a petition filed in April to decriminalise its use, on the ground that the legislature, and not the court, was the appropriate forum for the challenge.

Bombay high court chief justice Mohit Shah retired on Tuesday, a fter presiding over the court for over five years, reported The Indian Express.

Shah had started practising in the Gujarat high court in 1976 and was elevated as a judge on the bench of the same court in 1995. He is known for his judgments related to social causes and was even praised by prime minister Narendra Modi for preserving the Bombay high court’s history in the form of a museum, according to the Express report.

Shah was quoted as observing,

From my experience I feel the people here (Mumbai) have a better sense of social responsibility and civic sense. We should test the efficacy of a law from the point of view of a common man and not only lawyers. It should meet the expectations of the common man and not judges and lawyers.

I feel that we should test the efficacy of a law from a common man’s point of view. It should meet the expectations of the common man and not judges and lawyers.

Justice VK Tahilramani has been appointed as the acting Chief Justice of Bombay high court until a regular appointment is made.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has extended the deadline for advocates to register for its certificate of practice until 31 December 2015, following a stay of the advocates’ registration requirement by the Supreme Court.

A Supreme Court bench comprising of justices MY Eqbal and C Nagappan on Wednesday (9 September) turned its ire in court No 10 on four states for not filing their counter affidavits in the case of Parivartan Kendra vs Union of India dealing with the PIL seeking rehabilitation scheme for acid attack survivors.

A Supreme Court bench of justices Gopala Gowda and Amitava Roy declined a transfer petition from Ahmedabad city civil court to Delhi in the Rs 250 crore defamation case launched by Essar against Caravan magazine and others, as first reported by Legally India in August.

Mint reported:

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, representing the magazine, argued on Tuesday that none of the actions leading to the alleged defamation had occurred in Ahmedabad, and the appropriate and convenient forum was Delhi. He called Essar’s petition a Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit aimed at harassing the magazine. He said that it was in the interest of justice to transfer the case to Delhi, so that Caravan could produce its witnesses and defend its case.