The Bench and the Bar

The post colonial-era building with the red sandstone dome on Delhi’s Bhagwaan Dass Road is home to an elite class of lawyers, who are likely to be the most expensive in the world: they are typically paid between Rs 5 and 15 lakh per hearing.

Interviews by Legally India with more than 32 Delhi lawyers who brief seniors in the Supreme Court and Delhi high court reveal all…

Senior advocate Indira Jaising’s challenge to the Supreme Court senior advocate designation process will now have attorney general (AG) Mukul Rohatgi as amicus curiae.

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed, without giving any reason, a PIL seeking direction for the FTII students to end their three-month-long agitation against naming Gajendra Chauhan as the institute’s direction and for transparent policies for the appointment.

A bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu dismissed the PIL after letting advocate JP Dhanda argue for about 10 minutes without seeking any clarification.

The petition said various parties were trying to gain political mileage by exploiting the sentiments of students of the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) without any concern for their career.

It also sought a directive to the central government to frame transparent policies for the appointment of chairpersons of such institutions and the students to end their strike.

The government has rejected the students’ demand for replacing Chauhan with a prominent personality as FTII chief.

The bench also dismissed another PIL for ensuring smooth and orderly functioning of parliament.

The Bombay high court on Monday directed its registry to prepare a fresh paper-book -- a compilation of documentary evidence in the 2002 accident case and conviction of Bollywood superstar Salman Khan -- by Friday as it was not made properly as per rules.

At a hearing before Justice AR Joshi, Salman’s counsel Amit Desai said certain documents, which were not required, have been included and pointed out other discrepancies in the paper-book that was submitted on Monday.

This was the second time after August 26 that the high court directed the registry to file a fresh paper-book in the case in the actor’s appeal challenging his five-year sentence by a lower court.

The high court is hearing Salman’s appeal against the sessions court verdict of May 6 which found him guilty in the accident case in Bandra on September 28, 2002 in which one person was killed and four people were injured.

At the previous hearing, Justice Joshi had ruled that the paper-book must be prepared afresh in keeping with the high court manual and, if required, assistance could be taken from the judge who had conducted the trial.

Despite suffering from adjournments and not having been able to close a single case since starting nearly a year ago, as reported last week by SCOI Reports, on Friday (September 4) the social justice bench continued its work with justices Madan B Lokur and UU Lalit hearing six cases in 40 minutes after 2 pm.

In my experience of filing RTI requests with multiple public authorities, no government body comes close to the SC in terms of contempt towards RTI applications. This attitude seems to be pervasive in the higher judiciary. The summary denials, fighting ordinary applicants before the CIC, and even hauling them before the Delhi HC suggests that as far as India’s higher judiciary is concerned, transparency is good for others, not for itself.

writes Aniket Aga in The Wire.

The Delhi high court on Thursday said Ola cabs, an app-based taxi service, can run only on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fuel in the national capital.

Congress leader and senior lawyer P Chidambaram represented ANI technologies (Ola cabs) in the high court and promised that diesel-based vehicles of the taxi service will be taken off the roads within two weeks.

Respecting the court’s order, Ola Cabs on Thursday said: “We respect the orders and will continue to be committed to building mobility for a billion people.

“We have introduced a technology that will help distinguish CNG and diesel vehicles on its app, which will help the company keep track of the drivers’ compliance with the cleaner fuel norms in Delhi. It will also enable users to choose only CNG vehicles for usage within Delhi.

Meanwhile, another leading player, Meru Cab service has also introduced a new ride-sharing service, named “CarPool” for its customers across India.

In a release, Meru Cabs CEO Siddhartha Pahwa said the service will enable personal vehicle owners and city commuters to reduce their daily travel costs, get an opportunity to meet new people and simplify their commute in safe and secured environment.

The Delhi high court fined Ramgopal Varma and his production house a sum of Rs 10 lakh as punitive damages in a judgment in favour of Sholay Media and Entertainment by Justice Manmohan Singh on 24 August 2015, reported Asian Age and others.

Read judgment.

The suit was filed through Sascha Sippy, represented by Anand & Anand managing partner Pravin Anand and advocate Geetanjali Vishwanathan, while the defendants were not present and ex parte, according to the judgment.

It was held by the court that the Varma remake’s publicity material, movie, similar plot and characters along with the music, lyrics and background score and even dialogues from the original film Sholay, gave “an overall impression that it is a remake of the film Sholay” and, “amounts to infringement of copyright”.

The court held the defendants guilty of infringement which is, “a deliberate act to gain profits.” The court also said that, “the defendants have distorted and mutilated the original copyright work of the plaintiffs”.

The court passed the judgment which also barred the defendents permanently from manufacturing, selling, offering for sale or distributing any of materials involved with Sholay or the characters, music or the dialogues on top of the punitive damages and costs to be given to the plaintiff.

Yesterday (September 1) in Court No 8 of the Supreme Court, before justices Ranjan Gogoi and NV Ramana, a case of civil contempt against the Central Government was argued unsuccessfully by the petitioner in the main case of National Federation of the Blind vs Sanjay Kothari, Secy Deptt Of Personnel and Training.

Journalists will not be allowed to enter the space between Supreme Court judges’ dais and the arguing counsel, commonly known as the “well” of the court, reported LiveLaw.

The Supreme Court’s Press Accreditation Panel has taken this decision, according to Justice Ranjan Gogoi who, just before dictating the court’s order in a disability reservation case chastised a journalist for entering the well, according to the LiveLaw report.

“Don’t rush to the well,” Gogoi told a journalist who got close to the dais, asking for the journalist’s name and organisation. Gogoi later admitted that the press panel’s decision may not have reached the journalist or his organisation.

Gogoi also said in open court that journalists must exercise restraint in reporting the exchange between arguing counsel and judges in court.

Chief Justice of India HL Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy yesterday (31 August) granted a stay on the Rajasthan high court’s judgment delivered on August 10 criminalising the Jain community’s practice of Santhara – meaning abstinence from food and water by a person, who awaits death – and issued notice to the respondents in the case.