The Bench and the Bar

An international tribunal on Monday ruled that it would not take action over a deadly 2012 maritime incident that sparked a diplomatic dispute between Italy and India.

Intellectual property (IP) firm LexOrbis, which set up a Bangalore office in April, has merged with local IP boutique Inolyst, which was set up by Dilip Kumar.

Essar Steel India has filed a Rs 250 crore defamation suit in the Ahmedabad city civil court against Delhi-headquartered magazine Caravan, its publisher Delhi Press, several of its editors and staff reporter Krishn Kaushik.

60 Delhi University law students allege that they had attended an evidence law exam for which they had been marked as absent and having failed according to the mark sheets released recently.

The Hindustan Times reported:

“We had given the examination and now have been marked absent in the Evidence Law paper. When we have taken the examination how can we be marked absent. Now the examination department is asking us to bring the attendance sheet, how will students access it?” questioned Tarun Narang, one of the Campus Law Centre students who was marked failed.

“Now the examination department is also asking us to wait for another 15 days and said they would look into the matter. This is gross negligence of the department and harassment to the students,” said another student.

Yesterday (August 21) senior advocate Kapil Sibal continued his arguments before the Supreme Court bench hearing the challenges to the Kerala Government’s liquor policy, making it clear that he did not want to whittle down Article 14.

The Supreme Court yesterday (20 August) declined the CBI’s plea to put forward its arguments on the period of sentence for Ansal brothers - Sushil and Gopal - following their conviction for negligence in 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy which claimed 59 lives.

Yesterday (20 August), the petitioners in the ongoing Kerala Bar Hotels Association’s appeal against the Kerala high court’s decision approving the Kerala Government’s controversial liquor policy favouring the five-star hotels, concluded their arguments at Court No.11.

Taking note of the deplorable state of district courts in the national capital, the Delhi high court on Wednesday asked lawyers and bar associations to lend a helping hand in keeping the court premises clean.

The Hindustan Times’ Aloke Tikku reported:

A first-of-its-kind set of statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that 2,402 people, including 29 women, were arrested in 4,192 cases under section 66A — which was struck down in March by the Supreme Court that ruled that it violated the constitutional freedom of speech.

These arrests made up nearly 60% of all arrests under the IT Act, and 40% of arrests for cyber crimes in 2014. It was also a little less than twice the number of people caught red-handed accepting bribes the same year.

“These statistics are shocking. I had assumed there may be a few hundred cases, at worst,” said Shreya Singhal, on whose petition the top court had scrapped the provision.

Also read: Behind the scenes: How 90+ lawyers & 3 judges created the biggest free speech judgment in more than half a century

The Allahabad high court has passed an order taking away the freedom of children of public functionaries in Uttar Pradesh to enrol in private schools.

Justice CS Karnan of the Madras high court sought 12 weeks’ time to reply to a petition alleging “intemperate observations” made by him against the Madras high court Chief Justice SK Kaul, reported PTI.

According to the PTI, Karnan had written to the registrar general of the Supreme Court and said: “I sought funds from the Madras high court and the same is under process on the file of Administrative Committee now pending three months.”

The Madras high court had petitioned against Karnan at the Supreme Court when on 16 April, 2015 he had passed a suo motu order questioning the nomination of one of the high court judges, Justice V Dhanapalan, to the selection committee for the recruitment of 162 civil judges.

Karnan had also passed an interim order in a suo motu writ petition dated 30 April 2015 where in he had threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against his high court’s chief justice SK Kaul for allegedly interfering with his judicial order by orders on the administrative side.

The Supreme Court stayed the interim order and restrained Karnan from hearing or passing any order related to the writ petition.

Karnan had submitted to the Supreme Court that the registrar general of the Madras high court was not a party in the case but he had filed a petition before the Supreme Court and obtained an interim stay.

He submitted that his contention in that order passed by him suo motu was that produced “bogus educational certificates and on the basis of his clandestine behaviour attained the post of High Court Judge at Madras high court”.

He said that the order of the Supreme Court was “poignantly unusual” and sought to adjourn the case for 12 weeks.

Former Linklaters Singapore managing associate Pallavi Gopinath Aney is set to join Baker & McKenzie as a partner, an authoritative source has confirmed to Legally India.