The Bench and the Bar

SCOI Report, Monday 27 July 2015: Yakub Abdul Razak Memon vs State of Maharashtra Through the Secretary, Home Department, and Others

Things promised to return to normal in the Delhi high court on Monday after high-stakes drama last week, when the members of DHCBA received message through the newly formed SMS handle DHCBAS declaring that the strike was suspended.

Kian Ganz looks into the BCI’s latest claim that 30 per cent of lawyers are not really lawyers and asks, how the BCI knows.

The union government will urge the Supreme Court’s e-committee to allow audio-visual (AV) recording of Supreme Court proceedings to “usher transparency as it would discourage witnesses from retracting their statements” and to prevent “unwarranted delay in trials (through re-recording of witness testimony)”, reported the PTI.

The law ministry cited law commission chairman justice AP Shah’s pilot project of recording court proceedings in district courts, to request the e-committee to reconsider the AV recording proposal it had rejected last year.

AV recording of court proceedings was in the agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party during its short-lived tenure forming the Delhi government in February 2014, but does not find a place in the agenda of the party currently as it forms the Delhi government for the second-time.

53-year-old businessman-turned-lawyer Deepak Khosla who has been fighting to allow AV recording in courtrooms for years now had a win of sorts in the Calcutta high court in June when the court’s registrar allowed recording his proceedings with Khaitan & Co.

Calcutta high court Justice Aniruddha Bose made history this July as probably the first high court chamber to install a permanent video camera and a microphone on the request of Khosla.

Because the union government has ordered enquiry into allegations of foul play in the Delhi lower judicial services exam (DJS) 2014, two Delhi high court judges whose relatives cleared the DJS 2014 should not be assigned cases in which the union of India is a party, or these judges should be transferred, argued the Rohini bar association president, as reported by LiveLaw.

The association president Inder Singh Saroha wrote a letter to Delhi high court chief justice G Rohini stating:

to maintain the faith and confidence in the judiciary, it is absolutely necessary that the two sitting HC judges, whose kin have been reported to have cleared the said examination, should not be assigned cases in which union government is one of the parties as these judges could be influenced by the union government, which is stated to have ordered an enquiry into the matter. Or if possible judges be posted out of Delhi so that they may not influence the independent enquiry into the scam.

A number of candidates who did not clear the DJS exam this year filed right to information requests and made allegations of foul play in the conduct of the exam, suggesting that relatives of sitting judges had cleared the exam with help from the Delhi high court, as reported by Legally India.

One day after members of the Delhi High Court Bar Association received text messages that its president Rajiv Khosla had been suspended for alleged “anti–bar activity”, members were left confused when they received messages today that the DHCBA secretary Abhijat was suspended.

Update 17:14:

In a breather for social activist Teesta Setalvad, the Bombay High Court on Friday extended her and her husband Javed Anand's interim bail by two weeks.

The high court order came barely hours after a special court rejected their anticipatory bail application, paving the way for their immediate arrest.Anticipating arrest for custodial interrogation sought by the Central Bureau of Investigation, Setalvad's lawyers moved the Bombay High Court.

Setalvad, Anand and an associate G.M. Peshimam have been charged with committing fraud and irregularities pertaining to foreign donations received by her NGO, Sabrang Communications & Publishing Pvt. Ltd. under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act.

A CBI Special Court in Mumbai today rejected the anticipatory bail plea of social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand, paving the way for her immediate arrest.

Soon after, her lawyers moved the Bombay high court for relief.

Setalvad, Anand and some others have been charged by the Central Bureau of Investigation with fraud and irregularities under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act on foreign donations received by the activist’s Sabrang NGO

On July 8, the CBI had registered a case against them for accepting foreign donations from the Ford Foundation without seeking prior permission of the concerned authorities.

Last week, the CBI followed this up with raids at Setalvad’s residence and offices in Mumbai for allegedly diverting funds from the foreign donors to her organisation.

The Supreme Court will hear on Monday the plea by 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon’s plea challenging the death warrant issued against him and for the stay of his execution set for July 30.

“I have already assigned the bench. It will come by Monday,” said Chief Justice HL Dattu as senior counsel TR Andhyarujina mentioned the matter before the bench on Friday.

Update: The NLU Delhi death penalty litigation clinic has issued a statement:

The writ petition filed by Yakub Memon along with an Intervention Application filed by National Law University, Delhi through its Death Penalty Litigation Clinic will challenge the validity of the death warrant on the grounds that the protections available to death row prisoners during death warrant proceedings (as laid down by the Supreme Court in Shabnam v. Union of India in May 2015) were violated by the Government of Maharashtra.