The Bench and the Bar

Politics are in full swing at the SCBA again after yesterday’s meeting.

Defamation will no longer be a jailable offence under which journalists may be charged for their reportage, if the Foundation of Media Professionals’ (FMP) constitutional challenge to India’s criminal defamation provisions wins in the Supreme Court.

LiveLaw reported that Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Dushyant Dave said at the general body meeting today, in which he had threatened to vote on a boycott of official functions at the Supreme Court attended by judges, that the bench had apparently listened to his demands, including for better infrastructure.

LiveLaw reported Dave saying:

We will celebrate Independence Day and Law Day functions without inviting any of the dignitaries. Today Mr. Venugopal and Mr. Kapil Sibal met me and asked whether they could mediate. I said we are not going to go to the Judges but if they could intervene it is more than welcome.

They met CJI at 10.20 am and the CJI [HL Dattu] has now constituted a Committee. This GBM is now Postponed for 6 weeks for the Committee to address our grievances. If they are not intervening, we’ll again meet and pass the Resolution. This acknowledgement is the beginning of the restoration of our dignity.

Justices Anil R Dave, JS Kehar, Dipak Misra, RF Nariman and UU Lalit will be heading the committee.

Dave had come under fire from other senior advocates such as Ram Jethmalani and PP Rao for his proposed action.

If advocates have not passed the Bar Council of India (BCI) All India Bar Exam (AIBE) within three years of enrolment, their advocates licence “has to be necessarily revoked”, held a Madras high court bench of chief justice SK Kaul and Justice TS Sivagnanam, reported The Hindu.

The bench added that the BCI should also do surprise spot inspections of colleges to find those that that award “dubious” law degrees. Petitioner and advocate V Ramesh had claimed in his plea that the profession had been polluted by advocates with fake degrees bought from fake colleges.

Update: Several senior Supreme Court advocates have criticised Dave’s proposal of following “Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of Non-Cooperation” for Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) members to boycott official functions that include Supreme Court judges.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court today to challenge the “non transparent and arbitrary method of designating senior counsel by the Supreme Court”.

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) used to earn Rs 5,000 per month in 1957, which is equivalent to Rs 3.05 lakh per month in today’s money accounting for inflation. The CJI’s actual salary is Rs 1 lakh per month. We have a problem.

The Supreme Court dismissed a Right to Information (RTI) appeal that had asked for judges’ medical expenses, citing judges’ right to privacy, reported the Indian Express.

The court was hearing advocate Prashant Bhushan for RTI activist Subhash C Aggarwal.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu said: “There should be some respect for privacy and if such information is disclosed, there will be no stopping. Today, someone is asking for information on medical expenses. Tomorrow, he will ask what are the medicines purchased by the judges. When there will be a list of medicines, he can make out what type of ailment the judge is suffering from. It starts like this. Where does this stop?”

Bhushan argued that this decision will set a bad precedent for other public servants who will use it to stonewall similar requests.