The Bench and the Bar

PTI reported that a Himachal Pradesh judge has alleged that she was sexually harassed by another judge during a national-level conference on drug abuse in Manali. The high court’s chief justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir has ordered an inquiry:

As per the complaint of the woman judge, she was asked to come to Manali in advance for making preparations for the conference being attended by Judges of Supreme Court and High Courts.

On June 8, the accused tried to pressurise the woman judge to accompany him to a resort and allegedly misbehaved with her.

A Madhya Pradesh district court judge had made a complaint last year, which resulted in the Supreme Court setting out new guidelines about how to investigate harassment in the judiciary.

[http://www.ptinews.com/news/6207471_SC-seeks-response-from-Centre

Karnataka high court and Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay has commissioned a web developer to build a website that is intended to allow advocates to rate judges on three parameters - knowledge, integrity and cordiality.

PTI reported that:

The Bombay high court on July 1 deferred till July 13 an appeal filed by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan against the five-year sentence awarded to him in the hit-and-run case, after the actor’s lawyer sought time to check documents.

Although the ‘paper book’ (compilation of evidence and documents) is ready and copies have been served to both the sides by the court), Mr Khan’s counsel Amit Desai urged for three weeks’ adjournment to check whether the documents were in order.

Desai said he needed to check if translation of documents into English was required and whether nay were missing.

Justice AR Joshi granted only two weeks of adjournment until 13 July, to which chief public prosecutor SS Shinde consented.

Click here for case history and more on Salman Khan.

Sexual harassment appears to be everywhere these days, yet it was always so. Complaints, on the other hand, seemed to be rarer only a few years ago.

In a partial breather for Nestle, the Bombay high court on Tuesday allowed the company’s Indian branch to export all varieties of its popular two-minute Maggi noodles.

The domestic restrictions, however, would continue to apply. The matter will now come up for further hearing on July 14.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai partner Ameya Gokhale acted for Nestle with with senior counsel Iqbal Chagla.

Maggi was banned by the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on June 5 after several samples were found having lead and MSG contents beyond permissible limits.

Nestle India had challenged the ban on grounds that it was ‘unauthorised, arbitrary, unconstitutional for violating right to equality and trade’, and violative of principles of natural justice since the company was not given a proper hearing.

Madhya Pradesh district and sessions judge Jagdish Baheti has filed a petition before the Supreme Court over the Madhya Pradesh high court collegium’s decision to elevate his juniors but not him, due to a chargesheet against him alleging that he had granted defendants anticipatory bail on the basis of incorrect facts, reported the Indian Express’s Utkarsh Anand.

He has asked for the elevation process to be stayed until the close of the internal inquiry against him in the case that will be heard by Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu in July, Baheti had made the news in 2013 for concluding a rape trial in nine days, and had previously appealed before the Supreme Court the inquiry against him, which had told the high court to hear his plea where it was dismissed.

"Justice [Gyan Sudha] Misra, who although sat a little after the scheduled time, never compromised by rising just after half-an-hour. She was the last one to leave the court premises, be it the Supreme Court or High Court. There were absolutely no cause-lists that were not exhausted by her and no judgments that were not churned out by her,” wrote her daughter, advocate Unnati Misra, in a letter to attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, as reported by the Indian Express’s Utkarsh Anand.

She was referring to Rohatgi’s repeated attacks on now retired Supreme Court judge Justice Misra’s habit of coming late to court as a notable example of a bad appointment made by the collegium, in his argument for the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) before the Supreme Court, saying he had “run down the reputation of people who have given their sweat and blood to judicial institutions, all in the name of NJAC, are reflective of bias and based on superficiality”.

However, Unnati Misra said that her mother had been recommended for the Supreme Court in 1986 before the collegium system and she was approved by six chief justices and Chief Justices of India (CJIs) before her elevation to the apex court in 1998 as the fourth woman to ever do so. She also wrote that her Justice Misra had fought “personal battles” caring for her ill husband, who passed away shortly after her retirement.

In 2013, Justice Misra had hit back at a Times of India column arguing that judges were “ultimately human beings” and not “robots”, and that judges “cannot be expected to give an account of every single minute or else face derogatory publicity”.

In a landmark judgement, the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday that gay people can marry nationwide and states cannot ban same-sex marriage - an issue that divides America and India.