The Bench and the Bar

LiveLaw reported that the Kerala high court stayed the operation of the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 that it first proposed in January of this year, which requires advocates to register for a practising certificate by 13 June 2015, which must be renewed every five years.

Livelaw reported that:

The interim order staying the operation of the Rules was passed by Justice K Vinod Chandran in a Writ Petition filed by an advocate from Trivandrum challenging the constitutionality and validity of the ‘Certificate and Place of Practice Rules, 2015’ (hereinafter referred to as “the Rules”). The Writ Petition settled by Senior Advocate K Ramakumar claims that the Rules impose unreasonable restrictions on the advocates to continue with their practice and that being so, the Rules are violative of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India besides being wholly without jurisdiction.

The case reference is Writ Petition 17467 of 2015 but the order was not uploaded on the website at the time of going to press.

The Times of India reported the petition but not the interim stay order.

Ex-UPA law minister Veerappa Moily allegedly plagiarised portions of an article published under his name in The Hindu on 11 June 2015, which emerged had been in-part copy-pasted from a 26 May article published in the same paper as an op-ed by G Sampath, reported the News Minute.

The article has been pulled from its website while the newspaper is “investigating charges of plagiarism”, according to its website.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) in 2010 said it was in talks with government agency Software Technology Parks of India to design cost effective or free anti-plagiarism software for law schools and others.

Court reporter Avantika Mehta’s Biting Friends personal blog tells the story of Kishan Bahadur and other Nepali staff working in Delhi’s Patiala House district court, who have lost property (and often more), in the 25 April earthquake that levelled 90 per cent of buildings in places such as his hometown Pokhara.

His colleagues are trying to raise funds and so far have Rs 2,000 towards rebuilding a house that will cost many times that. But shockingly, neither Tis Hazari court, which has about 50 Nepalis working in it, Saket court with around 20 Nepalis, nor Patiala House Court with 18 to 20 Nepalis, have granted any of those affected compassionate leave.

Post worth reading in full, and if you “want to help Kishan and others like him, please go to the Court Staff Secretaries at the various district courts, and donate what you comfortably can to their cause”, writes Mehta.

Calcutta high court advocates, following the local high court bar association’s majority resolution, have gone on strike for three days from today due to the heat, reported the PTI, with judges waiting in vain in chambers to handle cases without lawyers present despite relaxing lawyers’ dress code requirements to “white shirt and pants”.

Chief Justice Manjula Chellur “likened the attitude of a section of lawyers practising at the high court with that of schoolchildren” and that the strike was irritating and painful.

NDTV reported that vice president (legal) of Reliance Industries and former Talwar Thakore Associates managing associate Janhavi Gadkar had allegedly killed two persons in a taxi while driving her Audi Q3 drunk in Mumbai last night on the wrong side of a major freeway.

The 35 year old lawyer has been arrested by police, after killing Mohd Salim Saboowala, 50, and the taxi’s driver Mohd Hussain Sayaed, 57. Three passengers survived the crash which mangled the taxi and caused heavy damage to the Audi.

She has been booked with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash driving, said the police, relying on video evidence shot minutes before the crash.

She had worked at TTA between 2007 and 2013, according to her Linked in profile.