The Bench and the Bar

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) announced it would lodge its protest against last week’s alleged killing of a lawyer by wearing white ribbons, but would not be going on the national strike called by the BCI.

Allahabad advocate Nabi Ahmad was allegedly shot dead by a police sub-inspector resulting in local riots and a call by the Bar Council of India (BCI) for a national strike by lawyers.

"The number of posts for judges in the Bombay high court has been increased from the current 75 to 94, announced chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in the legislative assembly on Friday. However, of the 75 existing posts, ten are vacant. So in effect there are only 65 judges,” reported the Times of India.

The BCI has called for a national strike on Monday, 16 March, to protest the “ghastly and brutal killing of a lawyer by the police officials in court premises” at Allahabad yesterday.

From Monday, 9 March 2015, a special Supreme Court bench comprising of two seasoned tax hands, Justice AK Sikri and Justice RF Nariman, began exclusively hearing and deciding tax cases from Monday to Friday.

Granting relief to Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai, who was stopped from flying to London in January, the Delhi High Court on Thursday quashed the 'look out' circular issued against her.

The government argued in its advisory sent to TV channels that excerpts from the documentary India’s Daughter shown on some TV channels appeared to “incite violence against women, thus compromising women’s public safety”.

Advocates ML Sharma and AP Singh, who have represented the 2012 Delhi gangrape convicts and recently made controversial and misogynistic comments in a documentary that was banned in India, have been served with three-week show cause notices by the Bar Council of India (BCI), which deliberated on the issue yesterday until after midnight, reported the Indian Express and others.

BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra said: “We have issued the show cause notices to ML Sharma and AP Singh for their alleged remarks made in the documentary.”

Earlier yesterday evening, Legally India reported that the Delhi bar council had also decided to serve show cause notices on both lawyers.

The Delhi bar council will take suo motu action against advocates ML Sharma and AP Singh, who made controversial comments in a documentary about the December 2012 Delhi rapists.