The Bench and the Bar

Apex court lawyer Suhaas Joshi has filed a criminal complaint in a Delhi metropolitan court against online shopping site Snapdeal and a sex-toy e-commerce website that closed down a month ago, arguing that they violated section 377 of the IPC that bans “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, reported QZ.

Joshi, who told Quartz that he “only wanted to test the law” so that “either parliament should debate and discuss the issue or state should come to the rescue of all those affected”, also complained under the IPC’s section 292, 292A, 293 and 294, dealing with public obscenity. The court asked the police to investigate the matter on 5 February.

Joshi singled out products such as “anal lubes and massagers that are shaped like the male phallus”, clarifying that he was not against homosexuality but wanted to point out the double standard of the law banning the sexual activity, while allowing for the sale of items used in such activities.

Bangalore-based self-described Supreme Court advocate Vikas Bansode, legal advisor to former Karnataka governor HR Bhardwaj, has had his Z-class security cover renewed and upgraded to Z-plus level “for an indefinite period” on 24 January by the local police, reported the Bangalore Mirror.

Bansode, who was nearly appointed legal advisor to an SIT looking into illegal mining after Bhardwaj’s resignation, apparently enjoys the same security cover as Karnataka’s chief minister and governor - including eight 24-hour guards, some of whom are armed, two police vehicles with a driver and three security personnel, co-ordinated by a reserve sub-inspector, costing around Rs 1.5 crore per year - according to the Mirror.

Trouble is, police declined to tell the Mirror why Bansode was awarded this privilege by a high-powered committee of cops and the state’s chief secretary Kaushik Mukherjee.

Six women sit huddled in one corner of the administration room in Patiala House court complex, surrounded by a sea of smiling men.

Dr KD Singh argues that it is high time for a reform of contempt laws.

The Delhi High Court Monday exempted former Delhi University vice chancellor Deepak Pental from personal appearance in trial court Feb 28 in a plagiarism case filed against him by P. Pardha Saradhi.

Justice Sunil Gaur granted the exemption, taking into consideration the application filed by Pental to allow him not to appear before the trial court Feb 28.

Pental's counsel told the court that the allegations against him was that of plagiarism which is a bailable offence. 

Pental further contended that he has never skipped any court hearing in the plagiarism case.

On the other hand, Saradhi's counsel vehemently opposed pental's plea, saying: "Why does he not want to appear before court."

Saradhi, a professor of environment biology at Delhi University, had filed complaint against Pental accusing him of plagiarising his paper on biotechnology.

In November, the trial court had sent Pental to jail, however, the high court ordered his release later.

In his complaint filed in the trial court, Saradhi had alleged that Prasad, who used to be a Ph.D student under him, helped Pental copy the findings of his 1999 research project 'Production and characterisation of osmotic stress-tolerant transformants of Brassica juncea with bacterial code gene'.

Saradhi said he had allowed Prasad to use the findings of the result obtained in his Ph.D thesis.

He alleged that Pental subsequently engaged Prasad and started working on the same plant "Brassica (which belongs to the mustard family)", but using a different technique. 

Saradhi contended that the detailed progress report submitted by Pental on the project had "copied verbatim" a major part of the summary and conclusion of Prasad's Ph.D thesis.

On the other hand, Pental, who was also the vice-chancellor of Delhi University 2005-2010, had said an expert committee constituted to examine the complaint of plagiarism lodged by Saradhi had exonerated him in 2009.

The Delhi high court has lifted its order restraining publication of reports on the alleged harassment complaint joint winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, Rajendra K Pachauri.

The Delhi high court yesterday called the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) the “Delhi Destruct Authority” while saying that the land-owning agency and other departments are not concerned about Delhi.

“You all are not concerned about Delhi. All of you should be renamed. DDA should be renamed Delhi Destruct Authority,” said a division bench of justices BD Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva.

The court’s observation came while hearing a PIL that said there was a forest area in Tughlakabad and birds and animals were dying because of poisonous and polluted water released from illegal factories in the area.

The judges had thundered in the case earlier this month that the city’s air should be cleaned desperately by some responsible governmental authority.

The discharge has created an “artificial lake” and the polluted water “is spreading in the whole forest”, the plea filed by resident Manoj Kumar said. It said animals were dying on a large scale.

The court wanted to know which government body is responsible for looking into the issue of contaminated water and whether the water body is a natural lake or not but none of the departments could answer the court’s query.

The court also expressed unhappiness on the meeting held on Jan 29 on court’s earlier direction to chalk out remedial measures to clean the contaminated water in the Tughlakabad Ridge area. It had also asked the DDA to explore the possibility of converting the polluted artificial lake and 200 acres of surrounding land behind the Tughlaqabad Fort into a biodiversity park on the lines of the Yamuna biodiversity park.

“None if them appears to be aware as to what has to be done... All these concerned bodies don’t know who are responsible,” said the bench Wednesday as it added the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the South Delhi Municipal Committee and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee as parties in the case.

The bench issued notice to ASI, SDMC and DPCC and sought their responses by March 4. It also asked DDA to submit a map indicating the extent of the water body and its location along with layout plan of the surrounding park.