The Bench and the Bar

Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani has filed a defamation case against the BJP party’s parliamentary board for expelling him from the party in May 2013, claiming Rs 50 lakh from each of the 11-odd members of the board.

(However, BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee were not listed as respondents.)

Jethmalani filed his case in the Delhi high court on 5 October, alleging that the decision to expel him from the party for six years was unconstitutional, arbitrary and driven by malice and a desire to defame the senior criminal lawyer and Rajya Sabha member [IBN Live / ANI]

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani talked to the Wall Street Journal in typically freewheeling and candid manner about his representation of godman Asaram Bapu, who was accused of sexual assault on a teenager. Excerpts:

RamJet on reports that the alleged victim had a condition that attracted men towards her: “That’s misreporting by the press.  I have never said it, I don’t know what this was saying, the reporters there don’t understand English.”

RamJet, aged 90 and famously husband to two wives, on Bapu’s alleged (im)potency: “Frankly I have not heard of a potency test at this time, how do you test a person’s potency? The only way to test his potency is to expose him to some member of the opposite gender. But there’s no reason to think that a man of 74 is totally impotent.”

On his practice, revealing that “of course, naturally” Bapu paid him well: “I am too busy in my work, I’m not merely a lawyer, I’m a member of Parliament, I’m a teacher of law, above all I’m also running my newspaper. I’m the chairman of board of The Sunday Guardian. My practice is of a different kind from other lawyers. I make tons of money at the bar, but I do it from 10% of my clients. Mr. Bapu is in the 10%.”

On unpopular cases: “I have got a rule of professional conduct that no lawyer should choose to defend a client on the ground that other people believe him to be innocent, or that you don’t believe him to be innocent, or that the defense will bring you unpopularity.”

The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) today succeeded in its challenge to the Delhi government’s tenfold court fee hike of August 2012.

The Delhi bar council complaint against the December 16 rape convicts’ lawyer AP Singh was transferred to the BCI, which on Saturday issued a show-cause notice to Singh, reported the Hindu.

Singh had made sexist remarks to the media outside the Saket trial court that had convicted his clients, claiming that he would burn his daughter alive were she to be found having premarital sex or going out at night with a boyfriend. He later claimed that he was provoked into his remarks.

The BCI is examining whether his comments can attract the charge of “professional misconduct” under Section 35 of the Advocates Act.

A CBI court today found Rashtriya Janta Dal chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav guilty in the “food for fodder” scam, reported the Business Standard.

Yadav has been booked for criminal conspiracy, corruption and cheating.

The case was lodged by the Bihar government in 1996 against Yadav for alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chalibasa treasury in the 1990s. A month after lodging the FIR the case was transferred to the CBI court. After a year of investigation the CBI filed a chargesheet and in 2000 the special CBI court commenced trial against Yadav.

44 others including several administrative officials were also found guilty by the court today. [Timeline of the case]

Yadav could be the first big shot politico who will be caught by the Supreme Court Lily Thomas judgment of July, which disqualifies convicts from standing for political office.

Today’s landmark judgment by the Supreme Court on the petition of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has for the first time given the Indian voter the right to reject all candidates contesting an election, reported the PTI.

The voter can now mark the “None of the Above” (NOTA) option that the apex court mandated should be present on ballot papers and in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The bench did not say what the consequence would be if NOTA votes outnumbered those received by actual candidates.

Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati apologises to SC bench headed by Justice RM Lodha for apparent annoyance when unable to respond properly to Coalgate grilling (“It’s very difficult. It is a tremendous strain. I cannot carry everything in my head. Once I argue on one aspect, another question arises on another aspect. How would I go ahead”).

Lodha good-naturedly attributed it to “heat and weather”. [The Hindu]

The Bar Council of India (BCI) wants chartered accountants and auditors banned from advising on income tax matters of values below Rs 60 lakh, therefore leaving the domain exclusively to advocates, reported the New Indian Express.

The regulator has sent a communication dated 11 September to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in Delhi and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in Bangalore to delete clauses in Section 288(2) of the Income Tax Act 1995 that allow persons other than advocates from advising on tax matters, if the value of the matter is below Rs 60 lakh.

The BCI was acting on the report of its members S Prabakaran and Rameshchandra G Shah, which was considered at its 28 July meeting.

According to the report:

“Originally, under sec 44AB of IT Act, persons carrying on business having turn over exceeding Rs 60 lakh per year have to submit Tax Audit Report in Form 3CD duly signed only by CAs. The Act was redefined, and sec 44AD added to it in April, 2011, which included all business class assessees having a turn over `60 lakh and below within the ambit of tax audit. In view of the redefined clause, assessees approaching the CAs can declare less income and pay less tax. If they approach a legal professional, they have to declare fixed percentage of income and pay more tax, because of no authority to attach such Tax Audit Report. Then, nobody will approach the legal professionals and they will be indirectly threatened to extinction from income tax practice. This will amount to virtual withdrawal of the right conferred on legal professionals under Sec 288(2)(iii) of IT Act.”

Around 1200 Tamil Nadu advocates await enrolment with the state bar council (SBC) which has not issued any enrolment certificates in four months.

Delhi gang rapists guilty: Four men were convicted of raping and killing a woman in December 2012 by Judge Yogesh Khanna in Saket’s district court. The sentencing arguments – anticipated to be for the death penalty – will begin tomorrow.

The men’s lawyer AP Singh said they would appeal the verdict [The Guardian / Firstpost]

The Supreme Court has designated 12 new senior advocates including eight retired high court (HC) judges and four advocates-on-record, three of whom are women.

Retired justices SN Aggarwal and Rakesh Chandra Mishra from the Madhya Pradesh HC, Ashok Kumar Roopanwal and Yogendra Kumar Sangal from the Allahabad HC, Parthasakha Datta from the Calcutta HC, PR Raman from the Kerala HC, G Bhavani Prasad from the Andhra Pradesh HC and Vinod K Sharma from the Andhra Pradesh HC in addition to the four reported former advocates-on-record have been designated on 3 September.

Out of the four advocates on record three are women, as was reported by the Times of India last week.

Delhi’s Tis Hazari district court lawyers yesterday boycotted work to protest against allegedly inflated electricity bills for power supplied to their chambers. The Delhi Bar Association (DBA) has demanded a roll back of the bills and to have them resent as domestic instead of non-domestic supply bills, reported the Times of India.

DBA honorary secretary Nitin Ahlawat said:

“The strike is against the high-handedness of Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDA) and the indifferent attitude of the government of NCT of Delhi. The Executive Committee of Delhi Bar Association strongly condemns the illegal attitude and style of working of TPDDL. This private electricity company has unilaterally and without any notice to lawyers (consumers) had changed the tariff of electricity bills of lawyers chambers at Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi from domestic to non-domestic.”

The Supreme Court yesterday decided to designate women advocates Vibha Dutta Makhija, Meenakshi Arora and Kiran Suri as senior advocates by a unanimous decision of a full court, reported the Times of India. Advocate Sushil Jain was also designated a senior in the same meeting.

This is the first time in SC history that a list of designated seniors has male lawyers in the minority. The full court rejected the Supreme Court Bar Association's (SCBA) request to defer consideration of names for the senior designation.

Makhija and Arora are part of the seven-member Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee that was recently set up by the SC.

At least five Supreme Court judges have to now agree to the candidature of an advocate to be designated as a senior by the court, reportedly under new rules.

The Delhi high court had in March designated five new seniors including two women, as reported by Legally India.

Correction: An earlier version of this story had wrongly mentioned that not Kiran Suri but Sushma Suri had been designated as a senior, relying on an erroneous Times of India report we linked to. This has been corrected after the Supreme Court released the full list of senior designated in September, online.

The Supreme Court today admitted that it made a mistake of law in September 2012 when it had directed that only sitting or retired High Court Chief Justices or an apex court judge could head the central and State information commissions, and recalled its 13 September 2012 judgment to that effect, reported the Hindu.

A bench of justices AK Patnaik and AK Sikri allowed the union government’s review against judgment in Namit Sharma v Union of India that was passed by a bench of justices Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar.

The bench however held that the Central Information Commission (CIC) should try referring matters involving a substantial question of law to information commissioners who have got some knowledge of law, and that in CIC appointments preference should be given to people of eminence belonging to the fields of science, technology, media and others, reported the DNA.