The Bench and the Bar

The Supreme Court will have two new judges in Allahabad high court chief justice (CJ) Shiva Kirti Singh and Orissa High Court CJ C Nagappan, reported the Hindu. Both will serve three-year tenures at the SC, taking its judges’ strength up to 30.

Justice Singh is the third judge representing Bihar in the SC, while Nagappan is the third from Tamil Nadu. Singh has been the acting chief justice of the Patna HC in 2009, and again in 2010 before being transferred to the Allahabad HC where he became the acting chief justice in November 2012 and chief justice in February this year.

Justice Nagappan became judge of the Madras HC in 2000 and a permanent judge in 2002. He was appointed CJ of the Orissa HC in February this year.

Editor's note: An earlier version of the story mentioned justice Singh as the second judge representing the state of Bihar in the SC which is an incorrect fact reported in the Hindu story which this story is linked to. Justice Singh is the third representative from Bihar after justice GS Misra and justice CK Prasad.

At the apparent request of lawyers upset with overcrowding, the Supreme Court (SC) has prohibited law students and interns from entering the apex court on Mondays and Fridays.

The Madras high court, the Jharkhand high court, the Delhi high court and the Meghalaya high court will soon have new chief justices respectively with Madras HC acting chief justice RK Agrawal, Madras HC seniormost judge R Banumathi, Andhra Pradesh HC acting chief justice NV Ramana and seniormost Uttarakhand HC judge PC Pant’s names cleared  by the collegium, reported the Hindu.

It is the first time an Andhra Pradesh or Uttarakhand high court judge has become chief in any high court

“Justice Agrawal (60) became a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court and he became acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court on February 7 this year. A direct recruit, Justice Banumathi (58) entered the Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as district judge. She has worked as district and sessions judge in Coimbatore and Vellore. Justice Ramana (56), who hails from an agricultural family at Ponnavaram in Krishna district, has functioned as additional standing counsel for the Central government.”

The Madras high court will get eight new judges as the SC collegium cleared eight out of 15 names recommended to it by the high court, reported The Hindu.

Six advocates including two women (R Mahadevan, K Kalyanasundaram, PS Jayakumar, S Vaidyanathan, VM Velumani and Pushpa Sathyanarayanan) and two district judges (VS Ravi and G Chockalingam) will be elevated.

The Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) and an open letter by 46 lawyers and well-known civil society activists had strongly criticised the selection process of the shortlist of 15, requesting the collegium to withdraw the nominees.

Delhi’s Saket district court took the lead among Indian district courts on 31 July in allowing emailed service of process.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan alleged in an interview that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) judgment was leaked from the chambers of ex-Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir to private medical colleges.

In response to a question about how Kabir had called Bhushan one of his enemies in a recent TV interview, the advocate told legal website Livelaw:

I can understand why he thinks that. It is because I told him to recuse himself from several cases which he should not have dealt with. He also knows that I was openly talking about the fact that his judgment in the NEET case had been leaked well before it was delivered. Although he said it was not leaked from his chamber, but his body language gave him away. It was obviously given to the private medical colleges well before it was given to his brother judge Justice Dave.

The draft judgment was ready at least by the first of July because on that date my application was listed before him and that time I had information that the draft judgment was already with these private medical colleges. Therefore, I am not surprised at his statement. Every corrupt judge would regard me as his enemy because I have been speaking out against corrupt judges and corruption. I am not surprised he regards me as his enemy.

The Bar Council of India (BCI), which is currently pushing for representation in Supreme Court and high court judges’ appointments, on Saturday staged a demonstration at Rajghat, Delhi demanding immediate withdrawal of the National Judicial Appointment Commission Bill terming it as an “affront on independence of judiciary”, reported the Hindustan Times.

The bill, which is up for introduction in the monsoon session of the parliament according to Deccan Chronicle, proposes to set up a six member Judicial Appointments Commission headed by the Chief Justice of India and including the law minister, a Rajya Sabha nominee, the leader of the opposition and two Supreme Court justices.

"We are totally against this National Judicial Appointment Commission Bill because of the fact that in the process of appointment of judges, we do not want any interference from any outsider, including the executive," BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told Zee News.

The Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) claimed that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) gave a negative report on three judicial candidates.

The former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir, who retired last week, has lashed out at the Times of India and the Indian Express for their critical reports of Kabir, purporting to explain in a six-page press release what actually went on behind the scenes.

Senior advocate in the process of seeking admission at English bar and will join top English barristers’ set Blackstone Chambers as a tenant, focusing on international arbitration.

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the Bombay high court’s decision to strike down the ban on dance bars in Maharashtra, holding that “the cure is worse than the disease” and that safety measures and improvement in working conditions of the dancers was the solution, reported the Hindustan Times.

Now bars, restaurants, and hotels can obtain police licenses to hold dance performances on their premises. The Maharashtra police had expressed fears of increase in crime rate in letting the bars stay open, as they were “dens of anti-social elements”.

Writing a separate concurring opinion, Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir observed:

“The right to practise a trade or profession and the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 (of Constitution) are, by their very nature, intermingled with each other, but in a situation like the present one, such right cannot be equated with unrestricted freedom like a run-away horse... it would be better to treat the cause than to blame the effect and to completely discontinue the livelihood of a large section of women, eking out an existence by dancing in bars, who will be left to the mercy of other forms of exploitation.”