The Bench and the Bar

The Bar Council of Punjab & Haryana is now India’s first state bar council (SBC) to have photo identification on its electoral rolls to curb bogus voting. The Bar Council of India (BCI) has asked other state bar councils to follow suit, for “fair and transparent” elections.

Till now the voter list contained only the names, addresses and enrolment number of voting advocates, according to the Indian Express. "It was observed that lot of bogus voting was taking place in the absence of photographs of the lawyers," claimed the SBC’s chairman Minderjit Yadav.

He also told the paper that honorarium fees of Rs 5,000 per month had been earmarked for “budding lawyers who lack financial means at the start of their career”. A pension for lawyers above 65 years of age was in the process of being worked out.

It was observed that lot of bogus voting was taking place in the absence of photographs of the lawyers.

The Supreme Court (SC) collegium has approved the nomination of chief justice (CJ) of Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) and former Delhi HC judge Arjan Kumar Sikri for elevation to the SC.

Sikri was sworn in as the HC’s 31st CJ on 22 September 2012, after serving as the Delhi HC’s judge for 13 years. He was designated as a senior advocate by the Delhi HC in September 1997.

Sikri graduated from the Campus Law Centre, Delhi University in 1977 and had served as the vice president of the Delhi High Court Bar Association during 1994-1995. [Punjab Newsline]

In February the collegium elevated Andhra Pradesh HC CJ Pinaki Ghose and Himachal Pradesh HC CJ Kurian Joseph, while superseding the nominations of Bombay, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat HC CJs Mohit Shah, Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Barin Ghosh respectively.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) was granted a budget of Rs 6 crore ($1.1m) this year.

National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) 2012-13 budget: Rs 6 crore.

Bombay high court (HC) chief justice (CJ) Mohit Shah, Gujarat HC CJ Bhaskar Bhattacharya, and Uttarakhand HC CJ Barin Ghosh will retire without elevation to the Supreme Court (SC) after the SC collegium unanimously rejected their nominations as potentially proving “counter-productive” to the administration of justice.

A Gujarat advocate has filed a public interest litigation (PIL), alleging that another lawyer was assaulted by a group of advocates trying to enforce Monday’s Bar Council of India’s (BCI) strike to protest against police-lawyer violence.

Advocate Aiml Panchal’s PIL stated that fellow advocate Jal Unwala was humiliated while president, vice-president and office bearers of the Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association (GHAA) and the assistant solicitor general looked on, the Times of India and Indian Express reported.

The Express reported that Unwala alleged that 30 to 35 lawyers “barged into his chamber”, while one slapped him. According to the TOI:

When they came to know that one lawyer conducted a case before Justice R H Shukla, they allegedly barged in his chamber, abused and physically assaulted him before his office staff. The lawyer complained before Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya demanding action against striking lawyers, who indulged in his manhandling, as per the provisions of a Supreme Court order by which it termed the strike ‘illegal’.

The judges in the PIL, Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice Pardiwala, recused themselves yesterday, with the case set to go before another bench now.

Senior advocate Harish Salve withdrew from representing two Italian marines in their trial before the Supreme Court (SC) for killing Indian fishermen, expressing shock at the Italian government’s “breach of faith”. Italy had reneged on its assurance to produce the marines before the SC after their visit to Italy. [NDTV]

Salve said:

As senior counsel, we are officers of the court in the first instance and our primary duty is to the Court. I consider this action of the Republic of Italy as a breach of faith. It is my perception that the Italian Government should have, in the least, forewarned its Indian lawyers of the change of its position before communicating it to the Government of India..

In these circumstances, I have informed the Italian ambassador that it will no longer be possible for me to appear for me to be associated with this case.

A social activist called for the Punjab & Haryana HC to prevent lawyers from “browbeating the system”, and “forceful imposition of their collective bargaining power”, as “an impression that lawyers are above the law […] has been created”.

Activist Hemant Goswami filed an intervention application in a dispute between the HC’s lawyers and the Chandigarh Police, asserting that actions of the lawyers in the incident were non-compoundable offences. [Indian Express]

Goswami wrote in his application:

An impression that lawyers are above the law to whom the normal procedure of law, including that of trial and investigation by prescribed state machinery, does not apply has been created.

Special procedure should not be evolved to deal and system followed of investigation and trial, as in all other cases, should be followed in this matter too. Procedure as prescribed under the law must be followed.

Advocates Act gives no special privileges to advocates over and above the law under the Advocates Act. Rather they have greater responsibilities under the rules and codes prescribed under the said legislation.

Collective might and power of a group of people who are collectively registered as a separate juristic person should not be allowed to browbeat the system by putting extraneous pressure and by forceful imposition of their collective bargaining power. Such an impression is detrimental to the interest of 'sovereignty of the state' and is against the interest of 'democracy, the state and just rule of law'.

Many offences allegedly committed during the unfortunate incident come within the category of rioting, disobedience of lawful order and are triable as offences against the State and are therefore not compoundable as per the provisions contained in the Criminal Procedure Code.”

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has called for all lawyers in the country to abstain from work on Monday, 11 March 2013, “in protest against the brutal assault on Lawyers in Jaipur and Chandigarh”.

The notification on the BCI’s website adds:

“The Lawyers all across the country (except the Lawyers of Delhi who have already observed the abstention on 7.3.13) should abstain from the work on 11.3.13 in support of Lawyers of Rajasthan and Chandigarh. The protest should be peaceful and in most dignified way.”

Legally India re-reported yesterday that lawyers in Jaipur were protesting for long-pending housing project and personal allowance demands, while Chandigarh lawyers protested at the Punjab & Haryana high court to support of 20 advocates against whom a case was registered for allegedly manhandling a police officer.

The government’s law minister Ashwani Kumar stated yesterday ago that over 30 million cases were now pending across courts, with 66,569 pending in the Supreme Court of India.

Exclusive: The High Court of Delhi has today designated four new senior advocates. Two of the new seniors are women, and all four have less than 25 years of practicing experience.

The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday admitted two petitions that challenge the prevalence of the advocate-on-record (AOR) designation in the SC, a year after the High Court (HC) of Delhi dismissed the challenge.

Exclusive: The Supreme Court has admitted a petition against the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD), which in 2011 co-opted the son of late BCD chairman KK Sareen, Aman Sareen, to its membership through hereditary succession.

The Supreme Court’s vacancies are set to come down to three again, as the names of Andhra Pradesh high court (HC) chief justice PC Ghose and Himachal Pradesh HC chief justice Kurien Joseph have been cleared for elevation to the SC roster by the collegium, a month after three new judges were sworn in.

According to the Hindu’s sources in the law ministry, the process of appointment of the two judges will be completed in around a month.

While Ghose (60) was appointed as chief justice only in December, Joseph (59) was heading the Himachal Pradesh high court since February 2010. Ghose first became a judge in 1997, while Joseph is a judge since 2000.

Ghose would have a tenure of around five years in the SC, while Joseph would preside for almost six years.

Madras HC judge S Nagappan has been cleared to be appointed chief justice of the Orissa HC. [The Hindu]

Nalsar Hyderabad will see another change of chancellor in less than a year as Ghose becomes the second Andhra Pradesh HC chief justice to be elevated after justice Madan B Lokur’s June elevation.

SC justice Swatanter Kumar retired in December 2012, and DK Jain retired in January 2013. However, justices MY Eqbal, Vikramjit Sen, and V Gopala Gowda were sworn in in January.

The High Court of Delhi on Tuesday reshuffled the 463-judge-strong lower and higher Delhi judiciary, transferring and reallocating the jurisdiction of more than 150 judges to provide for 11 new district and sessions courts created in the national capital territory on 17 October 2012.

In 2011 there were 1.3 million lawyers in India, revealed a right to information (RTI) response by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to Delhi-based advocate Kush Kalra, with an average annual growth rate between 2007 and 2011 of around 4 per cent.

Supreme Court judges KS Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said they might have to open both doors of their courtroom during proceedings, after senior advocates Shanti Bhushan and Rajiv Dhawan pointed out that courtrooms were so crowded that they were an extreme discomfort to “old lawyers”. [Indian Express]

Bhushan, whose matter was called out by the bench, said:

It seems it is in public interest that all elderly lawyers, especially those above 70-80 years in age, should be crushed to death in the Supreme Court. Some day some old lawyers will die in a stampede in the Supreme Court.

Dhawan who was also present in the same courtroom at that time added:

I am in complete agreement with my learned friend. In fact I have broken my leg in the Supreme Court due to this problem.