The Bench and the Bar

Central government prepares to file for review of the Supreme Court's 13 September judgment that said that each RTI information commission should also be staffed by an HC or SC judge [BS]

CIC, none of whose commissioners have a judicial background, had stopped functioning after the judgment and had sought the opinion of attorney general Goolam Vahanvati on various questions of interpretation left unanswered by the court.

A Delhi court ruled that online games involving real money are illegal, are a substitute for traditional casinos, and are not entitled to protection under the constitution. Banks have the option to deny normal services to websites offering such games, and payment gateways for online gambling are blocked by RBI as per IT Rules 2011.

The judgement came on the February 2012 petition of the director of an internet start-up which was planning to launch a social gaming website offering betting on skill-based games like Chess, Billiards, Bridge and Snooker. The company was planning to charge a commission of under five per cent on the winning hand but it did not plan to bet on any of the players.

The court however ruled that the skill needed for online games is different from that needed for physical games and therefore only physical skill-games can be played for real stakes. [PTI]

Exclusive: Former senior advocate RK Anand, whom the Supreme Court had found guilty of contempt of court for influencing a key witness in the BMW-hit-and-run case, filed an affidavit in the court undertaking to donate Rs 21 lakh to the Bar Council of India (BCI) and take on only pro bono legal work and free legal aid for one year.

The Delhi high court directed Indian Law Institute (ILI) Delhi to reconsider the eligibility of its officiating director Dr S Sivakumar for the post, after it was alleged that he had fudged facts about his qualification at the time of applying for the post of research professor at the institute in 2005.

Sivakumar had represented that he had 10 years of combined post-graduate (PG) teaching experience at NUJS Kolkata and Kerala Law Academy, however both the institutes had furnished RTI replies to lawyer Jose Meleth stating that he had taught only LLB courses there. Meleth filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi high court challenging Sivakumar’s appointment.

ILI defended the appointment saying that 10 years of PG teaching experience was not sacrosanct and that the director has vast research experience making him suitable for the job. However the bench of justices SK Kaul and Vipin Sanghi directed ILI’s executive council to reconsider his eligibility since he relied on false information to stake claim to a post in the institute first in 2005.

The court fixed 30 November for the next hearing.

ILI’s ex-officio president is the Chief Justice of India while the Attorney General of India and the law minister are its vice-presidents. [TOI]

Exclusive: The Delhi high court on Tuesday declined to grant interim injunction to pharma major Natco in its case of defamation against NUJS Kolkata professor and intellectual property blog SpicyIP’s founder Shamnad Basheer.

High courts at Delhi, and Punjab and Haryana got new chief justices while the tenure of Kerala high court’s chief justice was renewed on Friday.

Delhi high court’s 58-year-old chief justice AK Sikri took oath as chief justice of Punjab and Haryana high court on Sunday. 61-year-old Delhi HC judge Darmar Murugesan moved into Sikri’s chair at the high court. Kerala high court’s 56-year-old acting chief justice Manjula Chellur will continue as chief justice of the court for another term [PTI]

Thursday’s DIPP notification allowing FDI in multi-brand retail has been challenged in the Supreme Court by advocate ML Sharma on the ground that the notification lacks parliamentary approval. Sharma has been active in filing public interest litigation in the past.

He said:

The notification would hit the life and livelihood of more than 35 crore citizens of India “who are surviving through their small retail trade upon footpath, small shops, hand-trolley and even door-to-door.

The notification has been issued in the name of reform but, in fact, it is a sale of India, citizens of India, their business and future of the country to foreigners. [The Hindu]

The Supreme Court served the newspapers Indian Express and Daily Pioneer with a suo moto contempt notice for allegedly misreporting court proceedings in stories published in the papers today about sitting Supreme Court judge Swatanter Kumar’s recommended appointment to the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

The Supreme Court directs former senior advocate and high-profile criminal lawyer RK Anand to donate Rs 20 lakh to the Bar Council of India for developing the library or computer centre of a lower tier college, and also take up only free legal aid cases for one year.

The court presented this course as an alternative to the rulebook sentence of six months of imprisonment for his conviction for contempt of court. It asked him to choose between the two options within a week.

Anand was convicted in 2009 for attempting to influence a key witness in the BMW hit-and-run case. He was then stripped of his senior designation.

He had sought permission from the SC to argue before it and had submitted that since the 2008 Delhi HC ban on his practice he had been providing only free legal aid.

A bench of Justices G S Singhvi, Aftab Alam and C K Prasad said: “If we write an order, no useful purpose will be served by putting this gentleman to this kind of punishment. It would be beneficial if the knowledge, skill and practice of this man is put to better use.” [TOI]

Eight male advocates have been designated as senior counsel in the Bombay high court, with six being based in Mumbai, one in Aurangabad and one in Nagpur.

The Supreme Court on Friday disposed of a writ petition filed two months ago, opening the floodgates to many more post-retirement positions for high court and Supreme Court judges and bringing the functioning of the CIC to an abrupt emergency halt.

After Forbes profiled CJI Kapadia’s career at its dusk, it is now time for The Telegraph to docket India’s future boss Altamas Kabir’s run-up of seven years and 21 days to the helm, and his days before and after.

Sending a husband to jail for taunting his wife on her dark complexion, ruling for power to trans-gender people, giving a landmark judgement bringing female relatives of the husband definitively under the Domestic Violence Act, Kabir fought for the undermined against the might of the state in his time at the Supreme Court.

As the 57-year-old chief justice of Jharkhand high court, where he was transferred to within weeks of being appointed chief at the Calcutta high court, he set up juvenile courts and passed several orders on the welfare of remand-home inmates.

Often the last judge to leave the Supreme Court, Justice Kabir is popular with junior lawyers

Junior lawyers always felt confident arguing their cases in his court as they knew that he would give them a patient hearing

We need people like him who understand what it means to be marginalised, stigmatised and ostracised simply for the fact that we are who we are

No less delighted at Justice Kabir’s elevation are the 43 inmates of Women’s Probation Home in Namkum, Ranchi. They call him and his wife Minna Kabir “Papa” and “Mummy” [Telegraph India]

Read Courtwitness’s profile of Kabir here

Four practising Supreme Court advocates are set to challenge the Delhi high court’s dismissal last week of their public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the Information Technology Act (IT Act) and Rules (Intermediaries Guidelines) and the government’s August order blocking hundreds of webpages, under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression.

The Supreme Court today laid down a new doctrine that, if requested, would allow courts to temporarily ban media from reporting a case if it would adversely affect the trial, but the special constitutional bench of five judges declined to create wider guidelines on how the media should report court cases.

Breaking: The Supreme Court today overruled the doctrine laid down in its own year 2002 landmark Bhatia International v Bulk Trading SA & Anr case, which held that Indian courts had exclusive jurisdiction to test the validity of an arbitral award made in India even when the proper law of the contract is the law of another country.

Karnataka high court’s “radically pro-family” judge K Bhaktavatsala told woman defending her husband’s divorce petition that she must “adjust” to domestic abuse meted out by her husband because such abuse was the norm, reported a number of newspapers. The 59-year-old judge has been serving in the high court since 2004.

A Mumbai-based human rights activist instituted an online petition addressed to the Chief Justice of India to remove Bhaktavatsala from the roster at the high court.

“This is why long ago I made the policy of not signing online petitions,” tweeted Legally India blogger courtwitness1 adding that while he condemns Bhaktavatsala’s remarks, the mandate for his removal lies with chief justice of the Karnataka high court and not the CJI.

And now, Justice Bhaktavatsala, in his own reported words:

Your husband is doing good business, he will take care of you. Why are you still talking about his beatings? I know you have undergone pain. But that is nothing in front of what you undergo as a woman. I have not undergone such pain. But madam (Justice BS Indrakala) has.

Ask your father if he has never beaten your mother!

You have to adjust. Are you just behind money? There is nothing in your case to argue on merits. You have to give him a divorce or go with him. Have you read about actor Darshan. He spent 30 days in jail after beating his wife. But they are living together now. What is on your mind and what is on your agenda?