The Bench and the Bar

Ex-Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju has offered a two-page apology to the Supreme Court, saying he would be prepared to read it out in person in open court if required, in marked contrast to his belligerence last month after he accused the Supreme Court of conducting a surgical strike on him to humiliate him (which, perhaps, was kind of true in their suo motu contempt action against him for one of his many blog posts that were critical-cum-offensive against the judiciary).

70 out of the 100 Supreme Court judges, who retired as on 12 February 2016, took up post-retirement jobs with various permanent and ad hoc bodies and committees, with the greatest number taking up quasi-judicial posts, according to data collected by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) talks to come up with a new proposal to reform its regulation of the legal profession, have been shrouded in secrecy due to a media gag order since October.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections may be postponed to January, out of fairness to the SC advocates whose names were removed without proper notice from the SCBA voter list, if the election committee agrees to the request of presidential candidate Adish Aggarwala.

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain the petition of BJP leader and lawyer Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay, who seeking to get an order to make playing of the national anthem compulsory before court proceedings from the same bench that had on Wednesday passed a controversial order making the playing of the anthem in cinemas mandatory, reported PTI.

A bench of justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy ordered that in line with states such as Maharashtra, all cinema halls in India must play the national anthem before movie screenings in order to “instill a sense of committed patriotism and nationalism” in citizens.

The official website of the Bar Council of India (BCI) at www.barcouncilofindia.org has gone offline, after its domain name apparently expired on Saturday 26 November.

A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur and justices AK Sikri and SA Bobde today ordered a ban on all sales of firecrackers and the issuing of new licences in Delhi.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) took almost four months before passing 15 Indians holding foreign law degrees, who took the BCI’s qualifying exam that is a prerequisite to transfer their qualification to India, after having charged the candidates at least $32,000 (around Rs 22 lakhs) to sit the exam.

“On Wednesday, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana ruled that no one could have copyright over judgments delivered by the apex court. It could be reproduced in its raw form by anyone without the risk of being accused of infringing copyright, the bench said, settling a long-standing dispute,” reported the Times of India.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has scheduled its new elections for 14 December, according to notifications on its noticeboard and Facebook page.

Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) president Kirti Uppal, who defeated incumbent president Rajiv Khosla in this year’s DHCBA polls by almost 300 votes, said his vote bank was comprised mostly of first generation lawyers with a practicing experience of five to seven years.

The Indian Express reported that Justice Akil Kureshi had recused himself, following the recusals of Justices M R Shah, Anant Dave, R H Shukla, Sonia Gokani, G B Shah and K S Jhaveri in the appeals of 2002-Naroda Patiya massacre convicts, including ex-BJP minister Maya Kodnani. Kureshi had recused himself after advocate BB Naik, who is related to the judge, had joined the case, though Naik said that he had filed his vakalatnama a long time ago:

Kirti Uppal has defeated incumbent Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) president Rajiv Khosla by nearly 300 votes in yesterday’s elections.

Arepalli Naga Babu - a former Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) scholar and 2016-graduate of NLU Odisha - has won the right to take a judicial services exam with additional time to compensate for his disability, after initially having been denied to even sit for the exam in the first place.

According to a Right to Information (RTI) response received and reported by Bar & Bench, between 1990 and 2016, the Karnataka Water Resources Department has spent at least Rs 37.5 crore on around 20 lawyers representing it in disputes such as the Cauvery battle, of which 91% (or Rs 34.22 crore) were billed by five senior lawyers alone.