The Bench and the Bar

When file-sharing website Kickass Torrents (KAT) went offline after its alleged owner, Artem Vaulin, was arrested in Poland a week ago, India's people were the most heavily affected by the news.

In the ongoing hearing of appeals by the four convicts in the 2012 Jyoti Singh Delhi rape and murder case in court No 4 in the Supreme Court yesterday afternoon, convict Mukesh’s controversial counsel, ML Sharma, was making submissions on the evidentiary value of DNA

We explain what’s going on in the Supreme Court between Rahul Gandhi, the RSS and lots of heavyweight lawyers right now. And wasn’t RaGa already told he should apologise or something?

Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra was interviewed by The Hindu a few days ago about the Bar Council of India (BCI) decision to suspend 126 lawyers from Tamil Nadu for allegedly protesting against controversial disciplinary rules passed by the Madras high court.

The Supreme Court said today defamation laws cannot be used by the government to stifle criticism.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday faulted the magistrate for seeking a police report on a complaint of criminal defamation against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who had blamed the RSS for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

In May 2010, then-prime minister Manmohan Singh made a few headlines by saying what nearly every lawyer and educator in the country knew to be true: he called Indian legal education a “sea of institutionalised mediocrity”, dotted with a few “islands of excellence”.

What could have been a complicated case before the Supreme Court, turned out to be a much simpler affair, with the bench comprising of justices JS Khehar and Arun Mishra reading out the report submitted by the Medical Board of seven doctors who examined the rape survivor, who is in her 24th week of pregnancy.

The Supreme Court has today issued guidelines to the Delhi high court on how to conduct future Delhi Judicial Services (DJS) exams, following a rejoinder petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan and co-petitioner and DJS candidate Sonal Gupta, represented by Sanjay Hegde, who both appeared pro bono in the case.

Wire: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to put on hold, for now, the demolition of the controversial Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society building in Mumbai and told the director of military estates (army) to take the custody of building and secure it.

Delhi Police has filed three separate chargesheets accusing three lawyers and suspended BJP legislator OP Sharma of the violence in the Patiala House Courts complex in February.

"The Supreme Court...has asked the Law Commission to go into all relevant aspects relating to regulation of legal profession in consultation with all concerned...the Commission has undertaken the study and requests the Bar Council of India and all State Bar Councils, Bar Association of the Supreme Court and Advocates on Records Association of Supreme Court, Advocates Associations’ in the High Courts and their respective benches to send their comments within 30 days,” the Law Commission has said in a statement.

The tiff between the media and the lawyers community in Kerala appears to have been resolved with the intervention of Chief Justice of India TS Thakur who held talks with representatives of the journalists in the national capital on Friday.

Dwarka district court judge PS Malik was hospitalised today after an alleged unsuccessful suicide attempt by overdosing on sleeping pills, after an accusation by a colleague on 20 July that he had raped her repeatedly since January 2016, reported media.

Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar today told a Supreme Court bench of justices JS Khehar and Arun Mishra that the government would constitute a medical board to examine a rape survivor tomorrow, who has challenged section 3(2)(b) of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 that prohibits abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, even if there is a risk of death to the mother or foetus.

"The Central Information Commission has directed the Bar Council of Delhi to proactively make public the cases of professional misconduct, both proved and not proved, against advocates at regular intervals or as and when the decision was taken,”.