The Bench and the Bar

There are many cases in the Supreme Court, which are under continuous monitoring of the court, meaning that the court, rather than dispose them of after issuing certain orders, monitors them once in a while, so as to ensure compliance with its orders by the authorities concerned. The petition, filed by senior counsel Ram Jethmalani in 2009, (writ petition [civil] 176 of 2009) is one such, which has seen several ups and downs.

Bollywood star Salman Khan has told the Supreme Court that he was not driving his Toyota Land Cruiser when it killed a man in Mumbai in 2002 but police were trying to implicate him in the case.

Claiming that his driver Ashok Singh was at the wheels, Salman said in an affidavit filed on 17 March that the prosecution had failed to produce a single witness or a photograph showing that he was driving it.

The affidavit became public knowledge only on Wednesday.

The statement followed a notice issued by the apex court issued on 19 February on a Maharashtra government’s petition challenging the Bombay high court verdict acquitting the film star in the case.

The high court had on 10 December, 2015 acquitted Salman, saying that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against the actor on all counts.

Salman was found guilty by a sessions court on 6 May last year and convicted for, among others, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and sentenced to five years in jail for the accident which killed one man and injured four others. All victims were sleeping on the pavement.

Salman also denied he was drunk at the time of the accident, saying he was keeping away from alcoholic beverages in preparation for the shooting of the film “Garv”.

Telling the apex court that the accident took place as the left front tyre burst resulting in the vehicle spinning out of control, Salman said driver Ashok Singh was driving towards his home at 40-50 km an hour from JW Marriott to Hill Road.

At the time of the accident, Salman said some repair work was going on near the junction, as a result of which there were stones and rubble lying on the road.

“When the vehicle approached the junction of St. Andrew’s Road and Hill Road, the left front tyre of the said vehicle burst, due to which the said vehicle swerved sharply to the left.

“Ashok Singh tried to apply the brakes and tried to control the vehicle but by then (it) climbed the stairs and came onto the platform outside the American Express Laundry, hit the shutter and stopped,” he said.

As of today, there are more than 20 million cases pending in the Indian district courts; two-thirds are criminal cases and one in 10 have been pending for more than 10 years, our analysis of National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) data has revealed.

The law ministry has invited applications from the public to fill its post of secretary, moving away from its usual process of only selecting from among officers of the Indian Legal Services, reported the Sunday Guardian.

Lawyers who have practised for at least 25 years in the Supreme Court and high courts, and have their name on at least 25 recorded judgments, or lawyers who have at least 25 years of work experience working in private law firms or public sector organisations, are eligible to apply.

Lawyers up to 57 years of age are eligible to apply. The superannuation age for the post of secretary in the ministry is 60 years and the basic pay is Rs 80,000.

Hat tip @amlanweb for pointing us to the news.

Senior counsel Harish Salve, whose name appeared in the so-called Panama Papers leak of more than 11 million financial documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, published in India by the Indian Express, told Legally India that including his name was unfair, since his use of a British Virgin Islands-based (BVI) shell company was legal and transparently declared in his tax returns.

The Supreme Court today granted bail to Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, accused of being associated with a front organisation of a banned Maoist outfit.

As reported on Legally India in February, Saibaba requires constant and expensive medical attention, which the Mahrashtra government was unlikely to have been able to provide in Nagpur jail.

The apex court bench, headed by Justice JS Khehar, granted bail to Saibaba noting that all the material witnesses in the case have already been examined and there was no basis for keeping him confined.

The court was not moved as counsel for Maharashtra expressed the apprehension that Saibaba would propagate his views if he is set free.

The court said that does not hold as he would be doing so even if he was released later.

Granting bail to Saibaba, the court said his release would be subject to the conditions by the trial court as he would make himself available as and when he was required.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) will file a resolution in the Supreme Court, defending its Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 by stating that “downfall” in the standards of bar association representatives was a result of increase in the number of fake lawyers, reported the Times of India.

The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of transfer petitions challenging the validity of the 2015 rules that make it mandatory for all lawyers enrolled after 1976 to re-enrol after submitting all their academic certificates.

The BCI submitted in court that lawyers in states like UP, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal and others were not inclined to furnish their certificates as they found it inconvenient.

The resolution, which the regulator passed internally recently and will now file as affidavit in the Supreme Court states:

“BCI members have expressed suspicion that a very strong racket is actively involved throughout the country in selling forged/fake certificates of matriculation, graduation and LLB,""downfall in standard of representatives of the...bar associations is a result of an increase of such fake/non-practising persons”.

The BCI has not published statistics for the number of All India Bar Exam (AIBE) candidates who passed the exam, for the last 4 years, and has failed to control the mushrooming of law schools.

These measures have resulted in a lack of transparency on the total number of advocates in India who have a right to practice before its courts.

Even as the two rival national political parties played April Fool of their actual political rivalries on 1 April by appealing together in the Supreme Court, a common judgment passed against them by the Delhi high court, The Wire has exposed a little-known fact, which promises to excel the incredible phenomenon of these two rival parties coming together on a common platform to fight a common enemy.

Aditya Sondhi, who was designated as senior counsel in July 2014, has been appointed additional advocate general of Karnataka, according to two authoritative sources, effective yesterday (31 March).

He confirmed the appointment to Bar & Bench today, saying: “It’s an honour and a challenge.”

Sondhi was one of the first senior counsel to have graduated from NLSIU Bangalore.

The BJP and the Congress today both found defending themselves as appellants in a case before the Supreme Court, which is likely to hear it in detail after the summer vacation.

Senior advocates are now temporarily outside the service tax net, as the Delhi high court today stayed the imposition of this tax on them, reported Mint.

Justices S Muralidhar and RK Gauba ordered the stay on the Delhi High Court Bar Association’s (DHCBA) plea that charging senior advocates on the services they provide to their clients, as well as charging the clients on the services they take from senior advocates, amounts to double taxation and is unconstitutional.

The stay order was passed in order to maintain consistency with a similar stay order by the Guajarat high court on 30 March, according to Mint.

The DHCBA had also contended that the function of senior advocates – aiding the court in administration of justice – is not a “taxable service”, according to Live Law which published a copy of the DHCBA’s petition in the Delhi high court.

The union budget 2016 had withdrawn the exemption provided to senior advocates from service tax, effectively increasing the cost of instructing them by 14 per cent, as reported by [legallyindia.com/news/budget-catches-senior-advocates-tribunals-with-wider-service-tax-net

The budget provisions which had taken away the senior advocates’ exemption were to be effective from today. Previous unsuccessful attempts of the government to levy service tax on lawyers came in 2011 and 2012.

The much-expected floor test in Uttarakhand legislative assembly will not take place on 31 March.