The Bench and the Bar

On 11 March, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi, Arun Mishra and Prafulla C Pant, after hearing the review petition of three convicts in the 2000 bus burning at Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, case in the open court, commuted their death sentences to life sentences.

Those who thought the NGT’s 9 March insistence that the AoL pay a fine ofRs 5 crores before going ahead with the event at the disputed site ofYamuna was too mild, compared to the kind of devastation which it is likelyto cause to the site, must today concede that the NGT order “being mild”was probably an understatement. In today’s order (read below), the NGTappeared too willing to accept AoL’s offer of Rs 25 lakh now, and pay thebalance within three weeks.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday gave three weeks to Art of Living (AoL) to pay environmental compensation of Rs 5 crore for holding World Culture Festival on the Yamuna floodplains in Delhi, after AoL’s leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had said in TV interviews he’d rather go to jail than pay the fine.

The NGT held a hearing on Friday over implementation of its Wednesday’s order (read the order and analysis of the order here).

AoL told the tribunal that it will abide by the ruling and sought four weeks to deposit Rs 5 crore.

The tribunal said that the AoL should pay Rs 25 lakh on Friday and the balance in three weeks.

The AoL’s three-day cultural extravaganza starts on Friday.

The organisers have already spent Rs 25.63 crore on the event.

Should India be known as Bharat? Having issued notice in a public interest litigation petition in April last year, a division bench of Supreme Court of India headed by the Chief Justice of India TS Thakur will be posed with this question on 11 March (today).

The Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) recruitment committee will interview, within four weeks, the 12 new candidates who crossed the exam’s cut-off marks on a re-evaluation. The re-evaluation was part of a judicial inquiry on fairness in the conduct of the DJS 2014.

In an order, which reads like admission of helplessness, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) today declined to prohibit the holding of multi-crore World Culture Festival (WCF) organized by the Art of Living Foundation on the flood plains of the river Yamuna, after two days of hectic hearing of the parties concerned.

A Supreme Court bench comprising of justices Anil R Dave and Adarsh Kumar Goel asked Bennet Castelino, an advocate and the petitioner-in-person, to approach the high court of Allahabad to order a CBI probe into the mysterious disappearance of Rahul Sachan. Sachan is a key prosecution witness in the Asaram Bapu case.

The Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) 2014 exam’s results were turned on their head by retired Supreme Court judge PV Reddy’s committee, after almost all of the top 200-ranked candidates’ marks in the exam increased on re-evaluation.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur today said that he would examine the plea of advocate Mrinal Kanti Mandal, against whom Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s had ordered action by bar councils after Mandal had requested Gogoi’s recusal.

Today, Sahara’s Subrata Roy has spent two years in jail for contempt of court, reports Mint , in an in-depth retrospective of the case by Shreeja Sen.

Roy has written a book, reportedly found some peace and managed to repay Rs 4,000 crore of the 10,000 the Supreme Court required him to give back to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The next hearing in the case is on 29 March.

On 18 February 2016, Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjan Gogoi passed an order referring the conduct of an advocate to the Bar Council of India (BCI) and the Delhi bar council for “taking up appropriate action in respect of” conduct that “cannot be appreciated”.

After a suspenseful countdown to delivery of order in the JNU students union leader, Kanhaiya Kumar’s bail application, Delhi high court justice Pratibha Rani, gave the key accused in the JNU sedition case conditional bail for six months in a 23 page order.