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29 February 2016
SCOI Reports

It was pretty much about who would blink first: Swamy or the bench.

29 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

The Delhi high court took serious exception to its two-judge bench being called a “Dedh Bench (one-and-a-half bench) by advocate Deepak Khosla and ruled, last week, that he was in criminal contempt of the court.

26 February 2016
SCOI Reports

A petition pending since 2000, Ashok Kumar Jain v UOI (civil writ petition 546/2000) against the 79th Constitution Amendment Act, 1999 which had effectively extended constitutional scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) reservations in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies until 2010 (and until 2020 after the 95th amendment), was revived by the Supreme Court’s five Judge constitution bench today at 2 pm in court No 2.

26 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has implemented two new compulsory requirements for lawyers – submit all educational qualification certificates and get a certification from “court procedure and ethics” training academies, in order to practice in courts.

The BCI is collecting all the certificates of lawyers, “starting class X board results” as part of a long-winded “verification process” which will help the regulator identify the lawyers who have not practiced in the last five years and weed them out, reported the Times of India.

After such identification, under the BCI Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 the lawyers who have not practiced for the last five years will no longer have the licence to practice but can continue to remain enrolled as advocates.

BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told the TOI that the “verification process may surprise many and far exceed the initial estimates that over 30% lawyers have fake degrees”.He said: “We have implemented the BCI Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 and have now made it mandatory for all lawyers to re-register in a new format where they have to compulsorily submit all their certificates starting class X board results.”

“These certificates will then be verified with respective universities and boards,” added the report.

Mishra had said in 2015 that about 20 per cent of practicing lawyers don’t have a valid law degree. He had approached the central government for funds to start lawyers’ academy while promising to weed out lawyers with fake degrees.

In 2011 there were 1.3 million lawyers in India, revealed a right to information (RTI) response by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to Delhi-based advocate Kush Kalra, with an average annual growth rate between 2007 and 2011 of around 4 per cent, as reported by Legally India.

26 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

“Lawyers”, numbering up to 200, allegedly attacked leftist protest demonstrators in Allahabad, reported The Wire.

The report names several victims, including two women, who sustained injuries when 15-20 offenders, who’re reportedly lawyers, gathered at the spot of the peaceful demonstration, shouted slogans such as “Vande Mataram”, “Go back to Pakistan” and “traitors” at the demonstrators, and then called their associates to build up a crowd of 150-200 attackers.

Members of Left political parties theCommunist Party of India (Marxist), CPI, CPI (Marxist-Leninist), Socialist Unity Centre of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party and All India Forward Block, and the Students Federation of India, All India Students Association and All India Democratic Students Organisation, trade union leaders, women rights activists, civil society and academicians had peacefully gathered, with prior permission, at the Allahabad Collectorate to submit a memorandum to the president of India through the district magistrate.

A police complaint has been lodged for attempt to murder, rioting, and outraging the modesty of women, however The Wire’s report, which draws parallels to the Patiala House lawyer-mob violence incident of 15 and 17 February, does not name any accused.

25 February 2016
SCOI Reports

A Supreme Court bench comprising justices JS Khehar and C Nagappan today restrained the media from reporting the proceedings of the hearing of the SLP filed by the Patidar leader, Hardik Bharatbhai Patel against the dismissal of his bail petition by the Gujarat High Court and seeking quashing of FIR lodged against him.

25 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

sxt4qgqjThe Delhi high court would no longer charge five times the cost under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, for supplying information under an RTI filed to the court. However the court will still get to reject RTI requests which club unrelated questions in one single application.

25 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

The Punjab and Haryana high court took cognisance of news reports alleging that women had been dragged out of their vehicles on National Highway 1 (NH1) and raped, during the Jat riots that broke out in Haryana over caste-based reservations, reported IANS.

The high court’s justice Naresh Kumar Sanghi said the high court could not sit as a “mute spectator” to the reported incidents and that these needed to be probed by a “premier investigation agency”. The case has been referred to the court of the acting Chief Justice for further orders.

The Haryana government however said that the news reports were false and baseless.

Several media, including the Tribune, Huffington Post, India Today and an English daily called Daily Sikh Updates reported the alleged incidents of rape yesterday.

According to the Tribune, at least 10 women were sexually assaulted after vehicles with women passengers were reportedly stopped and set on fire by 30-odd goons on NH1 near Murthal, in the wee hours of Monday morning. The women were allegedly dragged out to the nearby fields and raped, and later given clothes and blankets by nearby villagers, according to “eyewitnesses” cited in the report.

The report cites Amrik Sukhdev dhaba owner Amrik Singh as alleging that he learnt about the incidents at 3am when some travellers heard the victims wailing. The Tribune report also cites other sources: >“Shaken up by the incident, village elders Hari Krishan of Kurad and Zile Singh of Hassanpur said they didn’t want to talk about the incident as “the police are sure to shield the criminals and nobody, not even the locals, are safe.” Jai Bhagwan, who too runs a dhaba on the highway, said four young women took refuge inside a water tank near his dhaba.”

24 February 2016
SCOI Reports

Senior advocate Kamini Jaiswal has filed a fresh writ petition in the Supreme Court through advocate Prashant Bhushan, seeking to institute a Special Investigation Team to probe the incidents of attacks on 15 and 17 February at Patiala House court and also issue suo motu contempt proceeding against three advocates, accused of interfering in the administration of justice and for willfully violating the orders of the Supreme Court dated 17 February.

24 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

The International Court of Arbitration (ICA) promoted its deputy counsel Abhinav Bhushan – the first Indian lawyer to have made it into the ICA – to regional director for South Asia

24 February 2016
Bar, Bench & Litigation

New chief justices (CJ) were appointed at the Meghalaya, Karnataka and Orissa high courts by Presidential order, reported the Press Information Bureau.

Allahabad HC judge Dinesh Maheshwari will assume the CJ’s office at Meghalaya HC, Karnataka HC judge Subhro Kamal Mukherjee will at Karnataka HC and Karnataka HC judge Vineet Saran will be the CJ at Orissa HC