The Bench and the Bar

Senior counsel and Rajya Sabha parliamentarian Ram Jethmalani in an interview in Scroll talks about why he’s representing Arvind Kejriwal pro bono against Arun Jaitley’s defamation actions ("Kejriwal got in touch with me and I promptly said to him, ‘Yes, I will surely represent you.’"):

Is it unusual for a person to file both civil and criminal defamation cases?

Yes, first of all, I believe his [Jaitley’s] game is that he will try to get an injunction against the repetition of the statements of which he is complaining. For this, he will use the civil suit. He, anyway, has no intention of going ahead with that suit. (Laughs)

I know the tricks of the trade. Jaitley thinks through the criminal case he will strike fear in his opponents. I hope, by now, he has been disillusioned on this count. (Laughs) As it is, in a defamation case, the complainant turns into an accused...

I, personally, think Jaitley has taken a very ill-advised step... He shouldn’t have gone to the court. These are matters you must fight in the court of the people.

I never, never, never advise people to go to court, particularly so when there exist some questionable aspects of their public life. Even Kejriwal might not know about it, but which his lawyer perhaps would know better. (Laughs) That is why it was so ill-advised of Jaitley to have taken the step of going to court. He should have handled it politically. Ultimately, the people of India have to judge you...

Meanwhile, his initial love affair with the current BJP government is well and truly over:

[The government’s inaction in seeking the names of black money holders from Germany] is why from being the greatest supporter of Modi I have now turned into his greatest critic...

I said that this was because I am an educated person who has 75 years of experience as a criminal lawyer, and how it was that Modi made a fool of me. I said that even though I had been expelled from the BJP, I worked for him during the 2014 election campaign.

The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Vikramajit Sen and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh today upheld the Kerala Government’s liquor policy which was challenged as being discriminatory.

Every Chief Justice of India (CJI), soon after taking over, would first try to get a grip over the bench composition, which was determined according to the requirements of his predecessor.

The Caravan investigates Indian broadcast censorship via the government’s low-key Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC), which presides over the suitability of jokes in The Simpsons for kids, criticism of Narendra Modi and other politicians, and the chilling effect on explicit language on channels such as Comedy Central, and the more political:

The government’s attempt to exert control over television isn’t limited to supposedly obscene content. It has also targeted matter that it deems politically dangerous. In April, for instance, the ministry of information and broadcasting banned Al Jazeera News for five days for “cartographic aggression”—displaying a map of Kashmir that did not depict Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Aksai Chin as part of India. The most prominent recent example of such censorship occurred in early August, when the government served the news channel NDTV with a show-cause notice over its coverage of the case of Yakub Memon, who was executed in July for his involvement in a series of bombings in Mumbai in 1993, in which more than 250 people were killed. The channel, the notice said, “not only questioned the judicial system of India but tended to denigrate the very institution.” Similar notices were sent to two other channels, ABP and Aaj Tak, for airing telephone interviews with the gangster Chhota Shakeel.

NK Singh, the general secretary of the Broadcast Editors’ Association, is stinging in his criticism of these actions. “The notices were made on invented pretexts and are an example of the typical predatory instinct of the state machinery to hunt media freedom,” he said when I met him in September. He argued that the channels had violated no laws, and that they were within their rights to cover every aspect of the case. “If there was a contempt of court, why didn’t the court take cognisance against the channels?” he said.

The Bombay high court has issued a criminal contempt notice against author Arundhati Roy on Wednesday commenting that she believed she was “above the law”, reported the Indian Express and others.

The contempt notice was issued for her views on the arrest of Delhi University professor G N Saibaba and the rejection of his bail plea, which was published in Outlook magazine earlier this year.

The court issued the notice while rejecting Saibaba’s bail plea on Wednesday who was arrested last year for alleged links with Maoists. He has been on bail since June, extended later till 31 December.

Justice A B Chaudhari of the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court commented on the language in the article as “nasty” and was quoted as saying that “calling the government and police as being ‘afraid’ of the applicant, ‘abductor’ and ‘thief’, and the magistrate from a ‘small town’, demonstrate the surly, rude and boorish attitude of the author in a most tolerant country like India.”

Roy’s article was also reproduced in the judgment.

Chaudhari also read into the article to have a “game plan” to secure an order in Saibaba’s favour and said that the article was written with “prima facie with a mala fide motive to interfere in the administration of justice.....The author has even gone to the extent of scandalising and questioning the credibility of the higher judiciary by giving examples of the orders of bail granted to Babu Bajrangi, Maya Kodnani and Amit Shah.”

She has to reply to the notice by 25 January 2016.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked Reliance Communications, which partnered with Facebook to put their ‘Free Basics’ on hold reported BBC on 23 December.

Free basics is pitched as a service which would provide internet accessibility to people who cannot afford high costs of internet but critics believe that the concept is contrary to net neutrality principles. Free basics would favour certain online services over others.

A Reliance spokesperson was quoted as saying: “As directed by TRAI, the commercial launch of Free Basics has been kept in abeyance, until they consider all details and convey a specific approval.”

TRAI told Reliance that it wanted to “examine the details and intrinsic” of the offer but it is believed that the issue concerns net neutrality principles.

Facebook introduced internet.org in 2013 for developing countries in order to “introduce people to the benefits of the internet”, which was renamed as ‘free basics’ earlier this year. Content in free basics includes pages from selected local news and weather forecast providers, the BBC, Wikipedia and various health services offered in 36 countries and expected to introduce more than 15 million people to internet. However, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly said that it was"not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free”.

Critics are worried about disadvantages to start-ups and companies not included in free basics and several larger groups who had signed up for the same pulled out of the services including the Times Group and Cleartrip, citing concerns about absence of fair, level playing field.

TRAI is going to hold a hearing into net neutrality in January and Facebook has upped its marketing in India recently asking people to support free basics.

Delhi Public Prosecutors will likely not give up their 24 December to 1 January vacation on the “last minute” order of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal reported The Indian Express.

Prosecutors in Delhi have protested the directive in a letter to the director of prosecution.

The director of prosecution of Delhi, Pankaj Sanghi had issued the order on 15 December which states: “The honourable chief minister has desired that a training programme/workshop on the functioning and working of all the Prosecuting Officers is likely to be held between 24.12.2015 to 3.1.2016 during the winter vacation of the court.”

The order also warns that action will be taken against defaulters.

However as per the orders of the Delhi high court, 26 to 31 December is the winter vacation for criminal courts while 24 and 25 December are gazetted holidays.

The Delhi Prosecutor’s Welfare Association (DPWA) through their president Gaurav Singh have requested Sanghi to ask the chief minister to change the dates of training program.

In their letter, DPWA quotes the order of the Delhi administrator issued in 1978, which states that the prosecution department in Delhi “will observe holidays as notified by the Honorable High Court,” it was reported.

East Delhi district court Karkardooma was the scene of a shootout about an hour ago, as unidentified persons entered its courtroom 73 and fired several bullet rounds.

Delhi Public Prosecutors will likely not give up their 24 December to 1 January vacation on the “last minute” order of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal reported [http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/winter-leave-cancelled-due-to-cms-desire-prosecutors-send-protest-letter/]. Prosecutors in Delhi have protested the directive in a letter to the director of prosecution.

The director of prosecution of Delhi, Pankaj Sanghi had issued the order on 15 December which states, “The honourable chief minister has desired that a training programme/workshop on the functioning and working of all the Prosecuting Officers is likely to be held between 24.12.2015 to 3.1.2016 during the winter vacation of the court.” The order also warns that action will be taken against defaulters.

However as per the orders of the Delhi high court, 26 to 31 December is the winter vacation for criminal courts while 24 and 25 December are gazetted holidays.

The Delhi Prosecutor’s Welfare Association (DPWA) through their president Gaurav Singh have requested Sanghi to ask the chief minister to change the dates of training program.

In their letter, DPWA quotes the order of the Delhi administrator issued in 1978, which states that the prosecution department in Delhi “will observe holidays as notified by the Honorable High Court,” it was reported.

Desai & Diwanji advised the Bector Family and Motilal Oswal Private Equity on their Rs 450 crore ($67.5m) exit from Ludhiana based food and beverage company Mrs Bectors Food Specialities, after selling their minority stake in it. Private equity firms CX Partners, advised by Platinum Partners, and Gateway Partners, advised by AZB & Partners bought the stake. Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas advised Bectors Food.

D&D Delhi partner Rachna Jain and associates Nakul Batra and Rahul Chaddah advised the sellers on this, one of the largest packaged F&B sector private equity deals according to the firm’s press release.

Platinum Bengaluru partner Ankit Majmudar and associates Yamini Dwarakanath and Jagriti Mohata advised CX Partners.

AZB Delhi partner Sachin Mehta and Mumbai associate Vinit Nalavadi acted for Gateway Partners.

SAM Delhi partner Raghubir Menon, principal associate Gaurav Dayal and associate Aritra Roy acted for Bector Foods and its promoter Anoop Bector and his family members on the transaction.

CX and Gateway have reportedly invested Rs 450 crore in MBFSL for a 47 percent stake in the company reported Deal Street Asia.

ARA Law acted for customer support firm Freshdesk in it’s acquisition of Konotor, a mobile based user engagement platform developed by software company Demach who were advised by Agama law Associates.

ARA Bengaluru partner Avik Karmakar acted for Freshdesk.

Agama Mumbai partner Archana Balasubramanian led the team for Demach.

Konotor, founded in 2012 by Srikrishnan Ganesan, Deepak Balasubramanyam and Vignesh Girishankar claims to serve more than 40 million users through it’s app and boasts of customers including Zomato, BankBazaar.com and food-delivery service Faasos reported Mint. Konotor will continue to exist independently and serve its existing customers after the deal, it was reported.