The Bench and the Bar

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a show-cause notice to private broadcaster NDTV about alleged violations of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The company, in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange, said it had on Thursday (November 19) received a show-cause notice in the name of Executive Co-Chairpersons Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy as well as Executive Vice-Chairperson KVL Narayan Rao and NDTV Studios Ltd from the Directorate of Enforcement as to why adjudication proceedings should not be held for alleged contraventions of provisions of FEMA

NDTV said it had been advised that the allegations of the contraventions of provisions of FEMA in the show cause notice were not legally tenable and it will reply to the same in due course of time.

NDTV had filed the notice during market hours, resulting in a sharp fall in its stock price by 7 percent. The stock which opened at Rs 87.35 on Friday morning fell sharply to Rs 82.40 before recovering to Rs 85.75, a decline of 2.56 percent.

The final day of the hearing on neo-Collegium at Court No.4 in Supreme Court began at 10.40 am yesterday (19 November), with the presiding Judge, Justice JS Khehar claiming that the 10-minute delay in assembling was due to some discussions which the five judges had among themselves about the hearing.

Flipkart and Snapdeal, not Amazon but its subsidiary Junglee, and 18 other e-commerce websites will face investigation for possibly violating Indian foreign direct investment (FDI) laws, as per yesterday’s Delhi high court order, reported Mint.

Advocate Rishi Agarwala, acting for the All India Footwear Manufacturers and Retailers Association, won an order passed by Delhi HC justice RS Endlaw directing the government to investigate the activities of the 21 websites and file its report in court within four weeks.

The government has been tasked with establishing whether these websites are just marketplaces, as they claim, or they act as sellers themselves also. India allows FDI in marketplaces but not in multi-brand retail online or offline.

Retailers in India have been fighting for a single and uniformly applicable FDI policy for online and offline retailers.

Even before yesterday’s order, Flipkart was already one of six companies facing investigation for Forex rules violation and RBI rules violations. The government had asked the Enforcement Directorate for an extension to file its findings.

Professor Upendra Baxi, in a comment to Legally India, had expressed his surprise how his name appears in the list of those who made proposals for reforming the Collegium, compiled by Supreme Court appointed committee comprising senior advocate, Arvind Datar and ASG, Pinky Anand, as he had not submitted any such proposal. Prof Baxi was also surprised that his so-called proposal was also shown not contributing to any of the five categories, identified by the Court and the Committee, namely, Collegium Secretariat, Eligibility Criteria, Transparency, Mechanism to deal with complaints and Miscellaneous.

The Madras high court used online messenger and video conferencing service Skype to conduct the legal proceedings in a case asking for police protection at a church wedding, reported The Firstpost.

Justice S Vaidyanathan of the Madras HC’s Madurai bench heard the Ramanathapuram district case at his residence, on the suggestion of the administrative Judge of the high court Justice V Ramasubramanian, due to the unavailability of judges at the station and because the petition for urgent hearing was filed at the last moment.

The judge directed the police to provide protection for the marriage ceremony after going through the case documents that were scanned and mailed to him for his perusal. The certified copy of the order directing the police to provide protection was mailed to the police at 8PM yesterday.

The court officials reportedly claimed that this was the first time in its history that the high court used Skype for hearing a case.

The police had objected to the marriage ceremony being performed at the church due to an existing dispute between the petitioner and the church authorities. The police had allegedly coercively obtained from the petitioner, an undertaking to perform the marriage in some other church.

Nestle Maggi’s comeback was challenged in the Supreme Court yesterday by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), reported The Economic Times.

The FSSAI has filed an appreal against the Bombay high court order that had lifted the ban that was imposed over five months ago on the popular noodle brand in India. The ban was imposed due to the alleged presence of lead in the noodles, making them unfit for human consumption.

FSSAI chairman and CEO Ashish Bahuguna was quoted by Economic Times as saying, “We have appealed in the Supreme Court on two accounts, one is the allegation that our officials acted against the system of natural justice and second the validity of operations of our labs. Our labs follow provisions as stated in the FSS Act and a question on them will bring all our enforcement to a standstill putting the safety of consumers under risk.”

The FSSAI, in the Supreme Court, has challenged the “sanctity” of the samples provided to the government-approved labs for the re-test. Nestle suffered losses of Rs 450 crores due to the destruction of already produced and distributed Maggi, and due to the ban on it since June.

The government had also filed a first-of-its-kind suit for damages of Rs 640 crores against Maggi before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), as reported by Legally India

Nestle resumed manufacturing the product after tests done on all fresh Maggi samples by government approved labs, as authorised by the Bombay high court, declared it safe. It is still awaiting clearances to make Maggi at its Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh plants, it was reported.

India Law won a gag order for the Tata Group in the Bombay high court against Tata’s ex employee Nityanand Sinha whom the court has ordered to remove all libelous material and forbade him from making any disparaging remarks about a wide section of Tata employees reported [Times of India].

India Law advocate Tushar Cooper was acting for Tata in favour of whom justice Gautam Patel made an order restraining Sinha - a former general manager at HL Homes - from issuing derogatory statements about the firm including “then directors, principal officers, agents, representatives, employees, servants, clients, business associates, business partners, companies forming a part of the Tata group of companies”.

Justice Patel also barred Sinha from using “emails, letters, SMSs, social media posts, websites, newspapers print or electronic, or in any other manner whatsoever, to any third parties/ general public including but not limited to newspaper editors, journalists, clients, business associates/business partners of the Plaintiffs/Tata group of companies or any other third parties/ general public”.

Sinha had allegedly made derogatory posts about the company on Facebook and Twitter, and sent emails to the company’s investors/financiers, after his engagement with the Tata was terminated.

Justice Sinha observed: “This is no sense journalism or fair reportage. The plaintiffs are not a public body to be held to have to prove a high standard of actual malice. I do not see how it is possible to conclude that the defendant’s posts meet a good faith standard or can be said to have been made in the reasonable belief of their truth. They appear, prima facie, to be allegations levelled only to further a private agenda and a vendetta of some kind.”

Mumbai maverick lawyer Mathews J Nedumpara has filed an application in the Supreme Court for review or recall of order dated 5 November 2015 in which the court has invited suggestions from the public for reforming the Collegium system, by 13 November and for holding two-day hearing of select counsel on 18 and 19 November.

Bar Council of India (BCI) member Rajinder Singh Rana and former BCI vice chairman Raju Dhanpal Raj were charged for corruption by a special CBI court, for taking bribes in exchange for a favourable inspection report to a law college

A court in Belgium has ordered Facebook to stop tracking internet users who are not members of the social network, BBC reported on Monday.

The court concluded that before collecting information, Facebook needed to obtain the consent of these users.

“The judge ruled that this is personal data, which Facebook can only use if the internet user expressly gives their consent, as Belgian privacy law dictates,” said the court in a statement.

Facebook said it will appeal against the order which is related to the use of what is known as a “datr” cookie by the social networking giant.

Every time users click a Facebook “Like” button on other websites on their browser, Facebook would use the datr cookie to track any online activities that browser conducts.

The Brussels court ordered the company to stop using the cookie to track non-Facebook members within 48 hours, or pay a daily fine of roughly $268,900, to the Belgian privacy regulator.

“We will appeal the decision and are working to minimise any disruption to people’s access to Facebook in Belgium,” a Facebook spokeswoman was quoted as saying.

India has been reelected by the General Assembly to a six year term on the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

After the election Monday, India’s Mission to the UN said in a statement that “it would continue to play a constructive role in the UNCITRAL which is recognized as the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law.”

India has won all the five elections it contested at the UN this year, following last year’s reelection to the UN Human Rights Council.

In April the UN Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC) elected India to the executive councils of UNICEF and the World Food Programme, the governing council of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

Along with India, 22 countries including the United States and Pakistan were reelected to UNCITRAL

UNCITRAL, which specialises in commercial law reform, says its mission is “the modernization and harmonization of rules on international business.”

The report submitted to the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench by Senior Advocate Arvind Datar and ASG, Pinky Anand on the neo-collegium received over 60 representations and suggestions from various associations and individuals.

In a panel discussion on the recent NJAC judgment on 5 November, organized by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi at the India International Centre Annexe, eminent senior advocate, Raju Ramachandran, had outlined grave implications for the application of the Basic Structure Doctrine.