The Bench and the Bar

The Supreme Court said today defamation laws cannot be used by the government to stifle criticism.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday faulted the magistrate for seeking a police report on a complaint of criminal defamation against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who had blamed the RSS for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

In May 2010, then-prime minister Manmohan Singh made a few headlines by saying what nearly every lawyer and educator in the country knew to be true: he called Indian legal education a “sea of institutionalised mediocrity”, dotted with a few “islands of excellence”.

What could have been a complicated case before the Supreme Court, turned out to be a much simpler affair, with the bench comprising of justices JS Khehar and Arun Mishra reading out the report submitted by the Medical Board of seven doctors who examined the rape survivor, who is in her 24th week of pregnancy.

The Supreme Court has today issued guidelines to the Delhi high court on how to conduct future Delhi Judicial Services (DJS) exams, following a rejoinder petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan and co-petitioner and DJS candidate Sonal Gupta, represented by Sanjay Hegde, who both appeared pro bono in the case.

Wire: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to put on hold, for now, the demolition of the controversial Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society building in Mumbai and told the director of military estates (army) to take the custody of building and secure it.

Delhi Police has filed three separate chargesheets accusing three lawyers and suspended BJP legislator OP Sharma of the violence in the Patiala House Courts complex in February.

"The Supreme Court...has asked the Law Commission to go into all relevant aspects relating to regulation of legal profession in consultation with all concerned...the Commission has undertaken the study and requests the Bar Council of India and all State Bar Councils, Bar Association of the Supreme Court and Advocates on Records Association of Supreme Court, Advocates Associations’ in the High Courts and their respective benches to send their comments within 30 days,” the Law Commission has said in a statement.

The tiff between the media and the lawyers community in Kerala appears to have been resolved with the intervention of Chief Justice of India TS Thakur who held talks with representatives of the journalists in the national capital on Friday.

Dwarka district court judge PS Malik was hospitalised today after an alleged unsuccessful suicide attempt by overdosing on sleeping pills, after an accusation by a colleague on 20 July that he had raped her repeatedly since January 2016, reported media.

Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar today told a Supreme Court bench of justices JS Khehar and Arun Mishra that the government would constitute a medical board to examine a rape survivor tomorrow, who has challenged section 3(2)(b) of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 that prohibits abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, even if there is a risk of death to the mother or foetus.

"The Central Information Commission has directed the Bar Council of Delhi to proactively make public the cases of professional misconduct, both proved and not proved, against advocates at regular intervals or as and when the decision was taken,”.

It was 3 pm in court 4 yesterday (20 July) and the arguments on either side on the plea to stay the disqualification of the Congress rebels in Uttarakhand seemed endless.

Bar Council of India (BCI) associate managing trustee Rajinder Singh Rana, former BCI vice chairman Raju Dhanpal Raj and ex-BCI-member Milan Kumar Dey have been sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine for taking a Rs 6 lakh bribe to approve Global Law College in Ghaziabad.

The Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution bench judgment of 13 July, quashing president’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh, was a massive judgment in every way, and not just because it set off a series of dramatic events loaded with suspense.

"In view of the long history and tradition associated with the existing name of the High Court at Calcutta”, a full court of judges objected to the name change that the government made recently and that would also affect the Bombay and Madras high courts (see letter).