The Bench and the Bar

The Supreme Court next Wednesday will hear a petition seeking a ban on WhatsApp on the ground that the messaging platform's end-to-end encryption gives terrorists a means of communication that is impossible to intercept.

Justice AM Khanwilkar of the Supreme Court Vacation Bench on Monday (20 June) was pleasantly surprised when senior counsel, Raju Ramachandran, gave certain options to the bench, if it were to reject his prayer for bail for an accused who had been denied bail by the Orissa high court.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has still not complied with its statutory duty under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, more than six weeks after the Central Information Commission (CIC) threatened to impose maximum penalty on BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, if the BCI continues in its non-compliance of the law.

"Professor BP Mahesh Guru, who teaches at the Mysore University, was arrested on 17 June when he appeared before a Mysore court in connection with a case registered against him for allegedly insulting the Hindu god at a conference in January 2015," reported the Hindustan Times.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) asked the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to identify lawyers in the state boycotting courts to protest the proposed disciplinary amendments to Advocates Act rules, and to submit a list of such lawyers to the BCI by today, reported the PTI.

Mukesh Bhavnani has returned to be group general counsel (GC) at Bharti Enterprises after a year of stints as Vedanta's GC and some time out.

The Ministry of Home Affairs yesterday cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of Sabrang Trust, an NGO run by social activists, Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand.

After several delays , special court in Ahmedabad gave life imprisonment to 11 of the 24 persons convicted in the Gulberg Society massacre of 69 people, including former Lok Sabha member of the Congress Ehsan Jafri, in 2002.

Bollywood film "Udta Punjab" will hit the theatres on Friday after the Supreme Court today refused to block a Bombay high court order allowing its release while the Punjab and Haryana high court dismissed petitions seeking a stay on it.

"And to make the larger point that gauging judges by the mere arithmetic of numbers does great disservice to them. Particularly in cases such as this one where a well-regarded judge has been wrongly wrung on a faulty metric. A judge blessed with exceptional legal caliber, inviolable integrity and a cathartic compassion that shines through each one of her decisions," writes Shamnad Basheer in The Wire, in an assessment of Justice Gita Mittal and in the second of Spicy IP's series reviewing judges (the first is here ).

Contrary to the headlines of some press reports to the contrary, the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry has issued a notice that the Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (verification) rules, 2015 had not been stayed by the apex court, reported Live Law.

The Supreme Court's vacation bench, comprising justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy, on 10 June, was surprised to learn that an assistant teacher in the Malda district of West Bengal, had been teaching theology in a Madrasa without receiving salary for nearly a decade.

>In the last month alone, at least four “John Doe” orders have been issued by courts in India, for blocking access to any website which might be deemed to host links to pirated content. Producers of films such as Housefull 3, Waiting, Veerappan and Azhar have received orders from the Bombay high court, which allow them to ask the ISPs to block user access to any website they believe hosts links which allow downloading of pirated content. One of the older orders also lists torrent sites, and users have been complaining of torrent sites being blocked in India.<

The Bombay high court on Monday overruled the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) recommended 13 cuts for Bollywood film "Udta Punjab" and cleared the film for release with one cut and three disclaimers by the filmmakers here.

Linklegal India Law Services advised Lightspeed, Cyber Agent Asia, and GrowXon their Rs 215 million ($3.2m) investment in online tech solutions provider Oku Tech which was advised by Themis Associates.

Justice Amitava Roy of the Supreme Court's vacation bench asked counsel for the respondent in a motor accident insurance claim case, whether he knew the time of the day. The question left his colleague on the bench, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, as well as the counsel, surprised and trying to figure out where he was going.