Snoopers without charter: The government’s “central monitoring system” is set to allow the National Investigation Agency, tax authorities and possibly others to eavesdrop on “every byte of communication” in India, including online chats, phone calls, SMSes and presumably more, reports [Times of India].

Parrot CBI on coals: Slamming attorney general Goolam Vahanvati and additional solicitor general Harin Rawal’s interference in he CBI’s coal scam report, the SC today said: “It's a sordid saga that there are many masters and one parrot” [DNA India]

UPSC ranked: Five NUJS Kolkata grads, two NLIU Bhopal grads and one NLU Jodhpur grad cleared the UPSC civil services mains, the oldest among them having graduated in 2007 [Bar & Bench]

HNLU Androidly: Gyancentral interviews HNLU Raipur alum Apurva Sukant on developing the wristwatch-sized device Androidly that combines all the applications of a smartphone [Gyan Central]

Stewardess v AI sequel: Allegedly overweight Air India flight attendant Salome Singsit approaches Supreme Court against her unfair dismissal through NUJS 2008-batch advocate Ashwarya Sinha (reprising Delhi HC role). SC issues show cause notice to the airline [Firstpost]

Meditating on mediation: Senior advocate Sriram Panchu replies on behalf of the Association of Indian Mediators to senior advocate Gopal Subramanium’s 1 May Hindu article disparaging alternate dispute resolution in comparison to litigation [Hindu]

Atrocious records: Pune district court’s special court for crimes of atrocities against women has received 1,200 cases in the three months since its inception [DNA]

Gaming Haryana: Haryana’s second-highest law officer additional advocate general Manish Bansal, son of railway minister Pawan Bansal, was not only appointed to his present post with less professional experience than is the norm, but also continued to hold director positions in various companies after his appointment [TOI]

How to justify your fees: “When a Client gives an example that some lawyers are charging 15% lesser than you, please tell him that he has not done his research, he can very well find people who are charging 50% lesser” [DK Mahant]

SC Maha lesson: Hoping to curb the trend of its directions been “taken lightly” by state governments, the Supreme Court imposes an exemplary cost of Rs 5 lakh on the Maharashtra government for a three-day delay in filing an affidavit related to police reforms. Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Mahrashtra and Goa had been ordered to file the affidavit by 3 May [moneylife]

Well and fair in Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said she wants to hike its previous Rs 1 crore grant to the Delhi bar council’s corpus fund for the welfare of lawyers, while president Pranab Mukherjee asked judges to “encourage” young lawyers by appointing them amicus curiae in matters of public importance, at the bar council’s National Seminar on Welfare of Lawyers [Zee News]

IOUID: Who owns India’s UID database, who will make money out of it and how? Privacy law and other implications [moneylife]

Courts too secure: Delhi HC’s justice Gita Mittal ordered constitution of expert committee to look into court’s security mechanisms requiring photo identification to enter courtrooms. Mittal said it was a restriction on the “open court principle” and restricts court access to poor litigants [Zee News/HT]

3 new Guj HC judges: Gujarat HC registrar general RP Dholariya, and principal district judges AG Uraizee and KJ Thaker were appointed additional judges of the Gujarat HC [IE]

Delhi HC to have 59 courtrooms: CJI Altamas Kabir last week inaugurated the construction of two new building blocks which will take the total tally of Delhi HC courtrooms to 59 by the end of 2015. Out of 24 new courtrooms, nine will be of joint registrars who handle certain categories of civil cases [HT]

CBI independence: Expensive private senior lawyers such as KK Venugopal and UU Lalit are being hired by the CBI which is seen as increasingly turning away from the attorney general and the additional solicitor general, who can be “political appointments” who are seen as “placing a high premium on being loyal to the government” [ET]

Assault on lawyers: Two Delhi lawyers, Nikhil Mehta and Milan Malhotra, were allegedly assaulted by Geeta Colony Delhi’s Station House Officer (SHO) pressuring them to settle a dispute outside court. A senior officer of the Delhi police also allegedly applied pressure when they complained instead of taking action against the SHO. Delhi HC justice Sunil Gaur has asked for an inquiry [HT]

Mohan Parasaran on CBI: Solicitor general Mohan Parasaran said “[…] the CBI director has stated in the affidavit that future reports wouldn’t be shared with the political executive. This clearly shows that the agency knows what should be done and what not”, indicating that it is not open to the CBI to brush aside the charge of showing its investigation report to the government departments it is investigating [Firstpost]

Chetan ‘Porny’ Bhagat: Gujarat high court chief justice’s bench dubs Chetan Bhagat’s book pornographic after reading a passage on riots in open court, which contained “abuses”. The CJ commented: “The language doesn't look decent. A chaste writer cannot write this stuff.” [TOI]

Madras, vacancy: Madras high court potentially faces one-third roster vacancy after retirements, two state law officers and/or others might ascend in six months. [TOI]

Gopal ADR fail: Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium recommends a constitutional body – the National Judicial Commission for Performance & Audit of the Judicial System - to aid the high courts. He notes that “fixation of [pendency reduction] targets” for judges is a roadblock to justice, and the promotion of alternate dispute resolution is a failure of the justice system [Hindu]

200% Rs 20 stamp hike: Madras HC clears the way for increased advocates welfare stamp fee to be affixed with the vakalatnama – the memo of appearance. Tamil Nadu advocates are now to affix a stamp of Rs 30 instead of Rs 10 [DC]

All-woman law offices: Udaya PS Menon and Associates is Coimbatore’s only all-women law firm with seven women advocates was set up in 2000. The founder Udaya Menon explains reason behind founding the firm: “It was very difficult for me to explain at home why I had to spend so much time with my male colleagues!” [Hindu]

CLAT chat: What’s in store for CLATaspirants? NLSIU Bangalore students chalk it out. “You will find a small bunch of bright, attentive, confident people who will not hesitate in challenging your beliefs and will expect you to argue out every position you take on a certain issue.” [HT]

Engineering Law Schoolites? SC advocate and NLSIU 2001 grad criticises the “narrow worldview” of NLSIU administrators who, according to him, curtail diversification of student interests by imposing on them the belief that legal academia and advocacy are the only professional ways in which the grads can become “social engineers” [DH]

Copy wrong: Delhi HC rejects Delhi University students’ plea to vacate order restraining sale of on-campus photocopies of certain texts of the world’s biggest university publishers - Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis. 33 professors and authors had signed the petition opposing the order [India Today/Firstpost]

Competing demands: Competition Commission of India faces year-on-year increase in pendency since 2010-11, going from 79 to 74 to 70 to finally only 33 cases disposed of last fiscal. Currently 53 cases are pending before the CCI [Hindu BL]

Disability, no bar: Four orthopedically challenged persons win a writ in the Madras HC to consider them for civil judgeship under the disabled-category. [Hindu]

Multiplier unlocked: Holding as meagre a compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh to family of custodial death victim, the Madras HC hiked it to Rs 5.9 lakh using the “multiplier method” [New Indian Express]

Key typewriter jammed: Bandra, Bombay metropolitan magistrate keeps SEBI v Sahara matter hanging four months and adjourning hearings, because of non-availability of his stenographer and other court staffers. SC directs him to expedite the process [Mumbai Mirror]

Indo-Pak justice league: Former Delhi HC judge M A Khan, former Punjab and Haryana HC judges Amarbir Singh Gill and Amarjeet Chaudhary and former Patna HC judge Nagendra Rai have been appointed to the Indo-Pak joint judicial committee to look into steps for humane treatment and release of prisoners languishing in the jails of India and Pakistan [Indian Express]

Seriously lawyers, stop the striking already: Bar Council of India (BCI) and State bar councils can’t call strike and striking advocates are liable to disciplinary action, reiterates Allahabad HC [Express]

Stop striking, bench tells bar: Karnataka HC asks state bar associations to implement the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) 29 September 2002 resolution which limits an advocate’s absence from court proceedings to one day. Court gives three months to the associations to establish a “grievance redressal committee”, and asks them to frame advocates’ “practice conditions” for the high court [The Hindu]

No remake till make up: The Supreme Court stayed the release of Zanjeer remake until arbitration proceedings over rights finished [TOI]

Anand & Anand promos: The intellectual property (IP) firm promoted managing associates Dhruv Anand, Madhu Rewari, Revanta Mathur, Sandhya Singh, Shrawan Chopra and Swati Sharma to partnership effective 1 April 2013. The firm also made 13 fresh hires [Legal Era]

MV Kini promos: MV Kini & Co promoted principal associate Tavinder Sidhu to partnership in its Delhi office effective 1 April 2013. Sidhu is an advocate on record [Bar & Bench]

Engineering rank: Father writs Madras HC to force Eng colleges in Tamil Nadu to be ranked properly, rather than as advertised [The New Indian Express]

Kesavananda doctrine turns 40: India celebrates 40 years of “saving the democracy” on today’s anniversary of Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala where a 13-judge constitutional bench held that the parliament cannot amend the constitution to alter its “basic structure”. The Hindu narrates the full run-up to the 703-page judgement [Hindu]

SC sex harassment watchdog: The “Supreme Court Internal Complaints Committee” headed by an “eminent jurist” whose name is not decided yet, will soon come into power, decided the Supreme Court after finding that sexual harassment committees at various high courts of the country exist only on paper [PTI]

Pro bono por promos? Lawyers giving free legal aid and organising Lok Adalats could now earn bonus points that’ll help them become senior advocates and subordinate judges, if NALSA executive chairman P Sathasivam’s proposal at made at the 11th All India Meet of State Legal Service Authorities is accepted [TOI]

CCI moneybags: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed Rs 8,013 crore of penalties against 19 business entities in anti-competitive behaviour cases in 2012-13 FYI, while closing 262 out of total 347 registered cases [The New Indian Express]

Base judicial practices: A retired judge cannot practice in a court lower than the one in which he served, according to the Bar Council of Gujarat’s recent circular reiterating section 7 of the BCI rules [Daily Bhaskar]

Beyond contempt: The US’s Lewis & Clark law school dean apologises to the school paper’s editors after his pressuring them to take the US Supreme Court’s consent before publishing the news of the US chief justice judging a moot at their law school [Washington Post]

JAC of all trades: The union law ministry proposes a Judicial Appointments Committee comprising of the Chief Justice of India, two sitting SC judges, two presidentially appointed eminent jurists, the union law minister, and secretary department of law and justice [NDTV]

‘Peculiar’ extension: Supreme Court allows Dutt to complete work on a number of films in the next month before returning him to jail to complete his five year term for conviction under the Arms Act, for possession of firearms during the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts [BBC/Order]

Victim bailed, judge billed: Madras HC fines female district judge Rs 1.1 lakh toward compensation and costs to a woman who was a victim of sex-through-false-promise-of-marriage, whom she had jailed for three days 12 years ago. Also orders departmental proceedings against the magistrate [TOI/Deccan Chronicle]

Cyber stigma: Challenges to tackling cyber-crime in India include the CBI cyber cell’s minimal jurisdiction and lack of data; RBI releases only internet fraud figures, which shot up from Rs 40 crore to Rs 53 crore in two years, while corporates remain reluctant to openly speak about their exposure to cyber fraud [BS]

Nalsar voyeur action: Nalsar Hyderabad executive council has vowed to set up a committee to take short and long term action against the victimisation of women by voyeuristic media. This follows Friday’s incident where TV channels aired and uploaded distorted news segments of an altercation involving party-going female Nalsar students outside a city pub [Hindu / Firstpost]

Hack to check Katju: Markandey Katju “hungry for cheap popularity, “would cause much more harm to Indian society in his remaining term” if not “checked” says journalist Arvind Pansare’s petition in the Bombay HC challenging the Press Council Act 1978 for not providing a process for removal of the PCI chairman [TOI]

Lawbreaker lawmin? Lawmin Ashwini Kumar does not deny charges of vetting the CBI’s status report on the coal blocks allocation controversy, along with other PMO officials. BJP demands his resignation for misuse of the CBI [IE]

Tackling school suicides: Nalsar organises 21 April meet to discuss student suicides in universities; two-judge bench of the Andhra Pradesh HC orders all state universities to attend [TOI]

Pondering porn: SC’s chief justice bench admits PIL on making watching pornography a non-bailable offence. Senior advocate MN Krishnamani appearing for the petitioner asserts that porn is affecting “peace of mind, health and wellness, happiness and human potential” [TOI]

Nalsar fights media: Nalsar Hyderabad students launch online campaign and vow to sue for slander over local television channels that allegedly forcefully filmed them and edited telecast to show them as drunk and topless outside a city pub where they were celebrating their farewell [Hindu/TOI]

Fashionable arbitration: The Karnataka high court’s arbitration centre – India’s second high court arbitration centre after Delhi – gets launched in Bangalore with arbitration fees ranging from Rs 50,000 and Rs 8 lakhs [New Indian Express]

Canning Katju: Bombay high court admits petition challenging the Press Council Act that does not allow for removal of Press Council of India (PCI) chairman (vis ex-Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju). [Spread_law via Twitter]

Pre-legal aid: Mumbai University Legal Aid Clinic in collaboration with the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority will now offer pre-litigation mediation and arbitration services to citizens [TOI]

Top billing: GNLU Gandhinagar third-year student Tanya Nayyar wins Pravin Gandhi College of Law’s national legislative drafting competition, for her draft Mobile Towers (Installation and Regulation) Bill (2013), which will now be submitted to the DoT. NLIU Bhopal stands second [HT]

Declining judicial aspirations: Bombay high court chief justice Mohit Shah urges state bar council to train candidates for judgeship. Cites finding only 55 suitable judges in a 2012 advertisement for 159 posts, as compared to 41 judges for 100 posts in 2011, and 100 for 100 in 2010 [HT]

Historic apex sistren: Justices GS Misra and Ranjana Desai are set to be the first two female judges to sit together in the Supreme Court, ever, tomorrow [@CourtWitness1]

Your NRI Honour: Subject to confirmation, Sri Srinivasan could become first Indian-American federal judge and even rise to the US Supreme Court, speculates TOI.

Cracking a nut: Police says Delhi property lawyer Baljeet Singh Sehrawat conspired in Bhardwaj killing [TOI]

Linguistic appeal: The languages of Indian courts discussed, as CM calls for Tamil in Madras court [The Economist]

PH bound: As Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri is likely to ascend to the apex court tomorrow taking the strength to 29 with only two vacancies, sources have floated that the Delhi high court’s most senior judge, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, could take up the post of Punjab and Haryana high court chief justice left vacant by Sikri [Hindustan Times].

4 permanence: Additional New Delhi high court judges Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, Valmiki J Mehta, Vinay Kumar Jain and Indermeet Kaur Kochhar elevated to permanent status [PTI]

Legally heroic: Feature on making of the film Shahid about hero lawyer and activist Shahid Azmi who was murdered in 2010 at the age of 38 [The Big Indian Picture]

XXII HC: Arunachal Pradesh will soon get its own high court, in addition to the state’s prevalent “Kebang system” covering panchayat areas’ judicial needs [ET]

Judge Academy VIIetc: Himachal Pradesh will set up a Rs 37 crore state judicial academy to “prepare well-trained and qualified managerial cadre officers to manage judiciary at all level” [TOI]

Constables lawyered: After harassing a Madras HC senior advocate’s junior on Marina beach, two police constables were booked under the IPC and the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act [TOI]

Article 5001: Claiming a “constitutional right”, Haryana demanded a high court separate from the High Court of Punjab & Haryana and to distribute judges equally between Punjab and Haryana at the SC and HC judges mega conference [Samay Live]

Navi vakeel: New Bombay Advocates Welfare Association’s PIL over delayed Belapur court construction wins direction to state chief secretary to meet advocate associations and chart a timetable for improvement of lawyers' facilities [Indian Express]

Registering lethargy: National Human Rights Commission demands action against “lethargic” Madras HC registrar general; his delay in a disbursement of compensation allegedly led to the suicide of parents of a deceased victim [Hindu]

Load shedding: CJI Kabir urges HC chief justices to double their subordinate judiciary strengths and boost support staff by the same amount. However, the Allahabad HC, for example, can support only 87 judges as opposed to its sanctioned strength of 160 [NVO News]

Colossal Hnlu: The Times reports on HNLU Raipur’s first annual fest – Colossal - briefly [TOI]

Elysium collegium: CJI Kabir defends collegium system of judges’ appointment, which he says involves “intense deliberations” and adds that people who are not fully aware of the system should refrain from commenting on it [Outlook]

Double vision 2018: SC and HC judges mega conference agrees to double the number of Indian judges from 18,871 to 37,000 over the next five years. The National Court Management Systems Committee appointed by the SC reported that India would need 75,000 judges in the next 30 years [Dailymail]

Lawyers don't dream of electric writs: Court Computerisation Committee chairman and Karnataka high court judge Ram Mohan Reddy says e-courts are a distant dream when lawyers aren’t willing to adjust to even electronic cause lists [Hindu]

Votive vs ILI vote: Alleged fraud at ILI governing council elections [IANS / Bar & Bench]

Blame bar for pendency: RTI filer asks Delhi HC for list of oldest pending suits and reasons for delay. Delhi HC responds: reason is lawyers continually seeking adjournments and litigants being “in no hurry” even while the court tries expedition [TOI]

Anti-terror paper: Prof Faizan Mustafa says, all newspapers, except The Hindu, should cover terrorism less to deprive terrorists of publicity oxygen [The Hindu]

ILI governatored: Delhi HC’s justice Gita Mittal, senior advocate Rakesh Munjal, CNLU Patna vice chancellor Prof Lakshmikanth and others elected to ILI governing council [ILI]

Right to AG info: RTI Activist SC Aggarwal appeals in Delhi HC against CIC decision holding attorney general’s office not “public authority” under the RTI Act. Senior advocate and additional solicitor general (ASG) Sidharth Luthra to reply for Vahanvati; next hearing 18 August [TOI]

Airtel 3G reamed: Reliance Communications wins embargo in Delhi HC on Bharti Airtel providing 3G roaming services in pockets for which it does not have the spectrum licence. A division bench overrules justice Rajiv Shakdher’s earlier order [IE]

Drugs are for losers: US drug maker Merck Sharp & Dohme could not obtain an interim injunction in the Delhi HC against Indian pharma co Glenmark on making and selling anti-diabetes meds [NDTV]

Azeri Ashwani: Indian law minister Ashwani Kumar signs Legal and Judicial Cooperation in Civil and Commercial Matters Treaty with Azerbaijan. Citizens of both countries can now (theoretically) obtain legal assistance in the other without any discrimination [PIB]

More drug wars: Global pharma major Merck and domestic co-plaintiff Sun Pharma filed in Delhi HC claiming Glenmark violated two of its diabetes drug patents (Januvia and Janumet) [Financial Times]

Crown jewel auction: Tata's Indian Hotels files injunction to stop auction of its leased Taj Mahal Hotel Delhi [Economic Times]

Stashed cop: A retired police inspector hires senior advocates Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi, and Uday Lalit – with a combined fee of Rs 15 lakh per appearance – to defend him in the Supreme Court against the charge of falsely implicating Provogue owner Salil Chaturvedi in a 2005 drug possession case [Pune Mirror]

Karnataka judactivism: Karnataka high court directs filling of vacancies in the state’s consumer forums and takes suo moto cognizance, based on a newspaper report, of the non-implementation of the Right to Education Act in the state – leaving 54,000 children still out of school [New IE]

Shah Commission: Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium makes a presentation in Ahmedabad before Justice MB Shah’s illegal mine probe commission, pledging mine owner’s Rs 100 crore trust fund for the socio-economic development of people living in mining districts [New IE]

Sibal gooses SC: Kapil Sibal said that the Supreme Court has damaged the Indian telecoms sector, ensuring that the "golden goose will not lay golden egg[s] again for a little while" [ZDNet]

Bring home the beacon: Restrict beacons and sirens on cars to select few (including CJI and high court CJs, but not SC judges), say SC Justices GS Singhvi and Kurien Joseph, aided by Harish Salve [Telegraph India]

Public Display Litigation: Mumbai court acquits man for lack of evidence of “indecent behaviour in public”, after Bandra police fined him Rs 1,200 for kissing a girl on the cheek while seeing her off on the road. The amount has been refunded and the man plans to lodge a public interest litigation on the issue next [Express]

Moving up: Bombay HC Justice Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar to become Himachal HC chief justice [Hill Post]

Merger semi-approved: Bombay HC approves Sterlite-Madras Aluminium merger, Madras HC still to give nod [Indian Express]

IPL protection money: Bombay high court tells Maha’ government to look into legal action against cricket associations that have not paid the police Rs 9 crore dues for IPL security cover [Hindu Business Line]

Glivec hangover: US Chamber of Commerce says Supreme Court’s Novartis-Glivec patents judgment could damage FDI [Mint]

Dirty ore: SC orders Sterlite to pay Rs 100 crore for pollution from its copper smelting plant in Tamil Nadu [PTI]

Marinara for diplomat: CJI Altamas Kabir bench lifts Italian ambassador’s travel-ban as marines return, tells Subramanian Swami to go away, wants special court faster [Economic Times]

Education luncheon: Madras HC Justice V Ramasubramanian slams universities that offer ‘buffet spread’ degrees without specialisation [TOI]

Indefinite strike: Dwarka Court Bar Association lodges protest writ in Delhi HC against its 19 February notification reassigning criminal cases in Delhi’s West, Southwest and South districts from Saket and Dwarka courts to Tis Hazari and Patiala House. Association lawyers went on indefinite strike as the order was implemented on Friday [Express/HT]

Madurai advocates’ protest and hunger strike against Sri Lankan government for fourth day running. In 2009 similar protests had resulted in a clash with the police after hurling eggs at Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy [Hindu/TOI]

Vacancies reduce at Patna, Guwahati and Chhattisgarh high courts, after three additional judges are made permanent in Patna, one additional judge is made permanent in Guwahati, and the Chhattisgarh high court gets two new additional judges [NetIndian]

NLS VC chats: NLSIU Bangalore vice chancellor Prof R Venkat Rao on NLSIU’s 100 per cent autonomy, default position on the Rhodes Scholars list and more in an interview with the Express [New Indian Express]

No air fare cap: CCI refuses to hold guilty of unfair competition, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation, for increasing air fares. Says a cap on air fares is not tenable as they are governed by market forces [Zee News]