Legally Wired
Ramalinga Raju and six other accused in Satyam scam denied bail as plea of extended trial fails to impress judge [HT]
Mulla & Mulla to appeal against Kerala High Court fixing compensation of Rs 75 lakh for Mangalore air crash victims, citing wrong interpretation of Montreal convention [The National]
SC begins hearing into $2bn tax claim on Vodafone, Harish Salve challenges IT Department’s jurisdiction saying transfer of control of "downstream companies by the two foreign companies cannot be a basis (for I-T Dept) to exercise jurisdiction" [Law et al. news]
Ratan Tata denies 2G bribe allegations after criminal lawyer Majid Menon defending Swan Telecom implies Tata hospital donation like a bribe [TOI / Mint]
SC reserved verdict on the constitutional validity of the Right to Education Act [The Hindu]
An NGO via CCI claims Facebook “can potentially engage in anti-competitive and unfair business practices” through e-currency [The Hindu]
Bombay High Court reprimands CBI for delays in probing Adarsh Society missing files controversy, expressing angst over grant of bail to four accused due to CBI’s late filing of chargesheet [ET]
Writ petition to challenge death sentence for drug dealer rejected [DNA]
Legally Wired
- 57,179 cases pending in SC as of 30 June; on 1 May 2011 only 54,547 cases were pending. [Supreme Court / PIB]
- Law ministry to examine deal for Mukesh Ambani Mumbai residential tower, may get referred to CBI [Mint] (via @SonyBhatt)
- Bail denied to three company promoters in CWG scam [ET]
- Men in Black ‘Follow the Money’ as CJI Kapadia battles fight against graft [Bloomberg]
- Court summons Shilpa Shetty, Richard Gere for lip-kiss in 2007 TV show on AIDS: indecent act and crime under IPC hurts Bhojpuri community [TOI]
Legally Wired
- Rabinder Singh of Matrix Chambers becomes England’s first Sikh High Court judge [The Lawyer]
- SC finally lays down guidelines for grant of ex parte orders: only in “exceptional” cases and courts to be “very careful”. [SpicyIP] Will this also prevent speedy remedies for those who can afford expensive lawyers?
- File sharing sites fire from Reliance BIG, serves “John Doe orders” on Indian ISPs [The Hindu]
- Sikkim CJ Dinakaran post resignation claims he is victim of conspiracy [Economic Times]
- High Court writ gets Forest Dept to increase Karnataka bamboo cover for elephants [IBNLive]
- Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju and others seek bail after deadline for trial lapses [Mint]
- Casual workers not entitled to ‘equal pay for equal work’, says High Court [Economic Times]
- JSA’s Somsekhar Sundaresan is not impressed with new takeover code [Business Standard]
Legally Wired
- SEBI’s revised Takeover Code hikes public offer threshold to 25 per cent, raises minimum offer size from 20 to 26% but short of 100% [Mint]
- Takeover Code commentary and disagreements: Khaitan’s Arindam Ghosh, Kotak’s Sourav Mallik, Finsec’s Sandeep Parekh and Amarchand’s Cyril Shroff [Moneycontrol, 3 pages or video]
- “32 years later not much has changed”: Undertrial prisoners still fall through the cracks [Law and Other Things]
- Kasab appeals death penalty to Supreme Court [NDTV]
- Gurgaon district court records statement that two women are in same-sex marriage [TOI]
Legally Wired
- Adarsh Society writ to defreeze accounts for paying favourite senior lawyers rejected by Bombay High Court: “Nowhere has the SC held that right to legal representation includes right to counsel of one's choice…” [TOI] (Adarsh has used Vidhii Partners in the past, for example)
- Pak foreign minister justifies slow 26/11 trial her country, draws parallels with Indian judicial delays [India Today]
- Satyam trial unlikely to finish by SC fixed deadline of 31 July with defence still cross-examining witnesses after CBI adopting measure to plug in delays [Mint]
- Cabinet approves govt Lokpal draft over Anna’s, excluding PM from purview; Khursheed fixes 7 year limitation period with bill to hit Parliament monsoon session starting this Monday as Anna’s hunger strike threat looms [NDTV]
- Delhi airport regulator caps decibel levels following high court’s directive on resident’s plea [Indian Express]
Legally Wired
- The epic Vodafone tax case to hit Supreme Court in two weeks, Voda AGM told [totaltelecom]
- Tata Nano land judge recuses self after 15 hearings on personal grounds, Justice I P Mukherjee takes over [TOI]
- SC rejects Dinakaran WP, allows Forum for Judicial Accountability to passively monitor Dinakaran proceedings and assist counsel [The Hindu]
- Himachal district court move to Rs 25 cr judicial complex delayed by HC [Indian Express]
- 2G Raja continues offensive: after PM and home min, now points finger at AG Vahanvati [TOI]
- CBI threatened by alleged Dara Singh fake encounter cops, seek witness protection [Indian Express]
Legally Wired
- A fake Patna High Court website has scammed Rs 7,000 from applicants for fake high court jobs; Police now investigating [Times of India]
- Raja ups the stakes and drags PM, Chidambaram into heart of 2G case, says they were fully aware of sale of licence-holding companies to foreigners [NDTV]
- “Bhaag bhaag DK Bhose, DK Bhose”: Law grad’s Allahabad PIL against Delhi Belly’s potentially rude hit song being played anywhere outside of a cinema; notice being issued [NDTV] [see also Legally India’s earlier coverage of DSK’s involvement in the many disputes against the film]
- Supreme Court watches two-hour video of Baba Ramdev supporters getting teargassed; Home minister not party to case [The Hindu]
- New Companies Bill will come up before the Monsoon session of Parliament, claims Moily in new garb as corporate affairs minister. [Business Standard]
Legally Wired
Round up of the latest and most legal from around the web.
- Supreme Court: Don’t open our judgments on flimsy grounds [The Hindu]
- Deadline for Greater Noida ‘hi tech court’ with video conferencing and servers was March 2010, now slated to be done in two months [Times of India]
- “A Challenge, An Opportunity!” AZB’s Abhijit Joshi talks of motivation and his philosophy behind law firm management following his appointment as AZB CEO. [Moneycontrol.com]
- P&H student files writ v BCI against 20 year age-limit for applying to 5-year LLB courses [Indian Express]
- Supreme Court hikes 1996 chemical company pollution damages from Rs 37 crore to Rs 200 crore for failing to pay [Economic Times]
- New independent environmental regulator for granting industrial environmental clearances [Business Standard]
Legally Wired
Phoenix partner Kartikeya Singh is to become deputy GC at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has completed another lateral hire in Mumbai with former Prism co-founder Yogesh Chande joining from Economic Laws Practice (ELP).
Meanwhile, AZB turned out to have been the most active firm in private equity in the past 6 months…
In the Maggi mess saga now in the Bombay high court, Nestle’s counsel Iqbal Chagla, instructed by Shardul Amarchand, is alleging overreach by the regulator, according to the Business Standard.
And in jobs: Rainmaker seeks an in-house entrepreneur
Legally Wired
Flashy HNLU: HNLU Raipur students organised a flash mob at a Raipur mall to support women’s empowerment yesterday. A flash mob “combines the appeal of a dance performance, seemingly un-choreographed, spreading across the crowd, creating a spontaneous public spectacle of unified musical expression to promote a social cause,” reported the [TOI]
Majority rule: The Bangalore Advocates Association is up in arms about Karnataka high court judge K Sreedhar Rao, whose son filed criminal cases of extortion and threat against two of its members. In addition to resolving to collectively skip court proceedings presided over by Rao on 12 August, the association has also asked the CJI to “hold an in-house inquiry” about his affairs [Hindu]
Aadhar challenged: The Delhi high court yesterday issued notice to the central government on a petition challenging the implementation of the unique identification or Aadhar cards scheme on the ground that it violates the privacy of applicants by raising serious concerns regarding critical personal and biometric information [BS]
Rape pendency stats: 23,792 cases related to rape were pending in 21 high courts as on 30 September 2012, the law minister told parliament. Between October 2009 and September 2012, 8,772 cases were disposed of by the high courts. A maximum of 8,215 cases are pending in the Allahabad High Court which disposed of 39 cases in three years between 2009 and 2012 [DNA]
Pendency laptop: CJI Sathasivam has asked chief justices of all high courts to prioritise long-pending cases and to submit monthly statistics of pendency. He also said yesterday that laptops have already been provided to 13,000 judicial officers in the country [BS]