2015 was massive for the legal profession, with NJAC making the problems of the bench and the bar an issue of national debate.

But there were many more fascinating legal industry insider stories this year, notably including the following where we led the field in our reportage, regularly also in the pages of Mint:

• the momentous break-up (and subsequent rebuilding) of India’s largest law firm,
• the continuing politicking and feuding of the Delhi bar over pecuniary jurisdiction,
• the continuation of our long-running campaign for increased transparency at the Bar Council of India (BCI) (not just in relation to its horrendously-awarded bar exam contract),
• the utter debacle that turned out to have been the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2015, which LI was at the forefront of reporting, and
• the possibility that liberalisation of the legal market to foreign lawyers may be closer than ever (or perennially distant), helped by the government’s unexpected hard push for it.

To jog your memory of 2015 and prepare you for the next year, we’ve compiled run-down of the year, month-by-month.

And if there are any stories that we missed or you’d like to let us know what to focus on in 2016, please share your comments below or send us a message any time.

January 2015

1. Gautam Khaitan, the founding member of law firm OP Khaitan & Co who was accused by the CBI of parking bribe money and found himself in jail for more than three months, finally got bail in the AugustaWestland corruption case by the special CBI court hearing the matter [Read more]

2. Soli Sorabjee gets one of the Italian marines accused of murder of Indian fishermen extended stay in Italy on 14 January. The marine has not yet returned to India and Italy has started international arbitration in the matter at Permanent Court of Arbitration at Hague. [Read more]

3. Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva of the Delhi high court blacklists lawyer Deepak Khosla to appear in any court in Delhi without any lawyer  due to Khosla's “highly obstructive and abrasive conduct”, “scandalous averments contained in his application” and “insulting language” [Read more]

4. NLSIU Bangalore gets Rs 1 crore from the government to set up consumer mediation centre [Read more]

5. Australia court buys argument  that an Indian-born stalker shouldn't be punished because Bollywood romance is like that only [Read more]

February 2015

1. Supreme Court goes green, reduces the traditional printing of judgments and causelists. The notice issued by the Secretary General said that the judges shall be downloading the judgments they require and the cause-lists shall be disseminated through emails. [Read more]

2. As the war around the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) began to brew in earnest, Ex-Judge of Supreme Court, Markandey Katju wrote in his blog that while exercising his duties as Chief Justice of a high court, he didn’t recommend the name of a competent lawyer because the lawyer was in a live-in relationship with another lawyer at the court. [Read more]

3. The Supreme Court disallowed N Srinivasan from contesting the presidential election of the Indian cricket board's governing body and also held that despite the BCCI not being a state, it was subject to writ jurisdiction, since it performed important public functions. [Read more]

4. The Bar Council of India (BCI) notified the controversial new Certificate of Practice rules. Under these new rules, all advocates except for senior counsel and Supreme Court advocates-on-record (AOR) have to complete the verification form before receiving their certificates of practice which will be obligatory for practice and this certificate will have to get renewed every five years. [Read more]

5. Revealed: Only 7% of the Supreme court judgments related to the interpretation of constitution in 2014. Research by a team of 12 lawyers headed by Supreme Court lawyer KV Dhananjay found out that out of 884 judgments, only 64 judgments involved a dispute over the interpretation of any constitutional provisions, or a challenge of any law on the basis of its inconsistency with the constitution (with several exceptions and notwithstanding a degree of unavoidable subjectivity) [Read more]

6. Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain informs the Delhi high court that the government de-planed Priya Pilai of Greenpeace because of her ‘anti-national activities’ [Read more]

March 2015

1. Government bans BBC’s India’s Daughter documentary on the infamous ‘Nirbhaya Rape Case’ in India, high court upholds it. Society seems divided on whether the government’s stand to ban the documentary which included views of the accused and the defense lawyers, including the infamous ML Sharma, which have a potential to ‘harm the reputation of the country’ are reasonable. [Read more / Summary of the lawyer’s most offensive gems here]

2. The NJAC made it to court for the first time, with Mukul Rohatgi asking for death of the collegium system [Read more]

3. Landmark: The Supreme Court struck down the much-loathed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act [Read more]

4. CIC asks the BCI to be proactive in putting the previous years’ All India Bar Exam papers with the key online on their website; the BCI still hasn’t shown any such initiative [Read more]

5. Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju was imprisoned for 7 years and slapped with a fine of Rs 5 crores for his part in the Rs 7000 crore accounting fraud [Read more]

6. Harish Salve bats for allowing foreign law firms in India, fights BCI in the court representing a new player in the game: the Global Indian Lawyers Association (GILA) [Read more]

7. NJAC hearings shifted to a 5-judge bench to hear substantial questions of law [Read more]

8. Death penalty review petition of Yakub Memon rejected [Read more]

April 2015

1. The BCI had approved 92 new law colleges in 9 months [Read more]

2. The SC Court introduces wireless internet from 20 April to combat bad reception in the area [Read more]

3. CJI Dattu tells government he wouldn’t participate in NJAC as Supreme Court matter sub judice [Read more]

4. Beef banned in Mumbai, Bombay high court upholds the ban [Read more]

5. AAP law minister Jitender Tomar allegedly doesn’t have a valid law degree, opposition demands arrests [Read more]

May 2015

1. J Jayalalithaa free, as Karnataka high court says that the total value of assets disproportionate to her income was ‘only’ Rs 2.8 crore,or 8% of her income [Read more]

2. Amarchand Mangaldas Suresh A Shroff & Co finally makes its split public after mediation completes under scrutiny of Bombay high court [Read more]

3. Bollywood star Salman Khan’s lawyers Harish Salve and DSK Legal secure him a quick bail in high court soon after lower court in Bombay sentence him to 5 years’ imprisonment [Read more]

4. Supreme Court hears All India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) PIL alleging leak of answers in a massive state-wide scam [Read more]

5. Legally India finally gets hold of minutes of meeting of the BCI’s multi-crore bar exam tender that was granted to ITES horizon [Read more]

6. The Supreme Court introduced a new exception to Section 19(1)(a) of the IT Act, against obscenities directed towards “historically respectable figures” [Read more]

June 2015

1. The USA-based World Justice Project placed India 59^th out of 102 countries globally in its rule of law index on various matrices. While the criminal law index ranking was 44 for India, its ranking in Civil law was 88^th. [Read more]

2. The BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra sends a legal notice to Legally India, accuses editor of ‘misbehaving’ and being ‘foreign agent’. [Read more]

3. Legally India responds to BCI Mishra’s legal notice with 40-page rebuttal pointing out further deficiencies in the grant of the BCI’s tender to ITES Horizon for conducting of All India Bar Exam; No further response received from BCI to date. [Read more]

4. National Human Rights Committee holds Delhi Government to be vicariously liable of rape of a fifteen year old girl in one of the government hospitals and asks to pay a sum of Rs 1 lakh to the victim as compensation as the act was done by a public servant [Read more]

5. Mumbai lawyer Janhavi Gadkar arrested for culpable homicide after ramming her Audi to an oncoming car in drunk state, killing two people [Read more], with the mainstream media reacting in a blood-thirsty manner [Read more]

6. CJI Dattu nears a judicial record in executions: Legally India examines the ‘executioner in chief’ and the evolving jurisprudence around the ‘rarest of rare cases’ in India. [Read more]

7. Nalsar Hyderabad gives its first ever(and probably a first in the country) gender neutral graduation certificate, users Mx instead of Mr/Ms/Mrs [Read more]

8. Supreme Court cancels All India Premedical Test (AIPMT) after evidence of high-tech cheating in the exam found by police, asks CBSE to get the exam redone in two months [Read more]

9. US landmark: US Supreme Court decides that gay people can marry, the states do not have power to disallow it [Read more]

10. Indians wonder about food after Maggi is alleged to have stuff in its noodles not allowed by FSSAI [Read more]

July 2015

1. The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) picks a fight with accountants (allegedly) practising law illegally: We ask who’d win [Read more]

2. SC holds that an absent father’s consent is not important while giving guardianship to a single mother. [Read more]

3. Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Dushyant Dave calls for boycotting social functions with the judges in order to protest the new practice introduced by Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu “listing large number of the matters for hearing, suddenly and without sufficient and clear prior notice, through Terminal List, Weekly List and Advance List”, and also to “disapprove the manner of hearing of matters by some of the Hon’ble Benches, in hurried and selected manner” [Read more]

4. The Bombay high court seeks to fix the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2015 debacle: Asks for revaluation and declaration of result based on the same even if merit list changes [Read more]

5. Karnataka Lokayukta investigating its own corruption stopped by Karnataka high court after protests by lawyers [Read more]

6. Delhi high court said that even though condoms fall within “essential medicines” under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, the government cannot fix their ceiling prices, a win for Reckitt Benckiser [Read more]

7. SC puts exemplary costs of Rs 10  lakh on Vijay Mallya on his appeals in one criminal case, says its sheer abuse of process of law [Read more]

8. Legally India reports on the suspicious things that happened in the Delhi Judicial Services exam [Read more]

9. Supreme Court orders CBI to investigate Vyapam Scam and 40 deaths linked to it [Read more]

10. Indira Jaising files Public Interest Litigation against opaque system of elevating senior advocates [Read more]

11. Perhaps for the first time, video camera records proceedings in high court [Read more]

12. In a controversial judgment, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu exclaimed in a case challenging dress code of CBSE AIPMT of not allowing head scarves or full sleeve clothes to curb cheating that, "If you appear in an examination without a scarf, your faith will not disappear." [Read more]

August 2015

1. Shamnad Basheer and KK Venugopal file a massive 848-page public interest litigation (PIL) against the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) in the Supreme Court, which could end up being a gamechanger for the controversial admissions test to national law schools. [Read more]

2. The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2015’s committee of “experts”, in their report defended the allegedly error-ridden CLAT 2015 LLB question paper through its report reproducing dictionary definitions of words and asserting that candidates were expected to “feel the pulse” of the question paper [Read more] Also read: feature asking whether the CLAT filter needs replacing.

3. Lok Sabha passes Delhi High Court Amendment Act, increases pecuniary jurisdiction of the district courts [Read more] after month-long wranglings, strikes and other shenanigans at the bar [Read more]

4. SC accepts finding of its in-house committee which said that sexual harassment charges against Madhya Pradesh high court judge SK Gangele are’t proved conclusively. [Read more]

5. Legally India first to report government’s block of hundreds of porn and other sites [Read more]

6. Yakub Memon hangs [Read more]

7. Bombay high court says FSSAI acted arbitrarily, sides with Maggi while government initiates one of its kind consumer complaint against maggi at consumer forum [Read more]

8. The central government told the SC that political parties were not covered under RTI as they were not public authorities and any attempt to bring them under the transparency law was fraught with dangers of misuse with “malicious intention” of thwarting their “smooth internal working”. [Read more]

September 2015

1. The CCI screws Google, attracting international attention. LI had the scoop on what exactly the regulator didn’t like about the search giant [Read more]

2. SC bench headed by the Chief Justice stays Rajasthan high court’s decision to criminalize ‘Santhara’, a Jain practice of awaiting death by giving up food and water. [Read more]

3. The BCI extended the deadline for advocates to register for its certificate of practice until 31 December 2015, following a stay of the controversial registration requirement by the Supreme Court [Read more]

4. Legally India reveals how much senior advocates charge per hearing, for 42 Delhi seniors [Read more]

5. Supreme Court fails persons with disabilities, Gogoi-Ramana bench says reservations for promotion to disabled not provided in any law [Read more]

6. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) stayed the use of paper posters in the Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) elections, four days after results were announced in the 11 September poll in a plea filed by a student [Read more]

1. Landmark: Supreme Court judgment on Uphaar case out, replace imprisonment with fine, petitioners ask if it is blood money [Read more]

October 2015

1. 3 toddlers file anti-fireworks case through their lawyer father, ask for a pollution free Diwali [Read more]

2. The BCI suspends 15 lawyers allegedly involved in Madras HC violence [Read more]

3. Vodafone India in a Rs 8,500 crore transfer pricing case: Bombay high court quashes an order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) which had ruled that the IT Department had powers to raise a tax demand on the telecom giant [Read more]

4. Landmark: NJAC judgment out, NJAC scrapped 4:1, Justice Chamleshwar only dissenting [Read more]

5. SC expressed concerns over Muslim women facing arbitrary divorces and second marriages of their husbands even as their first marriages were subsisting, and has ordered separate hearings into the issue suo motu. [Read more]

6. Compat fines Cyril Amarchand client a historic Rs 5 lakh for dodgy affidavit [Read more]

November 2015

1. SC says it would appoint a retired judge of the apex court to re-evaluate the answer sheets of the Delhi Judicial Services (DJS) main exam of 2014 which have come under cloud for alleged “unreasonable and arbitrary” evaluation [Read more]

2. Flipkart, Snapdeal, Junglee, and 18 other e-commerce websites will face investigation for possibly violating Indian foreign direct investment (FDI) laws, as per Delhi high court order [Read more]

December 2015

1. Justice Tirath Singh Thakur sworn in as the 43rd Chief Justice of India. [Read more]

2. The Bar Council of India (BCI) renews its dubiously-awarded bar exam contract to underperforming exam agency ITES Horizon Pvt Ltd, without a public tender of the contract and without holding a council meeting for members’ consensus on the renewal. [Read more]

3. Dushyant Dave wins the presidential elections of SCBA again [Read more]

4. Intern/clerk writes excerpts in judgment, Delhi HC apologises for 34-paragraph copy-paste plagiarism [Read more]

5. Landmark: SC upholds Kerala liquor ban restricting the grant of bar licences to only five star hotels. [Read more]

6. Salman Khan acquitted by Bombay high court of drunk drive killing [Read more]

7. Delhi lawyer Seema Sapra sentenced to jail for contempt for calling judge corrupt [Read more]

2016…

A very happy and successful New Year to all readers!

Lots of love,

Team LI