Chennai Express: 22 district judges were selected in Tamil Nadu within three months of advertising the direct recruitment, and one month after 2,668 candidates appeared for the preliminary examination. Legally India had earlier reported that the Delhi district judge recruitment process took six times as long, with around three times as many candidates [Hindu]

Benchpress: Lucknow, Allahabad and Agra lawyers fight for more cases as Agra demands a permanent bench for Western Uttar Pradesh, while Allahabad opposes dilution of the HC’s jurisdiction, even as Lucknow bench lawyers now demand an extension of the Allahabad HC’s jurisdiction. The Bombay high court constituted a two-member committee to look into the proposal for its circuit bench in Pune after the Pune Bar Association went on strike on the 13 and 14 August [DNA] [IANS]

CATtiness: The Delhi HC chastised the Central Administrative Tribunal for “being lazy” and ending up writing in an order that rape was not a serious offence. The HC bench said: “This case has compelled us to pen down our anguish because if a judicial fora writes that rape is not a serious offence, it would be a very serious matter and probably may even entail going beyond passing strictures at such a view taken and against the author.” The HC however upheld CAT’s order in favour of a man who had been denied a job because of rape charges against him, citing lack of evidence against him [DNA]

Pendency hasn’t left the building: At the Gauhati HC a new building was inaugurated on Saturday. 43,131 cases have been pending for at least five years or more before various courts in Assam [TOI]