corruption
Although a plethora of Indian anti-corruption and bribery laws exist, many are not very effective and foreign rules such as the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) could have unpredictable consequences for Indian companies, said AZB & Partners, UK barrister’s chamber No5 and chartered accountancy BDO.
Tuesday’s seminar on corruption and bribery in Delhi raised important issues on the repercussions of the UK Bribery Act for companies in India. The session is now coming to Mumbai this Friday with knowledge partner AZB & Partners providing local insight.
Anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare has eaten again. It was the climax of the single biggest news story of the year that pushed other headlines off the frontpages for weeks. Although ostensibly a legal question the average lawyer tried to go about his or her business.
The Rajya Sabha-appointed committee has finally chargesheeted Sikkim Chief Justice P D Dinakaran on 16 charges of corruption and financial irregularities thirteen months after impeachment proceedings were first admitted against him with further debate slated for next Parliamentary session.
Exclusive: Delhi Bar Council member Rajinder Singh Rana is understood to have withdrawn his bail plea in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of alleged law school accreditation bribes, as the Delhi High Court has now also denied anticipatory bail to the co-accused BCI vice-chairman R Dhanapal Raj after the end of four weeks of the Madras High Court-granted interim bail.
The Delhi High Court has rejected the third bail application of Bar Council of India (BCI) member Rajinder Singh Rana, who with two other lawyers is accused of taking a bribe to accredit a law college.
The court held that bar council members were “public servants” and the Prevention of Corruption Act would apply, also agreeing with the CBI’s argument that Rana’s influential status would hamper investigations if released on bail.
Read on for the full allegations, evidence and chronology of events, according to court documents.
Like most Indians in the past few weeks I have been thinking about corruption, notes Sanjay Bhatia in this Legal Opinion, as the events leading to the recently concluded Commonwealth Games hogged headlines for all the wrong reasons. He argues for a solution to the problem that borrows heavily from US practice.
This controversy-packed week all of India lived in fear of Friday, awaiting the verdict in the 60-year-old Ayodhya land title dispute.
Advocate Prashanth Bhushan who is currently facing contempt proceedings for having called eight out of the previous 17 Chief Justices of India (CJIs) corrupt, has submitted a second affidavit to the Supreme Court giving evidence of six former CJIs’ alleged corruption.
Former law minister Shanti Bhushan said that at least eight of the last 16 Chief Justices of India (CJI) were “definitely corrupt” in his defiant defence in the contempt proceedings brought against his son Prashanth Bhushan who had given an interview to national magazine Tehelka on September 5 2009 making the same allegation.
The 86-year-old senior advocate and politician Ram Jethmalani is a living legend of the criminal bar that is unlikely to ever fade quietly into the background. Despite his self-proclaimed desperation to retire he was recently instructed to co-defend former IPL chairman Lalit Modi, fought for Anil Ambani against his estranged brother in the Supreme Court and won the presidential election to the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), vowing to clean up the tainted body.
Unafraid of controversy, Jethmalani remains as outspoken as ever and Legally India talks to him about the practice of law, why he thinks that foreign law firms would benefit Indian lawyers, how a bar exam is not necessary and how the corruption, backlog of cases and decline of the legal profession are squarely the government's fault.
Karnataka Chief Justice P D Dinakaran elevation to the Supreme Court has been called into question following protests by eminent lawyers over his unaccountable ownership of 400 acres of land in rural Tamil Nadu.
The Chief Justice of India has sought an explanation from Justice Dinakaran acting on a letter submitted by prominent lawyers such as Shanti Bhushan, Fali Nariman, Anil Divan, Ashok Desai and Ram Jethmalani in which they demanded his promotion to be deferred.
Fali Nariman declined to comment when contacted by Legally India, saying that this matter could only be resolved by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
President of the Supreme Court Bar Association M N Krishnamani and the Delhi High Court Bar Association President K C Mittal in a joint statement demanded a change in the existing collegiums system of appointment of judges.
The bar associations have urged the Law Ministry to increase transparency and objectivity in the promotion of judges to the Supreme Court.
They have proposed a constitutional amendment to replace the collegiums system by a properly constituted National Judicial Commission to undertake the selection.
Madras High Court bar association members who have opposed Justice Dinakaran’s promotion include K R Tamizhmani, R Vaigai, Sriram Panchu, Anna Mathew, S S Vasudevan, Geetha Ramaseshan, Sudha Ramalingam, N L Rajah, D Nagasaila, S Devikarani and T Mohan.
As reported by the Times of India, the collegiums headed by the Chief Justice of India and Justice S H Kapadia, B N Agrawal, Tarun Chatterjee and Altamas Kabir will meet tomorrow to discuss on the future course of action.
Under the present collegiums system the CJI is the final authority in the matter of appointments superseding the executive also.
Law and Justice Minister Veerappa Moily wants India to "become the resource reservoir of the global legal fraternity" after upgrading the quality of its legal education system.