Delhi high court
In a setback to the Arvind Kejriwal government, the Delhi high court on Friday quashed the executive decision to get the books of accounts of the three private power distribution companies (discoms) in the city-capital scrutinised by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).
Taxi aggregators Uber and Ola cabs plan to get licenses to comply with latest government guidelines reported the Economic Times.
Since the two start-ups are not governed by the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 or any of the state acts on vehicles, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways last week released governing regulations for app-based taxi aggregators, reported Livemint.
The guidelines clarify that “IT-based aggregators” are different from traditional offline taxi operators and that state governments should formulate specific policies to regulate their licencing, compliance and liability. The guidelines, which are not binding but directive, also state that these aggregators should have a mandatory 24X7 call centre and a helpline number connecting to a grievance redressal officer.
The necessity of bringing these companies under law was first felt when a case of a Uber cab driver raping his client came up in 2014, after which uber was banned in Delhi. There have been a series of litigations at the Delhi high court regarding the legal status of the start ups like Uber and Ola.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday made it clear that it will allow to only CNG-based taxi vehicles to run in the national capital and asked Uber India to inform when it can replace the diesel cabs with these.
Taxi operator, under fire, fires back as Ola can’t seem to get a break...
The Delhi high court heard first arguments on Monday in the infringement claim by the US footwear company against two Indian rivals that have released similar plastic clog-style shoes.
Calling it a case of obvious imitation, Akhil Sibal, […] counsel representing Crocs India said, “I am in the market since 2004 and have a formidable reputation in the market. Uniqueness of the product which is the selling point of the product is the look of the product.”
- via Mint.
After a telecom company whose phone users are suffering from frequent call drops complained to the Delhi high court that the call drops were because 130 of its mobile towers had been “wrongly” sealed, the court has ordered that mobile towers erected after valid cellular licenses be de-sealed, reported The Times of India.
A bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul was hearing the telecom company and Cellular Operators Association of India, who claimed that they faced a range of problems, including call-drops, because three municipal corporations sealed towers despite payment of licence fee.
The high court issued notice to the corporations and sought their replies by 6 November reported TOI. “Meanwhile, we direct the three municipal corporations of Delhi to follow directions given by us on 17 October, 2014, 13 March, 2015 and 1 May, 2015, in letter and spirit,” the court said.
The corporations claimed that they sealed the towers only after sending show-cause notices to telecom companies who didn’t reply to them. They also claimed that installation and operation of some towers were done without obtaining valid clearances from corporation.
The operators on the other hand claim high-handedness by corporations and said that show-cause notices were not issued on time and that more than 70 towers have been sealed since the date filing the application, even after reminding the corporations that the matter is seized by the high court.
Delhi high court rapped the government yesterday for failing to produce the contracts it has entered into with companies like facebook and google reported The Economic Times.
The government had sought time to place the contracts with the court in May and July but has still not produced them. This irked the bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva who posed questions to the government.
“Why are you not filing them (contract)? Why are you hiding them from us? Why aren’t you placing it? What is the hesitation? Why aren’t you doing it? It’s been five months since our 7 May, 2015 direction”
The court was hearing a petition filed by K N Govindacharya, a politician who alleged that the government has become the biggest “marketing agent” for these companies. The petition also says that the government is transferring its intellectual property rights to these companies by way of these contracts while the government is maintaining that the contracts are standard form in nature it was reported.
The next date of hearing in the matter is 28 October 2015 before which the government would have to share the contracts it has entered with facebook, youtube and google.
On certain days, the Indian litigant knows better than to hold the courts to their official calendar of working days: at least 100 days have already been lost this year across various Indian courts to strikes by advocates.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said his government has almost prepared the Jan Lokayukta Bill’s draft and planned to present it in the next session of the state assembly.
“Jan Lokayukta Bill (is) almost ready. We should be able to present it in next session of assembly,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Delhi government officials confirmed that the draft of the bill has been prepared.
“Draft of the bill has been completed. Some final touches are being given to it. A team under Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is working hard in this connection,” an official told IANS
Kejriwal government in its previous 49-day tenure had resigned after failing to get the bill passed in the Delhi Assembly last year.
The AAP, which returned to power by winning 67 of the 70 seats in the assembly elections, had positioned the Jan Lokayukta Bill as one of its key poll promises.
The bill was earlier scheduled to be tabled in the Budget session of the assembly in June.
The bill was to be tabled in the assembly in June but at that time the city government and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung were engaged in a bittter row over the transfer of bureaucrats, and the matter had reached President Pranab Mukherjee, the Supreme Court and the Delhi high court.
The government may have to hasten its efforts to define the termonline marketplace and also explicitly mention what constitutes retail and wholesale trading on such platforms after the Delhi high court issued a notice seeking its reply to a petition filed by a body of offline (or brick-and-mortar) retailers.
reported Mint and others.
The Supreme Court has said that the magnitude of the Uphaar fire tragedy may call for “higher sentence” but it could not go beyond the choices under the law while sentencing brothers and real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal who own the Uphaar cinema hall, represented by senior counsel Ram Jethmalani.
GNLU Gandhinagar will reward five of its most recent alumni each year with Rs 7500 each, monthly, as scholarship to practice in courts as a litigation lawyer.
The GNLU Litigation Assistance and Support Scholarship (GLASS), launched by the law school this year, aims to support the litigation career of fresh graduates of the law school. To qualify for GLASS the graduates will have to submit their student academic record, record of litigation internships done during law school, moot court and advocacy skills, publications, extra curricular activities and conferences, and will also be finally interviewed, confirmed GNLU faculty convenor Nidhi Buch.
The personal interview will carry 30 per cent of the evaluation marks and the other things will be worth the remaining 70 per cent. Scholarship holders will also have to submit monthly reports of their litigating career to GNLU to retain the one-year-long scholarship, added Buch.
GNLU’s 2015 batch alumni Garv Malhotra, Saksham Marwa, Sushal Tiwari, Tirth Bhatt and Prince Mishra were awarded the scholarship this year. Mahotra and Marwa are practicing before the Delhi high court, Tiwari is practicing in Bangalore, Bhatt is at the Gujarat high court and Mishra is practicing before the Allahabad high court.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking cancellation of the visa given by government to controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen for allegedly violating Foreigners Act by preparing scripts for a film and a serial here.
A division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath refused to entertain the plea, saying there was no public interest in the matter.
NGO All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front claimed Nasreen had indulged in “anti-national activities” by preparing the script for a TV serial, which was to be aired in West Bengal in 2013 but could not be screened on Bangla channel due to protests by some religious groups. She had also scripted a Bengali film “Nirbashito”, purportedly based on her life, which was shown at the Mumbai International Film Festival in 2014, claimed the plea.
The plea said that the activities were in violation of the statute which prohibited preparing scripts for films and serials by a foreigner without permission from the government. It also sought prosecution of Nasreen for violating the Foreigners Order of 1948 and the Foreigners Act of 1946.
The Delhi high court on Monday issued notice to central government and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and its chief RK Pachauri on the plea of a woman employee who levelled sexual harassment allegations against the environmentalist.