Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

We will be featuring his future cartoons on Legally India.

Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug's right to live with dignity by not force feeding her comatose body of 36 years has yet again brought into sharp focus the legality and morality of euthanasia after the apex court admitted a plea on merits yesterday (18 December).

Yesterday's Times of India front-page report on the plight of 61-year old Shanbaug had sent droves of readers commenting on the story online.

Shanbaug was a nurse at King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital and has been lying in a vegetative state on the bed of the same hospital since 1973 after suffering a brutal sexual assault by a ward boy.

Activist and author Pinki Virani had moved the petition as Shanbaug's "next friend" and urged the court to direct hospital authorities to stop feeding her paralysed body.

Despite viewing it akin to mercy killing, the Supreme Court of India has now relented in favour of the argument presented by the petitioners counsel Shekhar Naphade who said: "Is not keeping the woman in this persistent vegetative state by force feeding violative of her right to live with dignity guaranteed by Article 21 (Right to life) of the Constitution?"

Naphade also highlighted her inhumane and torturous existence in the KEM Hospital and requested the authorities and court to step in and lay guidelines, as her condition is pronounced beyond cure by the doctors.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court bench consisting of Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, Justices A K Ganguly and B S Chauhan has agreed to examine the issue by seeking response from the center and state Governments, the dean of KEM hospital and the Commissioner of Mumbai Police.

The Supreme Court until now maintains a pro-life stance and had earlier declined pleas of termination of pregnancy of a mentally disabled girl resulting from a rape at a Nari Niketan in Chandigarh as well as a similar plea of a Mumbai couple for termination of a diseased foetus, reported the Times of India.

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

We will be featuring his future cartoons on Legally India.

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

We will be featuring his future cartoons on Legally India.

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

We will be featuring his future cartoons on Legally India.

Legally Drawn is created by Vasanth Sarathy and is published on his blog www.legallydrawn.com

We will be featuring his future cartoons on Legally India.

We need your help in creating one of India's first and most comprehensive associate satisfaction surveys.

Encouraged by several requests from readers in the past weeks, we would like to hear from you about your firm, the things you like and the things you would like to see improved.

The survey will hopefully be of benefit to every law firm lawyer in India by encouraging transparency in the marketplace, helping associates make wise career decisions and by letting law firm managers know how they can improve things.

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We will check the information we receive against standards of reasonableness, common sense and statistics, as well as by making enquiries with a variety of sources.

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The more, the better, but please feel free to complete as much or as little information as you like. However, generally we do at least need to know the firm you work at, for obvious reasons.

Many many thanks for your time and interest so far. We hope that this will become a helpful resource for you and everyone else.

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One of the most (in)famous Rhodes Scholars is no doubt William Jefferson Clinton (pictured), who of course neither inhaled nor graduated in his time at Oxford.

The names of the latest batch of five Indian Rhodes Scholars were finalised on the eve of 12 October 2009 in Mumbai. As usual, students from the law dominated the list, with Aditya Swarup of NALSAR Hyderabad and V Niranjan of NLSIU Bangalore sweeping the field.

In India, out of hundreds of applicants only a few are selected and invited for a final round of interview. The number of finalists for this year was 18.

The scholarship programme requires the applicants to meet strict eligibility criteria laid down by the Rhodes Trust, which looks for qualities of moral and intellectual strength in a candidate. Cigar, Mr President, sir?

A preliminary round of interviews is then held for successful candidates in the regional centers of Mumbai (Pune), Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore. This is then followed by a final interview.

NLSIU's Niranjan says the grant of a Rhodes scholarship had been the fulfillment of a long-standing dream of his to study at Oxford.

"I hope to pursue a career in litigation in India, and an education at Oxford is quite inspiring from that perspective, given Oxford's history. The Rhodes Scholarship is something everyone dreams of and my application process was a combination of excitement and apprehension," Niranjan told Legally India by email.

He writes: "I am given to understand that there are about 600 applicants for the Rhodes from India, and about 120 from law. India has five Rhodes scholarships. I applied in July, and was informed that I'd been shortlisted for the preliminary interview to be held in Mumbai on September 5, 2009.

"That interview panel was chaired by Professor V.S. Chauhan, Secretary, Rhodes Trust India, and also had eminent Rhodes scholars like Mr Nandan Kamath and Ms Menaka Guruswamy. The days following that interview were quite trying, as I was nervously awaiting the results. I was told two weeks later that I'd made it to the final interview, which was hosted yesterday at Mumbai.

"The final interview is quite an experience. The eminence of the interview panel makes it a wonderful process to go through, and yesterday's panel was chaired by Mr. Ratan Tata, the Chairman of the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee. Other panelists included Mr. Rahul Gandhi, Mr. Nandan Kamath, Mr. Sanjeev Sanyal, Ms. Rakhi Mehra and others. A Rhodes tradition is that a dinner is hosted by the selection committee the day before the interview, and this is a great chance to meet and interact with persons as eminent and accomplished as these.

"The interview itself lasted about 20 minutes, and was a very engaging process - I was questioned on the personal statement I had written, articles I have published, my career goals, accomplishments thus far, etc. Once again, waiting for results was a nerve-wracking experience, but this time the results were declared on the same day, which made it mercifully shorter!

"I couldn't quite believe it when my name was announced, and in truth, I still can't - I think it will take time for this to sink in but I'm more delighted than I've ever been. The Rhodes Scholarship is more than just a scholarship - it is an institution that is filled with world leaders spanning generations, and to be awarded the scholarship is both humbling and a reminder that there is so much to accomplish in one's field, which in my case is law.

"I can't find words to express my gratitude to the people who made this possible for me - first and foremost, my parents, my Professors at the National Law School, some of whom were my referees, law school alumni who wrote references for me, Mr. Arvind Datar, Senior Advocate, who gave me a chance to intern under him and wrote a reference for me, one of my schoolteachers, a couple of inspirational and wonderful seniors who have been guiding me right from when I entered law school, a few very good friends in law school and many other people.”

Have a look on the ever-helpful Wikipedia for some more background on the Rhodes scholarship.

Details of procedures in India are given on the web site of Rhodes Scholarships India.

The Board for Control of Cricket (BCCI) in India has stuck to its position of non-compliance with the 'whereabouts clause' in the new World Anti-Doping Code.

Arguing that the 'whereabouts clause' infringes the privacy of its players, the BCCI had initially dismissed the WADA Code and requested former Chief Justice of India A. S. Anand and India's attorney general G. E. Vahanavati to opine on the clause.

Vahanavati then did opine to the BCCI and stated that the 'whereabouts clause' in the anti-doping code would infringe on the players' privacy and be subject to a constitutional challenge in the courts.

In numerous cases the right to privacy has been held to be a part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

The International Cricket Council, which is itself WADA compliant since 2006, convened a two-day meeting of the special committee, became apprehensive and recognised the merit in Vahanavati's opinion.

It called off the meeting of the special committee which included Anil Kumble as the Indian players' representative.

According to reports, the cricket boards of Australia (CA), England (ECB), South Africa (CSA), New Zealand (NZC), Sri Lanka (SLC), Zimbabwe (ZC) and Bangladesh (BCB), all of which had earlier signed up to the new code, have supported the BCCI's views and objected to the 'whereabouts clause'.

These boards have conveyed to the ICC that they see merit in the concerns raised by the BCCI as being genuine and having legal basis.

The ICC's legal experts, David Becker and Ian Higgins, have now been trying to allay fears and concerns by advising on the ramifications of the new code. The ICC's Company Lawyer, Ian Higgins, who was formerly an associate with UK-international firm Bird & Bird also flew down to Mumbai earlier to address the BCCI's concerns.

The Government of India has reiterated that it is fully committed to the new code including the 'whereabouts clause.'

The BCCI which has acted contrary to the government's stand and is drawing strength from Mr. Vahanavati's opinion, is sticking to its position of demanding a new cricket specific code from WADA.

And following the recent wave of support for 'rethinking WADA's whereabouts clause methodically', the ICC has requested the WADA to formulate a cricket-specific code. Although WADA has not yet responded to this specific request, WADA president John Fahey has stated that WADA will review the out-of-competition testing rule at the end of the year and make any practical changes if necessary.

Looks like this one will keep getting stickier.

Photo by Tc7

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