The Bench and the Bar

The Supreme Court saw the backlog of cases increase by another 80 in a slow holiday-ridden October where almost 3,000 fewer cases were filed than in the previous month. However, in more positive news the apex court has managed to continue its now four-month record of getting cases older than one year off its books.

“Follow me,” said the man with the purple hair as he walked through the open doors into the corridor awash in gloomy, fluorescent light.

Exclusive: Supreme Court journalists and the bench are understood to have agreed a compromise after the spat over the notification of rules in late August that would have effectively excluded 80 per cent of current correspondents from the apex court.

Exclusive: The Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa has set up a society to advance micro-loans to advocates as lawyers fight back against banks’ “unwritten code” that denies credit cards and loans to lawyers.

Former Delhi High Court chief justice Dipak Misra and Kerala High Court chief justice Jasti Chelameswar have been sworn into the apex court today.

Former solicitor general Gopal Subramanium has been appointed to represent the Maharashtra government and the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) as special counsel.

Bad news: in September 2011 the Supreme Court booked an apparent net deficit of more than 1,000 cases in its monthly pendency clearance efforts. If this rate were kept up, pending cases could double in less than five years.

Justice Markandey Katju, who retired from the Supreme Court just over two weeks ago, is set to become chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI).

Congress Party spokesperson and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi hosted a dinner for the upper echelons of the legal fraternity in Delhi on Saturday night. Found wining and dining at the seemingly non-descript but ultra-high profile occasion were judges of the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, senior advocates and well-connected lawyers from the Delhi-Bombay Bar.

Read on to find out what happened.

Kochhar & Co has filed police information reports (FIRs) against websites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Sulekha, MSN and others that allegedly hosted “defamatory and objectionable material” against Congress party general secretary Digvijay Singh.

When an uncharacteristically subdued Katju rose from the Bench in the Chief’s Court for the last time on Monday, one half of the bar and the media sighed wistfully and the other half sighed with relief. One lot would miss the mayhem, humour, and quotability of the average Katju day in the Supreme Court. The other lot would be grateful for never having to go through the mayhem, humour, and quotability of the average Katju day in the Supreme Court.

Click on through for a detailed analysis of the Supreme Court’s performance in clearing its backlog in August 2011.

Swearing in ceremonies, such as Tuesday’s induction of three newcomers, are those rare occasions when every single judge of the Supreme Court can be found in one place. It is also when you realise for the first time that the metaphorically larger than life Justice Markandeya Katju is, in fact, actually larger than life. He stands a full head taller than almost every other judge and dominates proceedings without having to say a word.

Exclusive: The Maharashtra and Goa Bar Council has implemented the first initiatives of its youngest member Karan Bhosale, having started a laptop and legal database buying scheme for advocates with heavy discounts.

Exclusive: The Bombay High Court has designated 15 new senior counsel, including Lakshmi Kumaran and Sridharan managing partner V Sridharan and the co-founder of the Lawyers Collective NGO and United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) special rapporteur Anand Grover, but again not a single female advocate was given the nod.

A large explosion went off outside Delhi High Court this morning, injuring 47 and killing at least 9.