Legally Wired

SC cases, broken up: Over 300 cases of sexual harassment are pending before the Supreme Court, revealed an RTI reply to activist Vihar Dhurve. Also outstanding: “472 cases related to corruption, 588 road accident cases related to permanent disability, 45 road accident for other injuries, 418 divorce cases and 39 matters of atrocities on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are also pending.” [PTI]

KGB’s NHRC seat safe from home ministry: Home ministry won’t ask apex court to look into ex-CJI KG Balakrishnan’s conduct either as head of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) or as judge, claiming to have had no evidence of corruption and that prior conduct was not ‘proved misbehaviour’ for the purposes of making a presidential reference under NHRC rules [TOI]

Delhi district court strike today after police allegedly assaulted an advocate who is now in critical condition, tweeted @DKMahant

Force feed torture: Guantánamo Bay, The Hunger Strikes - video animation [YouTube (warning, content could be disturbing)]

SC Juvenile home committee: The CJI has asked all high court CJs to appoint a judge each to inspect the functioning of state juvenile homes. At the Supreme Court level, the CJI has nominated Justice Madan Lokur as Chairperson of the Juvenile Committee for effective implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. This committee is a debut effort from the SC after a large number of complaints about maintenance at these homes [Hindu/NDTV]

Judge rejig: Manipur HC CJ AM Sapre will replace Gauhati HC CJ who will assume the post of a judge at the Orissa HC on 24 October. Gauhati HC will get Karnataka HC’s justice KS Rao and its own additional judge PK Saikia as a permanent judge; Manipur HC will get Allahabad HC justice LK Mohapatra; The tenure of 4 Delhi additional judges has been extended [PTI]

Law university stepchild: The University of Pune remains a paper proposal seven years after it first came to be, even as neighbouring Nagpur has been successful in winning the mandate to launch the country’s 15th national law university [TOI]

Rightful electricity: The Madras High Court has declared that denial of power supply to any person will be considered as a violation of fundamental human rights, on the petition of a group of washermen who were denied power supply in their residence on unauthorised land [India TV News]

More Orissa judges needed: Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik has written to law minister Sibal asking him to increase the Orissa HC’s approved judge strength from 22 judges to 27 [Odisha Today]

Nagpur wins NLS Maharashtra clearance: The proposal for “Maharashtra National Law University” (as it will be called) to be based in Nagpur was cleared yesterday by the Maharasthra state cabinet. The government has earmarked a reduced capital grant of Rs 125 crore (from Rs 204 crore) for the NLS, which will take in 100 students for its first batch through the CLAT [TOI]

Justice Singhvi excuses self from 2G case, pre-retirement: Justice GS Singhvi, who was leading the bench in the 2G spectrum case, will not hear the case anymore because he has a lot of workload to finish before his retirement on 11 December [TOI]

World anti death penalty day: To mark today's World Day Against Death Penalty NGO Amnesty International yesterday urged India to commute all its death sentences and impose a moratorium on executions [Firstpost]

ML Sharma again Delhi rape lawyer: Serial PIL filer and the former lawyer of one of the Delhi rape convicts, ML Sharma – who had been dumped as counsel to Delhi gang rape convict Mukesh after failing to appear in a fast track court hearing for him – has again filed a Vakalatnama to represent Mukesh after his defence lawyer VK Anand yesterday withdrew from the case [BS/TOI]

Karnataka circuit fiasco:  The principle bench at Karnataka HC suffers undue vacancies as judges get deputed to its recently consolidated circuit benches at Gulbarg and Dharwad [Deccan Chronicle]

Delhi rape lawyer withdraws: Delhi rape convicts’ defence lawyer VK Anand withdrew from his role as counsel citing interference by the clients and their families ahead of Delhi HC’s decision on confirmation of the district court’s death sentence [DNA India]

Madras bar election litter: Ahead of the Madras HC Advocates’ Association elections in which 95 candidates are contesting and 7,300 advocates are voting, the Madras HC is littered with pamphlets and stickers relating to the election campaign – though one candidate vows to plant more trees if he wins [The Hindu]

Pune circuit bench demand: The Pune bar association will give a presentation on their long-pending demand for a circuit bench in the city to a two-judge panel of the Bombay high court on October 17 [TOI]P

UID unimportant: The Supreme Court has stuck to its stand that the Unique Identification Number is not mandatory for availing certain essential services [NDTV]

Sex harassment RTI exemption to babus: The Ministry of Personnel has declined an RTI request for details of sexual harassment cases against IAS officers, citing exemption based on a Supreme Court judgement [PTI]

2013 acad session in 2014? Admission to LL.B. courses is yet to begin in government law colleges and those private colleges that have entered into a seat-sharing agreement with the Tamil Nadu government, because disagreements over fee structure still exist [Hindu]

Karnataka govt pleader overhaul: The Karnataka government is on a warpath with its state legal team after it prepared a list of replacements for 61 out of its 73 law officers. While 36 officers resigned without putting up a fight, the rest of them is daring the state government to dismiss them [Bangalore Mirror]

India net freedoms decline most: India was the country with the greatest drop in a ‘freedom on the net’ index compiled by NGO Freedom House, though India is still ranked as “partly free” [The Register / Report via Freedom House]

Juvenile justice: Asserting that it is nearly impossible to reform juvenile repeat offenders since they know their way around legal provisions, juvenile home chief demands treating repeat offenders as adults [TOI]

Judges’ retirement age writ dismissed: The Madras high court has ruled out the possibility of a mandamus directing the government to amend the law to increase the retirement age of higher judiciary judges to 68. It dismissed the PIL seeking the writ [New Indian Express]

Lawyer protest: Kallakurichi lawyers in Tamil Nadu are going on a protest against the stalled completion of a court building in their district [New Indian Express]

Lawyers stage walk-out: The Madras Bar Association threatened to walk out of a Judicial Appointments Bill discussion with the parliamentary standing committee ‘on the advice of a member’ of the committee, after the bar association protested that it was called for the discussion on only a day’s notice [TOI]

Ex-NLUO VC arbitrary at Pondi: Former NLUO Cuttack VC Chandra Krishnamoorthy - who left the law school months after her appointment to assume VC-ship at Pondicherry University – stands to lose her position. Her appointment has been challenged in the Madras HC for being arbitrary and without due process [New Indian Express]

DHC on Android: The Delhi high court website now has an android app with the case display board, causelist and final orders available on it. To install it on your Android device go to Settings –> Security, and check ‘Unknown Sources’. Then click this link from your phone [App Link]

Jaitley vs Neta ordinance: BJP leader and former law minister Arun Jaitley gives a detailed statement explaining his party’s opposition to the UPA’s ordinance against the Lily Thomas law that would disqualify convicted MPs from contesting polls [Firstpost]

Undertrial terrorism: Karnataka plans to appoint a retired judge of its high court to look into cases of undertrial Muslim youth prisoners jailed on charges of terrorism. 226 suspects have been booked for terror charges in the state since 2000 [Hindu]

Benegal’s Samvidhaan: Veteran Hindi cinema and television director Shyam Benegal is currently working on a ten part TV series on the Indian constitution, called Samvidhaan [NDTV]

Derogatory advocate fined: Madras HC fined him Rs 10,000 and dismissed his petition seeking restriction on relatives of politicians from contesting polls, because, according to the court, he had used derogatory language in his petition against a sitting member of parliament [PTI]

Lalu jailed: Former Bihar chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Yadav, who was convicted by a CBI court, was today sentenced to five years in jail and a fine of Rs 25 lakh in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam [TOI]

Maha lawyers’ chambers delayed: The high court bar association of the Bombay bench at Aurangabad yesterday protested an administrative delay in handing over an allotted land for construction of 1,200 lawyers’ chambers in Marathwada [TOI]

North face: North Orissa lawyers are unhappy over the state chief minister’s recommendation to the law ministry to have high court benches in southern and eastern Orissa [New Indian Express]

RK Aggarwal Mad HC: Madras high court acting chief justice of more than seven months RK Aggarwal is now its chief justice [Oman Tribune]

Justice on wheels: WSJ does an account of Pakistan's mobile courts - $90,000 buses with courts set up inside them, which travel to remote areas to resolve disputes

IT freezes Nokia: Indian taxmen freeze Finnish mobile giant Nokia's Indian bank accounts, days ahead of its $7.2bn sale deal with Microsoft, to ensure discharge of its tax liability in India [NY Times]

Death sentence delayed: The Delhi high court has deferred hearing the confirmation reference of the death penalty to the Delhi 16 December gang rape convicts [PTI]

MP disqualified: The Supreme Court has sent Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood to jail for four years, for corruption. Masood has also lost his Rajya Sabha membership due to this conviction [Daily Bhaskar]

Associate Prof boom to avoid BCI sanction: Recently facing a BCI ban, the Rajasthan Unioversity has nown put an end to its faculty crunch after the recruitment of 24 assistant professors for the university law college [TOI]

Judge’s litigation debut: 88-year-old ex-judge-turned-litigant KS Puttaswamy, who obtained the SC's restraining order recently against the linking of state benefits to the UID scheme, chats to the Hindu on why for the first time in his 50-year legal career he felt the need to petition a court [Hindu]

Indian-American judge: Indian-born Sri Srinivasan has now been sworn in as a judge of the second most powerful US court - The US Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia circuit [PTI]

GLC Karnataka: Karnataka’s fifth Government Law College has been inaugurated in North Karnataka at Martur village. The other four are in South Karnataka [Deccan Chronicle]

Poor NGT: The southern bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which has jurisdiction over four states and a union territory, lacks the resources to provide legal aid to litigants. A large chunk of the applications before the NGT are from the poor, sources tell the New Indian Express

Child marriage circular: The Kerala government has clarified that its 27 June 2013 circular directing local bodies to register all child marriages that were solemnised before 13 June 2013, was not a license for child marriage but a way to ensure that those married before that date are not deprived of marital benefits. Child marriages are still punishable in the state under the Child Marriage Prohibition Act 2006 [Hindu]

SC 110201: The Supreme Court gets a new dedicated pin code enabling faster mail service, as the postal department’s celebration of 41 years of introducing the pin code system for its bulk mail recipients [PTI]

8 new Madras judges: Justice T Mathivanan, Justice Ardhanariswamy Arumughaswamy, Justice KBK Vasuki, Justice Kandasami Ravichandra Baabu, Justice P Devadass and Justice R Karuppiah, who are Additional Judges of the Madras High Court, have been appointed as Judges in the same High Court [Zee News]

Dodgy judicial exams: A Kerala high court judiciary aspirant has challenged its judicial recruitment process on the basis of haphazardness in the manner of notifying vacancies, conducting the interview and other things which point to a lack of transparency [Hindu]

SC can’t extend judgeship: The Supreme Court cannot extend the tenure of a retiring judge under its article 142 powers, because the retirement age of judges is fixed by statutes, argued Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati [Hindu]

Advocates can’t be prosecuted for legal opinion unless fraud proven, held the Bombay high court. The CBI had charged Mumbai lawyer Mohana Nair with forgery and fraud over a housing loan case opinion, but the court forcefully rejected the case as vexatious and having been “riddled with more holes than a colander”. [TOI]

Two lawyers turn in for doctor’s murder: Two Chennai advocates - Advocates P Basil and his brother P Boris - surrendered before court as suspects in the alleged contract killing of a neurosurgeon [TOI]

Hauz Khas to reopen: After the NGT ordered 34 restaurants to close in HKV last week, 25 have been granted reprieve if they comply with all pollution control measures [HT / summary / profile of activist responsible]

Google to help draft constitutions: Google has set up a site that will compare the world’s constitutions by themes online “to arm drafters with a better tool for constitution design and writing” [The Verge / Google blog]

AP HC Judges: Andhra Pradesh high court advocates Asapu Ramalingeswara Rao and Dama Seshadri Naidu were appointed as additional judges of the high court last week [Deccan Chronicle]

AAWI for Bom HC new bench: India's oldest bar association - the Advocates Association of Western India (AAWI) - yesterday passed a resolution that the Bombay HC should take a decision on setting up a new circuit bench, however the AAWI did not favour or oppose any particular city for the bench. Pune and Kolhapur lawyers have been fighting over the bench, with Kolhapur and neighbouring district bars having been on strike since 29 August [TOI]

Torturous compensation: Custodial torture victims have a right to compensation, held Madras HC while awarding Rs 50,000 to a youth who was subjected to third degree torture after a midnight arrest last year [TOI]

Banning Qazi Talaq: A Muslim woman has petitioned in the Madras high court against the authority of the Islamic customary judge - the Qazi - to certify arbitrary divorce pronounced by muslim men from their wives by uttering the word "Talaq" thrice - sometimes even without the knowledge of their wives [NIE]

Fatwa FTW? SC has restored for hearing a petition challeging the parallel Islamic judicial system in the country, which was dismissed four months ago by former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir [TOI]

No judicial reservations: SC dismissed a petition seeking reservation for the SCs, STs and OBCs in the judiciary, but observed that there should be a balanced representation of those communities in the judiciary [Zee News]

SCBA threatens JAC strike: SCBA threatened to go on a day-long “token strike” if the Judicial Appointments Bill is not scrapped, since lawyers' bodies were allegedly not consulted with when formulating the bill [Outlook]

Maha NLS in Nagpur? National Law School Nagpur’s proposal will be discussed in the winter session of the state legislature; the Maharashtra government is currently looking for land in the city for the NLS [TOI]

Kolhapur’s 3-week strike for bench: Solapur’s Sangola Bar Association has boycotted courts since 29 August demanding a permanent Bombay HC bench in Kolhapur. Lawyers from Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Solapur, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg are not going to court and are conducting a hunger strike at their district headquarters [TOI]

Jude contemptuous of highers: A Wardha Maharashtra additional sessions judge is facing a contempt notice from Bombay HC’s Nagpur bench after the judge went against HC orders by granting bail to a husband accused by his wife of kidnapping their 18-month-old son [TOI]

P&H additional judges: Punjab & Haryana HC additional judges Rajiv Narain Raina, Tejinder Singh Dhindsa and Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia will continue in the HC for another year as the President extended their term of service [NVO News]

Arrest notification guidelines: Madras high court has framed guidelines for effective communication of intimation of arrest incl­u­d­­ing the one that officers effecting arrest of a person should intimate it to his/her relatives and friends through the e-post system. In case of intimation through phone the government should ask BSNL authorities for a mechanism for receipt of proof of service. The government should also communicate the arrest through fax messages from the police station where the arrests were made to the station nearest to the person to be intimated, the bench added [Deccan Chronicle]

Murugesan gets NHRC: Former Delhi high court Chief Justice Darmar Murugesan assumed office as member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for a five-year term on Saturday, presided over by former CJI KG Balakrishnan [Hindu]

Tea cuffs: "One might take tea in a variety of ways, not all of them always elegant or delicate, some of them perhaps even noisy. But we know of no way to drink tea 'suspiciously',” observed a Bombay HC bench while chastising the police for arresting a man for suspicious conduct u/s 151 after they thought he was drinking tea ‘suspiciously’ [PTI/Judgment]

Meghalaya CJI PC Pant: Justice Prafulla Chandra Pant has been transferred from the Uttarakhand HC and has been appointed as the first Chief Justice of the newly established Meghalaya HC [PTI]

Dec 16 rape referred: The Saket fast track court that sentenced the four December 16 gang rape convicts to death has now referred their case to the Delhi high court according to the procedure for confirmation of the sentence [Daily Bhaskar]

Constititonal CJI in JAC: The Chief Justice of India will get constitutional status as the head of the proposed Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) which will appoint judges to the higher judiciary, reportedly after continued criticism that the law establishing JAC does not safeguard the CJI’s position [Express]