Legally Wired

The Supreme Court of India has appointed ex Australian high court judge Michael Hudson McHugh to preside over the $1.8bn arbitration between the government and Reliance Industries (RIL) relating to the KG basin.

Supreme Court Justice SS Nijjar had originally picked ex-Australian Supreme Court judge James Spigelman in late March but several days later withdrew his suggestion because Spigelman was on a list of preferred arbitrators of Reliance.

Reliance counsel Harish Salve had requested a foreign arbitrator, while the oil ministry was rooting for an Indian head arbitrator. [PTI] [2 April: SC U-turns]

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) P Sathasivam has ruled in a writ petition on people disposing human waste manually from dry toilets, granting Rs 10 lakh compensation each to families of manual scavengers who died in sewers, manholes or septic tanks since 1993, after the work was outlawed by law, which was further strengthened in September of last year.

The SC also ordered better schemes for rehabilitation of workers who would be doing an illegal job under the law, and told the Indian Railways, which is the largest employer of manual scavengers, of whom the majority are from the dalit castes, to stop the practice. [Mint] [Judgment W.P.(C) 583/2003] [January NYT feature on the manual scavenging law]

via @CourtWitness1

... less and less the older they get...

Research by UK-headquartered international firm Eversheds, after interviewing 1,800 young lawyers to shed light on the 'future leaders' of the legal profession, revealed that female lawyers earned on average 30 per cent more than their male counterparts when aged 25 or younger, but earned 11% less on average when older, increasing to a 25% pay gap compared to men in their mid-30s. [The Guardian] [The Lawyer]

Delhi high court Justice GS Sistani yesterday banned pubs and restaurants in Delhi and other cities from 'exhibiting' Star India TV coverage of the T20 cricket world cup without the broadcaster's licence, in an interim ex parte stay order in a copyright claim brought by Star and others. [PTI]

Supreme Court Justice AK Patnaik, who was presiding over the bail plea of a man accused of the daylight murder of a developer in Navi Mumbai, has transferred the case to a bench of Justice CK Prasad. This follows the late developer's son sending CJI P Sathasivam a USB stick containing a purported recording of a conversation between the son and the accused's lawyer, with the son expressing fear his father's alleged killer would come after him if let out on bail by his 'friend' Patnaik. Patnaik denied even knowing the man in his order. [The Indian Express]

The paper talks to Zulfiquar Memon, Essaji Vahanvati, Tahira Karanjawala, and Rishabh Shroff and asks if they are chips of the same blocks as their illustrious legal parents. Also, did you know, that Memon's firm MZM has been representing Tarun Tejpal in Goa? [Economic Times] via @superselector5

10 students of Guru Gobind Singh Law College in Indore were not allowed to sit exams after the college turned out not to have been affiliated to a university. The college authorities claimed it was recognised by the Bar Council of India (BCI) in June 2013, then applied for affiliation to its varsity institution but no one ever came to inspect it. The university claims it never received an application [TOI]

The AIIMS hospital denied treatment to a rickshaw puller's son suffering from a rare disease, because it was too costly. Senior counsel AS Chandhiok, appearing for the Delhi High Court Bar Association, said lawyers had raised Rs 7.8 lakh for the treatment, with the Delhi high court ordering AIIMS to continue treating the boy until the final judgment in the case.

Justice Manmohan said: “A patient cannot be denied treatment due to financial constraint and the State is bound to find a source to generate funds for the poor patients... [The Delhi government has] to find a way to provide medical aid to poor patients. Funds have to be created. There cannot be a vacuum.” [DNA]

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia (whose smartphone business is in the process of being sold to Microsoft though held up by a Rs 3,500 crore guarantee imposed by the Supreme Court in another transfer tax case) has filed a writ in the Madras high court to contest a claim by the Tamil Nadu VAT department.

The tax office is claiming that devices manufactured in Chennai were not exported but in fact sold in India, and therefore subject to Rs 2,400 crore sales tax. Nokia said in a press release that the claim was "absurd" and "completely without merit and counter to domestic tax laws... and Nokia has proved consistently that devices produced at Chennai are exported abroad" [Business Standard]

The TOI interviews an apparently very down-to-earth Prashant R Deshpande, son of Tourism Minister RV Deshpande and NLSIU Bangalore and Harvard Law School alumnus, following the 36-year-old's Congress Lok Sabha nomination yesterday [TOI]

Around 20 advocates protested in the Madras high court room of the acting chief justice, Satish K Agnihotri, who was hearing a case. The lawyers were protesting with placards and black ribbons tied around their mouths to make Tamil the official court language [PTI]

Allahabad high court advocates, led by the local HC bar association boycotted work to demand "abolition" of the Lucknow bench and restore it as a revenue court, transferring pending cases to Allahabad [PTI]

"Mumbai cops cite s66A language, seek to block articles against police Chief," tweets @karunanundy ['Offending' article] [Notice via @svaradarajan]