Legally Wired

PricewaterhouseCoopers' legal services head Leon Flavell said that the consultancy firm would become a $1bn global legal services player, aiming to grow from the $500m it generated from legal services in 2013. In the UK the firm has won a licence to operate as an Alternative Business Structure (ABS), allowing non-lawyers and companies to own legal services businesses. In India accountancy firms have been building legal capacity too for the last several years, winning a growing number of instructions [The Lawyer]

The expected good news belies the difficulty with which it will have been achieved, involving over $1bn of investments and management patience; a feat that its domestic competitors in the retail space have apparently been unable to duplicate so far. It is also something that few foreign investors into Indian retail may be able to or want to do, notwithstanding the deep pockets of global giants Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Tesco, reports [Reuters]

Principal sessions judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi finds total of 5 men guilty of over two gang-rapes (of photo-journalist in a Mumbai mill last August and of telephone operator in July), two minors tried under juvenile act. Sentencing tomorrow [Hindustan Times]

The police had objected to bail for Munnetra Kazhagam because of his history of rowdiness and political affiliation; Justice RS Ramanathan said the risks of jumping bail were thin because he was a politician [The Hindu]

Law minister Kapil Sibal has written to all chief justices to get recommended names on how to increase each HC's bench strength by 25%, taking the total size of India's higher judiciary to 1,112 from 906. Nevertheless, there are already 250 vacancies, even without the new plan [The Hindu]

The Navalur Kuttapattu-based centre, on the campus of the new NLS in Trichy, which is set to begin taking admissions this year, will operate two hours per week and is apparently the 13th such clinic established in the district by the local legal services authority [The Hindu]

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) filed criminal defamation notice against Congress Party chief campaigner Rahul Gandhi, who had said at a rally on 6 March that "RSS people killed Gandhiji". The RSS objected that it had not killed Mahatma Gandhi at all, and that the remarks by Rahul had "harmed the reputation of our organisation", filing a criminal complaint today with a Bhiwandi magistrate [PTI]

Justice Bhabani Prasad Ray was transferred a week ago from the Kerala high court to become judge of the Odisha HC. [Odisha Sun Times]

Ray was reportedly one of 11 high court judges transferred by former SC CJI Kapadia for "public interest" reasons in 2010 (then from Orissa to Karnataka) [Legally India October 2010]

He was first elevated to the Odisha bench on 7 November 2007, having started practising in January 1979.

Edelweiss Research was a smaller company unaffiliated to Financial, which has applied for banking licences [Economic Times]

Madras HC Justice CT Selvam gets whistleblower website Savukku blocked, which allegedly damaged the "reputation and status of not less than half a dozen judges, very many advocates, IAS and IPS officers" and also allegedly contains articles about the judge himself. After a PIL filed by a journalist, Selvam reportedly said that the contents of the posts were "demeaning, obnoxious and harmful" but according to reports no specific provision of law or procedure was used in the block [Medianama / TheNewsMinute]

The wedding was apparently an "intimate unostentatious affair, observed one of the guests, getting nostalgic about the times when families did not hire event managers to orchestrate marriages", gossiped the paper. Meanwhile, Vijay Mallya reportedly made his bungalow available to his "friend and counsel". [Mumbai Mirror]

The next government might inherit the process after senior advocate Fali Nariman and former SC judge KT Thomas declined to be part of the Lokpal search committee that makes recommendations to the selection committee appointing Lokpal members [NDTV]

The Madras HC held, deciding on maintainability, that a lawyer could not file a writ petition to have his name recommended to the judicial collegium for elevation to the bench, even if his CV has all the necessary points. [PTI]

Former add'l district and sessions judge in Jagdalpur, Anestus Toppo, who is now chairman of a Lok Adalat, was suspended by the Chhattisgarh high court for allegedly having been in drunken argument with a senior police officer. The cop later killed his wife, shot his two children (who are recovering in hospital) and then killed himself [PTI]

Madras high court Justice S Tamilvanan passes interim injunction against Zee's networks for two weeks, after Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni claimed that Zaa, in collusion with a suspended police officer, had been broadcasting false reports that Dhoni was involved in the match fixing scandal [The Hindu]