Bar, Bench & Litigation

Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the fifth-most senior judge of the Supreme Court, and a member of the SC’s collegium, made the news today with the New Indian Express publishing his refusal to participate in a Supreme Court collegium meeting, as a protest against the collegium’s failure to comply with the principle of transparency of its proceedings.

Lawyer Janhavi Gadkar, who in 2015 while working at Reliance Industries as an in-house lawyer killed two while allegedly driving drunk in Mumbai, will likely appear in court on 20 September when charges against her will be framed, reported the Times of India:

In another pragmatic order dealing with the until-recently fairly haphazard regime of John Doe blocking of pirated movies on websites, Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay high court has cited an article by Legally India published in Mint as “quite excellent”, “extremely well researched, thoughtful and incisive” (see excerpt above).

In a clear message to senior lawyers that they could not take liberty with the court by making a last minute request for pass-over or adjournment of a matter listed for hearing, a Supreme Court bench on Tuesday withdrew from hearing the matters for an hour after in four of the first five matters, as junior lawyers sought pass-overs repeatedly.

A Bombay high court bench of justices VM Kanade and Revati Mohite Dere had held on Friday (26 August) that the ban on women entering the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali Dargah of Mumbai, contravened Articles 14, 15 and 25 of the Constitution.

Just FYI, more than one month after a CBI court convicted three Bar Council of India (BCI) members to jail and after a PTI report on the judgment, The Hindu on 25 August 2016 is now the only mainstream media outlet (other than http://www.livemint.com/Politics/oS1IH3Hf1bc5dSMmD4fYVP/Bribery-case-exposes-the-rot-in-legal-education.html Mint) to have done a news story:

The Supreme Court will hear on 29 August a plea contending that the top court appointed oversight committee headed by former Chief Justice RM Lodha was going beyond its mandate of monitoring the work of Medical Council of India (MCI).

In a historic verdict, the Bombay high court today permitted the entry of women up to the restricted grave area of the famous Haji Ali Dargah, located on the rocks off the Worli seashore.

The Supreme Court today said that criticism of public policy could not be a ground for slapping defamation suit as it issued fresh notice to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on a plea alleging abuse of power by her.

On 17 August, before it broke for a long weekend of four days, a three-judge Supreme Court (SC) bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi, Prafulla Chandra Pant and AM Khanwilkar referred a challenge to its immunity from the Right to Information (RTI) Act to a five-judge constitution bench. The decision, made after a brief hearing, was a surprise as well as a disappointment.

In the row over the suicide of student Sushant Rohilla at Amity Law School Delhi (IP), its director Prof Dr BP Singh Sehgal and political science professor Dr Isheeta Rutabhasini have both resigned.

A five-judge Constitution bench will decide whether the Supreme Court is exempted from disclosing information including file noting and correspondence on the appointment of judges to higher judiciary and other information under the Right to Information Act (RTI).

The Board of Control for Cricket India in India (BCCI) on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking the review of its 18 July verdict asking the country’s apex cricketing body to implement the Justice Lodha Committee recommendations for transparency and accountability in its functioning and limiting the involvement of ministers and government officials.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has stayed its order of 24 July that had suspended, without notice or due process, 126 Tamil Nadu advocates who had allegedly been involved in the strikes against the Madras high court’s controversial new disciplinary rules.

So, one of the longest fasts in world history has come to an end with the Iron Lady of Manipur, Irom Sharmila, abandoning her ineffective fast to force the Government to repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA).