Delhi high court
The Delhi government today asked the Supreme Court to revive the ten-fold hike in court fees under last year’s Court Fee (Delhi Amendment) Act 2012 which was struck down by the Delhi HC on 9 October, reported the PTI.
Justice GS Singhvi’s bench will hear the matter on Monday on a priority basis. The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) had succeeded in its challenge to the amendment act, as first reported by Legally India.
Legally India speaks to techy lawyer and DHC Android app developer Abhimanyu Chopra.
The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) today succeeded in its challenge to the Delhi government’s tenfold court fee hike of August 2012.
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]
The Madras high court, the Jharkhand high court, the Delhi high court and the Meghalaya high court will soon have new chief justices respectively with Madras HC acting chief justice RK Agrawal, Madras HC seniormost judge R Banumathi, Andhra Pradesh HC acting chief justice NV Ramana and seniormost Uttarakhand HC judge PC Pant’s names cleared by the collegium, reported the Hindu.
It is the first time an Andhra Pradesh or Uttarakhand high court judge has become chief in any high court
“Justice Agrawal (60) became a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court and he became acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court on February 7 this year. A direct recruit, Justice Banumathi (58) entered the Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as district judge. She has worked as district and sessions judge in Coimbatore and Vellore. Justice Ramana (56), who hails from an agricultural family at Ponnavaram in Krishna district, has functioned as additional standing counsel for the Central government.”
Delhi’s Saket district court took the lead among Indian district courts on 31 July in allowing emailed service of process.
“If it were utopia, the moment I go to court the judge would stand up and say to me: ‘Mr. Khosla despite our best efforts at devising laws whose objective would be to prevent people breaking the law, it seems in your case we have failed. So on behalf of society I owe you an apology and I apologise. Now please tell me what your problem is and how can I help you?’ That’s how a hearing should start,” 53-year-old law student Deepak Khosla tells me.
Lover’s tiff ends: The Delhi government settled the squabble between the Delhi bar and the bench by accepting the proposal to raise the district court’s pecuniary jurisdiction to Rs 2 crore from Rs 20 lakh [Indlaw]
Notarised demands: The Notaries Association of India met the law minister to ask for identity cards for notaries, hike in their fees, qualifying examination to become a notary and the higher judiciary to conduct interviews of persons qualifying in that examination [TOI]
Juridical contest: Former Karnataka High Court Justice Chandrashekharaiah has expressed his desire to contest elections on a Janata Da party ticket through the Mandya Lok Sabha constitutency [Deccan Chronicle]
Blame games: 21 Bombay civic law officers have challenged the Bombay Metro Corporation’s February circular making it a rule to fine its lawyers Rs 2,000 if they failed to get stays in its illegal construction and encroachment cases vacated [TOI]
Delhi high court now has an acting chief justice in the HC’s senior-most justice BD Ahmed after chief justice D Murugesan retired on 8 June.
An additional judge at the HC justice Mool Chand Garg is now a permanent judge of the court.
The Punjab & Haryana HC’s additional judges, justices Paramjeet Singh, Naresh Kumar Sanghi and Rameshwar Singh Malik were also made permanent in that HC [PTI]
Open court: DHCBA called off its Delhi HC desertion strike yesterday after a day-long full court consideration of the lawyers body’s concerns against enhancing the HC’s pecuniary jurisdiction to Rs 2 crore [PTI]
Three day comedy: Network18 TV channel Comedy Central’s 10-day ban gets lifted on day three, after a Delhi HC division bench puts a stay on the I&B ministry’s order banning the channel for “vulgar” and “offensive” content [Indian Television]
Life is short, live it imprisoned: The SC has ruled that life imprisonment really involves incarceration for a convict’s whole life and not just for 14 years. Only the president and the governors can remit the sentence and allow the convict to be released [PTI]
Rajiv Gandhi PIL yojna: Chennai advocate V Santhakumaresan has filed a PIL in the Madras High Court asking for the reopening of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case based on the reported statement of the CBI investigating officer that evidence in the case had not been handed over to the special investigation team [ANI]
Saucy Aussies: Aussie corporate lawyers have resorted to cold-calling clients to drum up new business. A Sydney firm source said: ““they’ll wait for a journalist to publish with an article saying X CEO is thinking about acquiring Y company, and they’ll straight away call them…” [Roll on Friday]
The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) yesterday observed a strike against Delhi HC chief justice D Murugesan’s proposal to enhance the HC’s pecuniary jurisdiction from Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore. DHCBA members manned courtroom entry points and urged lawyers not to appear in their cases.
Litigants appeared before the courts without their lawyers, to take adjournments for their cases. [IANS]
All judges decided to support Murugesan’s proposal after a full court meeting, and issued a statement that “the full court further deprecated the tone and tenor of the notice [of DHCBA] and the intemperate language used. It resolved that the false assertions made were unfortunate and unbecoming of the president of the DHCBA who also happens to be a law officer of union of India".
12,000 lawyers affiliated to the DHCBA apprehend the loss of work to lower courts if the proposal is implemented. [IANS]
The DHCBA had on 22 November addressed a two page notice to the HC’s judges criticising the 21 November proposal of Murugesan, and had said that there was no way the proposal could have passed if the DHCBA was consulted before making it, reported Legally India.
The Delhi High Court is slated to welcome Delhi Tis Hazari district judge Sunita Gupta and Delhi HC registrar general VP Vaish as additional judges after at least four senior advocates and one advocate are due to take seat at the bench.
Historic apex sistren: Justices GS Misra and Ranjana Desai are set to be the first two female judges to sit together in the Supreme Court, ever, tomorrow [@CourtWitness1]
Your NRI Honour: Subject to confirmation, Sri Srinivasan could become first Indian-American federal judge and even rise to the US Supreme Court, speculates TOI.
Cracking a nut: Police says Delhi property lawyer Baljeet Singh Sehrawat conspired in Bhardwaj killing [TOI]
Linguistic appeal: The languages of Indian courts discussed, as CM calls for Tamil in Madras court [The Economist]
PH bound: As Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri is likely to ascend to the apex court tomorrow taking the strength to 29 with only two vacancies, sources have floated that the Delhi high court’s most senior judge, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, could take up the post of Punjab and Haryana high court chief justice left vacant by Sikri [Hindustan Times].
4 permanence: Additional New Delhi high court judges Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, Valmiki J Mehta, Vinay Kumar Jain and Indermeet Kaur Kochhar elevated to permanent status [PTI]
Legally heroic: Feature on making of the film Shahid about hero lawyer and activist Shahid Azmi who was murdered in 2010 at the age of 38 [The Big Indian Picture]
The Supreme Court (SC) collegium has approved the nomination of chief justice (CJ) of Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) and former Delhi HC judge Arjan Kumar Sikri for elevation to the SC.
Sikri was sworn in as the HC’s 31st CJ on 22 September 2012, after serving as the Delhi HC’s judge for 13 years. He was designated as a senior advocate by the Delhi HC in September 1997.
Sikri graduated from the Campus Law Centre, Delhi University in 1977 and had served as the vice president of the Delhi High Court Bar Association during 1994-1995. [Punjab Newsline]
In February the collegium elevated Andhra Pradesh HC CJ Pinaki Ghose and Himachal Pradesh HC CJ Kurian Joseph, while superseding the nominations of Bombay, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat HC CJs Mohit Shah, Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Barin Ghosh respectively.
Bollywood law comedy-drama Jolly LLB has received three legal notices for allegedly depicting lawyers in a bad light, defaming a law college, and causing ridicule to a lawyer with the surname Jolly. The journalist-turned-director Subhash Kapoor’s film is slated for release next Friday (15 March).
A Delhi high court bench headed by Justice Pradeep Nandrajog said “99% of the existing NGOs are fraud and simply moneymaking devices. Only one out of every hundred NGOs serve the purpose they are set up for” [Hindustan Times]
Sonepat in Haryana, which is also home to Jindal Global Law School (JGLS), is to get its own national law school by 2015-16, funded by Rs 190 crore [PTI]
10 UK law firms amongst 500 most recognised UK business brands. How would Indian firms fare? [Legal Week]
Why is the government not willing to include marital rape in the new anti-rape Bill? Live chat with Luthra senior associate Mihira Sood [IBN Live]
Exclusive: The High Court of Delhi has today designated four new senior advocates. Two of the new seniors are women, and all four have less than 25 years of practicing experience.
The High Court of Delhi on Tuesday reshuffled the 463-judge-strong lower and higher Delhi judiciary, transferring and reallocating the jurisdiction of more than 150 judges to provide for 11 new district and sessions courts created in the national capital territory on 17 October 2012.
PIL filed in Delhi HC against Facebook India, Google India about alleged compliance failure in tax and RBI regulation, data security, and user-agreement [DNA India]
Maharashtra NLU in limbo after as ministers fight over location: Aurangabad campus in addition to Mumbai? [TOI]
CBI calls on two Italian law firms to help it figure out chopper graft case [PTI]