Department of Telecommunications (DoT)

Bharti Airtel’s director legal Sameer Chugh leads, in his words, a “fast-paced” industry.

Several pornography web sites are currently inaccessible in India on several internet service providers (ISPs).

SC examines death row pardon in extreme brutality: The Supreme Court will hear a PIL on whether the President can commute death penalties in cases of extreme brutality. The petitioner Pinki Virani’s plea referred to five death sentences of convicted rapists of children, which former President Pratibha Patil had commuted [NDTV]

Technical porn block feasible, asks apex court to the Department of Telecommunications. Justice BS Chauhan, heading the bench, queried whether websites with pornographic content (particularly child pornography) could be blocked technically [PTI]

AP-split PIL rejected: Supreme Court justices HL Dattu and Madan B Lokur reject PIL on Telangana Andhra Pradesh bifurcation [PTI]

Madras HC judgeships: As Madras HC’s 15 judge recommendations await the SC’s approval, the next list of recommendations is already in the offing to fill the court’s 25 per cent vacant roster [TOI]

Delayed judge transfers: Himachal HC chief justice Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar was today transferred to Madhya Pradesh HC as chief justice, four months after the SC’s recommendation. Sources said that the delay in his transfer was because of a representation made by a senior Madhya Pradesh High Court judge to the President [Deccan Chronicle]

CCI vs CAT: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) will not take the Competition Appellate Tribunal’s ban on its practice of imposing high penalties, sitting down. The CCI plans a Supreme Court challenge [ET]

CCI can rule on petrol? The CCI, which is currently looking into suspected unfair trade practices by state-run oil marketing firms while setting petrol prices, will rule on its own jurisdiction to examine the issue this month [PTI]

Lacking SHRCs: Tripura and 10 other states and Union territories are yet to set up a human rights watchdog - a State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). Except Assam no other north eastern state has a full-fledged SHRC. However, Manipur and Meghalaya are in the process of constituting such a body. The NHRC is presently looking into 60,000 human rights violations [TOI]

Jaising slams progress on sexual violence: ASG Indira Jaising, in a personal capacity, writes how women remain as vulnerable under the system as they were before December 2012, despite protests and promises of reform in the Delhi gang rape: “Bias is embedded in the practice and procedure of trials… The patronising attitudes of law enforcement agencies are truly dangerous… The problem is that we have fostered an environment of impunity for the act and that is why we have not succeeded in changing the attitude.”  [Indian Express]

DoT to revise telecoms M&A norms, upping max merged market share to 50%: The Department of Telecommunications is considering allowing a 50 per cent market share to merged telecoms entities, instead of the earlier 35 per cent, as well as permitting retention of two blocks of 3G spectrum in its new M&A guidelines to be discussed on Tuesday [Zee News]

No Reliance on reportage: Anil Ambani’s ADAG threatened legal action against monthly magazine Caravan while they were reporting their 11,000-word profile on attorney general Goolam Vahanvati. Delhi law firm Agarwal & Associates acted for ADAG, The Hoot published the deets.

Feel me once, shame on you: iGate chief Phaneesh Murthy sacked for sexual harassment allegation after improper relationship with subordinate and investigation by outside counsel. At his former workplace, Infosys, Murthy was also accused of harassment, which was settled for $3m [Mint]

IPL PIL: A Public interest litigation (PIL) was filed yesterday in the Supreme Court asking for a special investigation team (SIT) probe into cricketing tournament Indian Premiere League’s (IPL) irregularities, including spot fixing. The SC dismissed the PIL giving time to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to complete its investigation within 1CC5 days [PTI/ESPN Cric Info]

CCI all grown up: At the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) annual day yesterday finance minister P Chidambaram discussed the realistic possibility of the CCI soon being called upon to override decisions of other regulators [Business Today]

DoT demands promotion: The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) will invite proposals from various ministries by 9 June to give more power, resources and staff to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), according to an internal DoT memo seen by Mint