Justice Manmohan Singh

GNLU Gandhinagar is back in the Gujarat high court, this time facing its accounts officer’s petition for alleged wrongful termination of employment.

Prashant Reddy reviews the major decisions of Justice Manmohan Singh of the Delhi high court (mostly) in the field of IP law, in the first of a series of posts that will mull on what criteria should be considered in appointing persons to the position of chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB).

Read more on Spicy IP.

The Delhi high court today stayed all disciplinary action, including rustication orders, against Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and others, on the condition that they withdraw all current agitation.

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur’s cricket team – the CJI XI – won in its face-off against the Supreme Court Bar Association’s (SCBA) team, by 35 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla Delhi cricket stadium yesterday, reported the Times of India.

The Bombay high court’s justice RV Ghughe, batting 53 runs, was the top-scorer among the judges of the various high courts and the Supreme Court who had come together in the CJI’s XI in their annual cricket match with members of the bar part of the SCBA XI

The CJI XI made 195 runs in 20 overs, while the SCBA XI made 160. The CJI XI had won the toss and chose to bat first.

SCBA vice president Ajit Kumar Sinha told TOI that the purpose of the annual match is to “reduce the tensions between the bar and the bench and to have fun together”.

Protesting the transfer order of Delhi high court justice Rajiv Shakdher to the Madras high court, prominent senior advocates in Delhi have written to the Supreme Court collegium requesting it to reverse the order.

Madras high court’s controversial Justice C S Karnan has filed long-leave application with the Madras high court to protest the allocation of “insignificant and dummy portfolio” of cases to him by Madras HC Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, reported Business Standard.

In a letter to the Chief Justice he wrote: “It is with a heavy heart that I am desirous of proceeding on a long leave as a result of the harassment and belittlement meted out to me by you lordship and to ensure that the decorum of the court is maintained to the satisfaction of the general public.”

He also wrote letters to the Union Law Minister and the Principal Accountant-General in Chennai.

Justice Karnan said that the collegium system of appointment of judges was a doubtful system that promoted only high caste candidates and said it should be rooted out “lock, stock and barrel.”

In January this year, he had stormed into a court of Madras high court hearing petitions in the matter of appointment of judges at the court and initiated a suo motu writ petition against constitution of the collegium at the high court. This eventually led to Supreme Court taking over the matter.

Bombay high court chief justice Mohit Shah retired on Tuesday, a fter presiding over the court for over five years, reported The Indian Express.

Shah had started practising in the Gujarat high court in 1976 and was elevated as a judge on the bench of the same court in 1995. He is known for his judgments related to social causes and was even praised by prime minister Narendra Modi for preserving the Bombay high court’s history in the form of a museum, according to the Express report.

Shah was quoted as observing,

From my experience I feel the people here (Mumbai) have a better sense of social responsibility and civic sense. We should test the efficacy of a law from the point of view of a common man and not only lawyers. It should meet the expectations of the common man and not judges and lawyers.

I feel that we should test the efficacy of a law from a common man’s point of view. It should meet the expectations of the common man and not judges and lawyers.

Justice VK Tahilramani has been appointed as the acting Chief Justice of Bombay high court until a regular appointment is made.

NLU Delhi is now on 99 points in the Mooting Premier League (MPL) 6, sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills, managing to remain just 11 points ahead of NLU Jodhpur.

A Delhi high court bench of chief justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw rejected the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) appeal against a stay order in the same court by Justice Manmohan Singh, reported Mint.

Justice Singh had stayed a CCI investigation into the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), which informant and chartered accountant (CA) Arun Anandagiri alleged had abused its dominant position by not permitting anyone else to conduct continuing professional education (CPE) programmes, which the ICAI, as the profession’s regulator, has made compulsory for CAs to attend.

In dismissing the appeal and telling the CCI to fight it out in front of the single-judge bench where the case is currently listed, the bench had complained that the informant had not appealed against the stay. The CCI’s counsel, additional solicitor general Sanjay Jain, argued that the CCI investigated matters independently.

Update: The petitioner, who is the founder of tax website Tax Sutra, wrote on Twitter that he'd already filed his counter before the single high court judge.

The Supreme Court collegiums turned down the government’s advice to “reconsider” its recommendation to elevate Karnataka high court justice Manjunath to chief justice at Punjab & Haryana, reported NDTV.

The Chief Justice of India, R M Lodha had criticized the government, two weeks ago, for dropping former Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium's name from the panel of names suggested by the collegium for appointment as Supreme Court judges.

The Centre asked the collegium to reconsider its recommendation of Karnataka high court justice Manjunath for elevation to chief justice at Punjab & Haryana high court after, according to “highly placed sources in the law ministry”, the Centre received complaints against him, reported The Hindu.

Manjunath was recommended for the post alongside the transfer of present Punjab & Haryana chief justice Sanjay Kishen Kaul to Madras high court. Justice Kaul’s transfer file was cleared, but justice Manjunath’s file was sent back to the collegium for “clarification or reconsideration”.

The nomination of senior advocate Gopal Subramanium elevation to the Supreme Court bench was derailed after a series of media leaks about Subramanium resulted in the advocate declining his nomination.

The Delhi high court hearing former Supreme Court judge Swatanter Kumar's defamation case, would wait until the Supreme Court had decided on the transfer petition by an former law student intern who alleged she was sexually harassed by him.

The Delhi high court yesterday restrained anyone from publishing or broadcasting the detailed sexual harassment allegations against Swatanter Kumar, without stating prominently that they are “mere allegations”, as a battery of counsel appeared for the former Supreme Court judge in the court yesterday.

11 Supreme Court judges to retire in next 12 months, starting with justice GS Singhvi on 11 December. He will be followed out by Justice H L Gokhale (March 9), Justice Sathasivam (April 26), Justice Misra (April 27), Justice K S Radhakrishnan (May 14), Justice A K Patnaik (June 2), Justice S S Nijjar (June 6), Justice B S Chauhan (July 1), Justice C K Prasad (July 14), Justice Lodha (September 27) and Justice Desai (October 29) [TOI]

Medical negligence killed Justice JS Verma, alleges widow Pushpa Verma has alleged that justice Verma died because of medical lapses. Former Chief Justice of India MN Venkatachaliah is now leading 34 signatories to a letter to the prime minister, urging him to look into the lapses and general regulatory standards [Hindustan Times]

Lawyer-cop violence: Lawyers thrashed a cop in the Madras HC premises yesterday over the officer’s having allegedly forcibly taken one of them into his car. The lawyers were suspects in an assault case [Deccan Chronicle]

Former chief justice of India justice Jagdish Sharan Verma passed away yesterday at Medanta Hospital Gurgaon due to multiple organ failure, three months after laying the foundation for stronger laws on crimes against women in India.

Verma was the Chief Justice of India between March 1997 and January 1998 when he delivered the landmark Visakha judgement on sexual harassment of women at the workplace. He headed the panel on amendments to criminal law that was constituted after 23 December 2012's brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi.

On 23 January his panel submitted 630-page recommendations on the amendments, with Verma calling on the government to move parliament for a tougher law in its next session.

Verma was the first person to head the News broadcasters Association’s self-regulatory body News Broadcasting Standards Authority set up on 2 October 2008, and was also the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). [NDTV/DNA/Firstpost]

As NLSIU Bangalore students are due to meet the administration on Sunday about the extension of a campus curfew after an alleged rape in October, the student bar association (SBA) has proposed legal amendments to the Justice Verma Committee on women’s safety.

Candidates’ university allocation in the 2012 Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT) would be reshuffled in June as human error may have caused mistakes and around 125 future students have submitted complaints, said Justice NN Mathur, vice chancellor of NLU Jodhpur and convenor of the 2012 CLAT, adding that the process would be carried out “judiciously”.