Kapil Sibal

Ex-prime minister Manmohan Singh today moved the Supreme Court against the order of a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) trial court that summoned him as an accused alongside industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla in the coal scam case, reported NDTV and others.

Senior counsel KTS Tulsi and Kapil Sibal will represent Singh, reported India Today.

The CBI had filed a closure report telling the court there was no prosecutable evidence against Singh.

The Hindu reported:

The Supreme Court on Monday granted three more months to the Sahara group to sell its offshore properties to raise the Rs 10,000 crore required to secure the release of its chief Subrata Roy on bail. The court said it was satisfied with the company’s latest proposal and would allow it to proceed further.

“Prima facie, we are satisfied that the proposal appears to be a serious effort and we allow it to pursue it further,” said the court.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal appeared for Roy, and had secured a “final chance" for the Sahara boss to raise the money by selling the company’s properties. Roy has been jailed for one year now for contempt by violating an order from SEBI to repay investors.

Saurav Datta presents the case against Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, as well as their defence, and looks into the case law and arguments that’ll lie before the Supreme Court tomorrow.

"Does this case fall in the 93 per cent or in the remaining 7 per cent?” Supreme Court Justice Ranjan Gogoi has begun asking the bar increasingly often, reported Utkarsh Anand in the Indian Express.

While Kapil Sibal reportedly did not get the reference, Gogoi was referring to recent research by advocate KV Dhananjay and others, that revealed that only 7 per cent of cases the Supreme Court heard had a constitutional dimension to them, as reported by Legally India earlier this month.

In the petition against the Kerala government shutting down 730 bars, Supreme Court Justice Anil Dave said: “There is no logic. What do you mean sub-standard [bars should be shut]? I am a teetotaller, but even I see no logic... how do you distinguish here?”

The policy that is set to come into force on 12 September, bans liquor sales at 730 supposedly “sub-standard” bars but not at toddy shops and five star hotels, complained a number of senior advocates who appeared for Kerala bar owners, reported The Hindu.

“What are they trying to attain? Prohibition? Five-star hotels, toddy shops will all function... only certain establishments will be cut off,” argued senior advocate Aryama Sundaram, while senior counsel Rajiv Dhavan argued that bars’ licences should not be cancelled prematurely and should continue in their normal duration, until 31 March 2015.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal countered for the state that selling liquor was not a fundamental right, that the ban was a policy decision, and that bar licences could be cancelled any time by the state. The Supreme Court will hear further arguments tomorrow.

Senior counsel and ex-law minister Kapil Sibal, won a Delhi high court stay for the Gandhis and other Congress politicians over a summons obtained by BJP politician Subramanian Swamy in a magistrate’s court in June.

In the case revolving around an alleged loan by the Congress party, which Swamy claimed it used to illegally take control of the publisher of the National Herald, Sibal argued before the Delhi high court the loan was made for the benefit of the company, that there were 20 factual errors in the lower court’s order, and that no victims harmed by the alleged scam had come forward to make a complaint, reported Mint. The matter was adjourned until 13 August.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley claimed that no judge would "lend himself" to the " "political and malafide" exercise of investigating charges that India's possible future leader, Narendra Modi, and his Gujarat government had arranged to have a woman in his home state followed and "snooped" on illegally.

Kapil Sibal today replied saying a judge would be found by 16 May but that despite documentary evidence against Modi, the committee would be stalled by Modi as had happened in the Nanavati-Shah commission that was appointed to investigate the 2002 Gujarat riots but still hasn't prepared a final report. [PTI]

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]