Kapil Sibal

TRAI-ing new approach: On enforcing the 12 min/hour advertising cap on TV, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India head Rahul Khullar says: “I don’t have to win a fucking election. I am a regulator, I am answerable to Parliament, my job is to enforce the law. Once the regulation is issued, it is law. The telecom guys know this. The broadcasting guys are learning it late.” [Mint]

Facebook arrest: Supreme Court refuses to allow a blanket ban on arrest under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act 2000 for posting content on social networking sites, but reasserts that such arrests can only be made after permission from senior police officials [Hindu]

NLU targets: National law universities need a more rigorous curriculum, greater focus on post graduate courses, greater faculty focus on research, “higher benchmarks”, consultative regulation from the BCI, and integration of inter-disciplinary subjects argues the Hindu Businessline [HBL]

SEBI’s grey options: There are a number of options available to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) between the two extremities of being ‘reactive’ or ‘proactive’ when dealing with capital market frauds, argues former SEBI executive director Sandeep Parekh [BS]

Sibal to-do: A Delhi-based lawyer chalks a to-do list for new law minister Kapil Sibal: A constitutional amendment to change the collegium system, appointment of law officers by the judiciary instead of the executive, amendment of economic laws, and reduction in case pendency [Hindu]

Time for a raise? HC judges request the CJI to increase their Rs 80,000 per month salary to an amount greater than what state chief secretaries get. They also want double the free electricity units at their residences, and to increase their retirement age from 62 to 65 [TOI]

Sibal for conciliation: Vodafone can resolve the issue of its Rs 11,200 crore tax liability in India by conciliation with the finance ministry, says new law minister Kapil Sibal. Sibal overturned his predecessor Ashwini Kumar’s decision disallowing the conciliation because it was illegal [NDTV]

NUJS internships: NUJS Kolkata signed a 5-year MoU with the department of consumer affairs for capacity building of the department by helping it with research on legal and procedural governing provisions. NUJS students will get to intern with the department and get experience of conducting court cases [TOI]

Mute trials: SC lambasts trial courts for flouting Section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by granting too many adjournments in criminal cases instead of proceeding on a day-to-day basis after witness examination starts. “A trial judge cannot be a mute spectator to the trial being controlled by the parties,” said a bench of justices Dipak Misra and KS Radhakrishan [TOI]

Lawyers v police: A Madras HC lawyer asked the HC to direct the city police to take action against the Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) for harassing the lawyer by allegedly creating a scene outside his office for no reason [NIE]

Writ extorts 500 Rupee JEE key: The CBSE has today notified that it will provide the JEE-mains answer key to interested candidates for Rs 500. Legally India had yesterday reported the listing of a writ in the Delhi HC against the CBSE, by a JEE candidate, to force the CBSE to disclose the answer key [CBSE Notification]

Sex and the Judiciary: Convicting a factory worker for the murder of a woman, a Kancheepuram district judge wrote in his order: “A man and woman, if left alone, will always go for sexual intercourse”. The Madras HC acquitted the accused and observed: “Mere suspicion based on surmises and conjunctures will not take the place of proof.” [TOI]

SC cuts NE(E)T of suffering: The Supreme Court yesterday lifted its 13 December embargo on government and private medical colleges, allowing them to declare the results of the entrance exams conducted by them independently for the 2013-14 batch of MBBS, BDS and PG candidates. The SC’s interim order came in a stand-off between the colleges and the Medical Council of India, over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) [Express]

Sibal on the collegium: Telecom minister Kapil Sibal, who was on Saturday given the additional charge of the law ministry, told journalists: “The collegium system of appointment is opaque and non-transparent. But changes cannot be made overnight. There are both short-term and long-term…. Under the short-term process, we will have proper consultation with the judges on how to go about the changes.” [Telegraph India]

Chicken came first or parrot?: Taking a dig at the Supreme Court for its “caged parrot” remark about the CBI and its independence, Congress reader Digvijay Singh told reporters: “I will request you to try and get access to all those who are calling our institutions chicken or parrot. You should take reaction from them also.” [PTI]

Dutt jail-holiday ends: The Supreme Court today refused to hear the plea of two film producers seeking an extension in Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt’s date of surrendering to jail authorities to complete his three-and-a-half year jail term under the Arms Act. 1993-blasts accused Dutt has to surrender on Thursday, after the SC earlier already granted him a four-week extension [PTI]

Not your business, TRAI: News organizations have opposed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) attempt to frame guidelines for the print and electronic media. They have suggested that the TRAI should instead work toward “orderly growth in the sector” together with the CCI, the SEBI and the MRTP Commission [BS]

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal is the fifth law minister in less than five years after Ashwini Kumar resigned from the post on Friday.

More drug wars: Global pharma major Merck and domestic co-plaintiff Sun Pharma filed in Delhi HC claiming Glenmark violated two of its diabetes drug patents (Januvia and Janumet) [Financial Times]

Crown jewel auction: Tata's Indian Hotels files injunction to stop auction of its leased Taj Mahal Hotel Delhi [Economic Times]

Stashed cop: A retired police inspector hires senior advocates Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi, and Uday Lalit – with a combined fee of Rs 15 lakh per appearance – to defend him in the Supreme Court against the charge of falsely implicating Provogue owner Salil Chaturvedi in a 2005 drug possession case [Pune Mirror]

Karnataka judactivism: Karnataka high court directs filling of vacancies in the state’s consumer forums and takes suo moto cognizance, based on a newspaper report, of the non-implementation of the Right to Education Act in the state – leaving 54,000 children still out of school [New IE]

Shah Commission: Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium makes a presentation in Ahmedabad before Justice MB Shah’s illegal mine probe commission, pledging mine owner’s Rs 100 crore trust fund for the socio-economic development of people living in mining districts [New IE]

Sibal gooses SC: Kapil Sibal said that the Supreme Court has damaged the Indian telecoms sector, ensuring that the "golden goose will not lay golden egg[s] again for a little while" [ZDNet]

Bring home the beacon: Restrict beacons and sirens on cars to select few (including CJI and high court CJs, but not SC judges), say SC Justices GS Singhvi and Kurien Joseph, aided by Harish Salve [Telegraph India]

Public Display Litigation: Mumbai court acquits man for lack of evidence of “indecent behaviour in public”, after Bandra police fined him Rs 1,200 for kissing a girl on the cheek while seeing her off on the road. The amount has been refunded and the man plans to lodge a public interest litigation on the issue next [Express]

Communications minister Kapil Sibal has instructed the Information Technology (IT) department to appeal against the 14 Feb Gwalior court order blocking almost 80 web pages critical of the Arindam Chaudhary owned management institute IIPM.

Sources told the Times of India that the department of telecommunication was not made a party to the order asking the Director General of Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In) to block the allegedly defamatory web pages. [TOI]

The order blocking the web pages, including one with a University Grants Commission (UGC) public notice declaring that IIPM was not a university, and others such as a tweet publishing IIPM’s financials as obtained from the registrar of companies, invited wide online-commentator outrage. [Read Medianama’s compilation of daily updates over the last week]

Exclusive: NLSIU Bangalore has launched a host of new construction in its academic block, hostels, and basketball courts while NLU Delhi has decided to renegotiate the pay of its foreign-educated faculty, after both law schools were sanctioned close to Rs 8 crore by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in November 2012.

A similar grant was also extended by the UGC to the other 12 national law schools (NLU) late last year under the eleventh five-year plan, after their vice chancellors (VC) lobbied aggressively against excluding the law schools from central funding.

The Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 (The Rules) continue to breathe after the statutory motion to annul them moved by member of parliament (MP) from Kerala P Rajeeve was defeated by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha yesterday.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal was heard on Rajya Sabha TV saying: “We are more liberal than US and Europe but let’s not cut our arms.”

Breaking: The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has carried out an undercover investigation into the “chilling effects” of new information technology laws on freedom of expression online, with six out of seven major websites removing innocent content online without proper investigation, creating a “private censorship regime”.

Law minister Veerappa Moily has weighed into the debate over who should regulate legal education, opposing Human Resources Development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal's wide-ranging plans to take control of the sector.

The Times of India reported yesterday that Moily said: "So far as introducing an academic course is concerned, we have no objection. But when it comes to setting standards of legal education, the law ministry has to consider. That is the domain of the law ministry."

This follows the Bar Council of India (BCI) disapproving of the HRD's move to take control of legal education.

In Moily the BCI will have found a powerful political ally to retain its current remit.