Karnataka high court
The Supreme Court Friday granted bail to former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, convicted of possessing assests disproportionate to her known sources of income.
Alongwith Jayalalithaa, her aide Sasikala Natarajan and two others have also been granted bail.
PTI tweeted: “Jaya volunteered before SC to be kept in confinement in house for 2-3 months while pressing for bail.”
Update: However, the final order by the court, which has now been published, does not specify house arrest as a condition.
An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu said that all four will be released on bail subject to the satisfaction of the condition by the trial court.
The court made it clear that Jayalalithaa and three others will complete their appeal with all relevant documents before the high court in a matter of two months and thereafter, it will ask the high court to expedite and complete the hearing on the appeal within three months.
The court told senior counsel Fali Nariman, who appeared for Jayalalithaa after Ram Jethmalani had represented her in the Karnataka high court bail plea, that it will not grant a day more to his client if they don’t complete the paperwork of their appeal before the high court with all the documents within a span of two months.
Jayalalithaa is presently in a Bangalore jail after her conviction in the disproportionate assets case. The former chief minister was awarded four-year prison term and a fine of Rs.100 crore.
She had moved to the Supreme Court Oct 9 seeking the bail.
Jayalalithaa, along with her aide Sasikala Natrajan, VK Sudhakaran and J Ilavarasi, Oct 7 were refused bail by the Karnataka high court which held that there were no grounds for granting bail.
Besides her health grounds, Jayalalithaa has invoked section 389 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking the suspension of her sentence and grant of bail till the pendency of her appeal against the trial court order.
The high court Oct 7, while declining bail to Jayalalithaa and three others, had relied on apex court orders as it ruled that putting the sentence on hold after an appeal is filed against the trial court order was not automatic. It had said that plea for bail after the conviction was different from the plea for bail while the trial was on.
It had also cited the apex court ruling that “corruption amounts to violation of human rights and leads to economic imbalances”.
In the 18 year old disproportionate assets case, the trial court in Bangalore Sep 27, convicted Jayalalithaa for possessing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income and sentenced her to four jail term and Rs. 100 crore fine.
The case against Jayalalithaa and three others related to period from 1991 to 1996 involving Rs. 66.65 crores when she became chief minister for the first time.
The Supreme Court will Friday hear the bail plea of AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa, who is at present in a Bangalore jail after her conviction in a corruption case.
The former Tamil Nadu chief minister was sentenced to four years in prison and a Rs.100 crore fine.
A bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu said the matter would be heard Friday as senior counsel Fali Nariman mentioned her matter for listing and an early hearing.
Jayalalithaa moved the apex court Oct 9 after the Karnataka high court Oct 7 turned down her bail plea, as well as of other convicts Sasikala Natrajan, VK Sudhakaran and J Ilavarasi. The court held that there were no grounds for granting them bail.
Besides health grounds, Jayalalithaa invoked Section 389 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking the suspension of her sentence and grant of bail till the pendency of her appeal against the trial court order convicting and sentencing her in the case.
The high court had relied on apex court orders as it ruled that putting the sentence on hold after an appeal is filed against the trial court order was not automatic. It said the plea for bail after the conviction was different from the plea for bail while the trial was on.
It also cited the apex court ruling that “corruption amounts to violation of human rights and leads to economic imbalances”.
A trial court in Bangalore Sep 27 convicted Jayalalithaa in the 18-year-old case for possessing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income.
The case related to period from 1991 to 1996 involving Rs.66.65 crore when she became chief minister for the first time.
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, currently lodged in Bangalore jail following her conviction in a disproportionate assets case, today moved the Supreme Court seeking bail on several grounds including her ill health.
Jayalalithaa, along with her aide Sasikala Natrajan, VK Sudhakaran and J Ilavarasi, were Tuesday refused bail by the Karnataka high court which held that there were no grounds for granting bail.
Jayalalithaa alone moved the apex court for the grant of bail. The other three would be filing their appeals in a day or two.
Besides her health grounds, Jayalalithaa has invoked section 389 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking the suspension of her sentence and grant of bail till the pendency of her appeal against the trial court order convicting her in the case and sentencing her to a four-year jail term and a fine of Rs.100 crore.
The high court Oct 7, while declining bail to Jayalalithaa and three others, had relied on apex court orders as it ruled that putting the sentence on hold after an appeal is filed against the trial court order was not automatic. It had said that plea for bail after the conviction was different from the plea for bail while the trial was on.
It had also cited the apex court ruling that “corruption amounts to violation of human rights and leads to economic imbalances”.
The Advocates Association Bangalore called for a strike to defend “prominent Judges of Karnataka”.
Four Lok Sabha Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs and others have collected signatures to impeach Karnataka high court judge Justice KL Manjunath, two months after the central government rejected the Supreme Court collegium’s recommendation to transfer him to Punjab and Haryana, reported the Indian Express.
The MPs would like the president to initiate Manjunath’s removal under Article 217 and 214(4) of the Constitution for “proved misbehaviour”, alleging “wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income”, “abused his position to amass several movable and immovable properties worth crores of rupees, disproportionate to his known sources of income”, hearing and deciding a petition in favour of a housing society where his daughter owned a plot, and “failing to declare his assets in violation of the Full Court Resolution of 1997”, according to the paper, which has seen the petition. The petition includes property registration deeds and other documents as annexes.
The Karnataka high court will introduce wireless internet in six to seven months, reported the Deccan Herald.
The advocates association had made the request for a court-based wireless internet network to the registrar general, who have now started the tendering process to find a provider of the internet service.
In March, the Bangalore Mirror had reported a tender to buy 40 iPhones for 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.
Karnataka high court Justice Ashok B Hinchigeri has struck down the part of Rule-11(1) of the Karnataka Excise Licences (General Conditions) Rules 1967 banning dance as a form of entertainment in error petition filed by a restaurant in Domlur and two professional female dancers, reported the Times of India.
Petitioners' counsel M Krishnappa argued that the ban was gender discriminatory, since most dancers were women, and an unreasonable restriction of freedom of expression and livelihood, relying on 2013 Supreme Court case State of Maharashtra & another vs Indian Hotel & Restaurants Association and others, which held that "dancing is a fundamental right and it cannot be excluded by dubbing it as res extra commercium". The court agreed over the government's objections.
NLSIU Bangalore produced a total five senior advocates this year with three now in the Karnataka high court, who were designated next to one non-NLSIU alum.
A Karnataka high court division bench, headed by DH Waghela, said after wasting 30 minutes in court trying to decipher an illegible document filed by the under secretary: "There are many lousy practices in this court. Statements are filed with errors related to typing, spelling drafting, translation... The High Court is not a tahsildar's office. Everything is thrown at the court's registry as if it is a dustbin." [The Hindu]
The Karnataka high court in Bangalore has floated a tender to buy 40 Apple iPhone 5Cs for its judges to use. While the smartphones are the lowest end phones that the US-based company makes, they still retail for around Rs 40,000 each (and ironically are not compatible with two recently-launched Android apps that can check the court's noticeboard and causelist; lower-end Android smartphones can retail for less than Rs 10,000).
The registry also floated a tender to buy 125 kiosks, which are already present in the high court, and will in future give litigants electronic information about cases in Karnataka's lower taluk courts. (via @othlaw) [Bangalore Mirror]
Bombay, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh high and subordinate courts will in real time upload their case pendency statistics and case progress reports online, with litigants slated to have access to some of the data via phone text messages. The deadline for these three states’ courts to implement the upgrade was June 2013, and for all the other HCs it is December 2013, according to a Times of India report citing sources.
This data will be on the National Judicial Data Grid (DJDG) which is part of the eCourts project, and is also supposed to assist in formulating policy to reduce case delays. The implementing agency, the National Informatics Centre, has reportedly provisioned 100 “virtual machines” at its national data centre (NDC) in New Delhi to host the flood of real-time data. Data from 17 district courts has already been uploaded by the HCs with the data centre.
The Advocates Association of Bangalore (AAB) urged Bangalore lawyers to boycott Karnataka high court (HC) judge BV Pinto.
The AAB also resolved to request the President of India not to confirm his appointment as a judge of the high court and to ask the chief justice of the Karnataka HC not to assign him any matters.
The body was protesting against Pinto’s alleged remark that the majority of lawyers in Bangalore are involved in prostitution, which was reported by the Deccan Herald on Sunday. The daily had quoted several examples allegedly narrated by Pinto during his 8 December address at a workshop in Bangalore on “harassment of neglected women”.
Pinto has written to the AAB stating that he had been misquoted by the media.
The AAB presently has no other evidence of the alleged remarks made by him, except the DH report, but the body is reportedly, “in the process of obtaining the audio transcripts of the speech made by Justice Pinto at the workshop to bolster its stand”.
Pinto is a judge of the Karnataka HC since March 2010. [India Today]
Rajasthan’s high court (HC) chief justice of two years and former NLSIU Bangalore general council chairman Arun Mishra was appointed chief justice of the Calcutta HC. Kerala HC got three new permanent judges, and Karnataka HC got one new permanent judge also.
57-year-old Mishra practised as an advocate from 1978 to 1999, in which year he was appointed an additional judge of Madhya Pradesh HC. He was appointed a permanent judge of the court in 2001.
He was transferred to Rajasthan HC in September 2010, and in November he became the chief justice.
Kerala HC’s additional judges NK Balakrishnan, V Chitambareh, and AM Shaffique were made permanent judges of the court. Karnataka HC’s additional judge Arvind Kumar became a permanent judge of the court. [Netindian]