law ministry

The law ministry has invited applications from the public to fill its post of secretary, moving away from its usual process of only selecting from among officers of the Indian Legal Services, reported the Sunday Guardian.

Lawyers who have practised for at least 25 years in the Supreme Court and high courts, and have their name on at least 25 recorded judgments, or lawyers who have at least 25 years of work experience working in private law firms or public sector organisations, are eligible to apply.

Lawyers up to 57 years of age are eligible to apply. The superannuation age for the post of secretary in the ministry is 60 years and the basic pay is Rs 80,000.

Hat tip @amlanweb for pointing us to the news.

The Modi government’s law ministry wants the Supreme Court to disclose greater details about itself, including court-wise pendency of civil as well as criminal cases, number of adjournments in each particular case and sanctioned and working strength of judges to increase transparency in the legal system reported The Times of India.

The suggestions, given with an intent to increase transparency in the appraisal of Judges, were given to the e-court committee of the Supreme Court that operates the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

The government is considering conducting an independent study using the data available through the NJDG to find out the cause of huge pendency in courts; at last count, the pendency in subordinate courts was estimated to be more than 2.65 crore while the total pendency was around 3.10 crore, including those in the SC and HCs.

The government’s demand comes before the Supreme Court is set to announce its verdict on the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) on which arguments were heard in detail in July this year. Transparency in appointment of judges has been one of the arguments used in favour of the NJAC

The Department of Justice in the law ministry has begun drafting a bill to rename the Bombay and Madras high courts to Mumbai and Chennai high courts, respectively, reported the PTI.

The two high courts were established under the Indian High Court Act, 1861 alongside the Calcutta high court, and have so far resisted attempts to be renamed in line with their hosting cities.

All 15,000 subordinate courts will have their judgments digitised, with new judgments to be uploaded by 6pm on the day that it is handed down, law ministry sources told the Times of India.

The Bar Council of India (BCI), the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa (BCMG), and the union law ministry were yesterday served with a legal notice asking that the bar councils be suspended for failing in their duty to update a “defective” law syllabus in law schools across the country.

The law ministry approved Rs 80 crore for recruitment of 2,000 new subordinate judges across the country, to be deployed in fast track courts. The ministry had discontinued the fast-track courts scheme in March 2011 after running it for 11 years.

On 9 January the law ministry wrote to all state governments asking them to increase the strength of the subordinate judiciary from 18,000 to 20,000.

Currently, there are more than 3.2 crore pending cases in Indian courts. Of this, at least 2.76 crore cases are pending in subordinate courts while 44 lakh are pending in various high courts. [TOI]

The Law Ministry’s National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms comprising of the law minister and bureaucrats as members of the advisory and governing councils has received the government’s approval with an estimated Rs 7,000 crore ($1.56bn) earmarked for lower judiciary infrastructure development over five years.

Law minister Veerappa Moily admitted that the entry of foreign firms could be good for business if local lawyers were allowed to build capacity before an “onslaught from the rest of the world” and that he had seen 80 national law school graduates prosper at London firms, in a revealing interview with the Mint paper today, adding that the door was still open to transfer the Chennai writ petition against foreign firms to the Supreme Court.

Arguing that legal education should be taken away from the BCI, he denied that the Bar Council of India (BCI) should feel threatened by the Legal Practitioner’s Bill.

Update 18:20: Law minister Veerappa Moily has survived cabinet reshuffle and retained his post after intense but apparently unfounded media speculation that he would be ousted.

The law ministry may ask solicitor general and BCI chairman Gopal Subramanium to resign, to forestall a conflict of interest between the solicitor general and the ministry’s plans for legal education reform, reported the Indian Express.

The government has allocated Rs 1,470 crore ($323m) to “modernise judicial infrastructure” and “improve judicial infrastructure”, according to a law ministry press release.

The proposed Legal Services Board has elicited mixed reactions from legal practitioners on CNBC-TV18’s The Firm last week, with Rajiv Luthra noting that state bar councils do need tighter regulation in some manner, Lalit Bhasin and Karan Bhosale arguing that the existing regulators can already do the job and MP Bharucha predicting that it could facilitate the entry of foreign law firms.

The law ministry has proposed a new statute that partly supplant the functions of the Bar Council of India (BCI) with a new super-regulator called the Legal Services Board that will oversee the regulation of legal practice, client service, legal education and make it obligatory for lawyers to provide free legal aid.

The Law Ministry has issued two statements on behalf of the Bar Council of India (BCI) that the regulatory body “has decided not to permit foreign lawyers into India” but was subject to “rational scrutiny”, despite the BCI not having discussed the issue at the BCI’s three previous meets.

The law ministry is considering setting up a law firm regulator with a code of conduct to govern law firms in order to end the “free environment without any regulations”, reported the Hindustan Times.