Madras high court

The Union Cabinet at its meeting in Delhi today with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the chair approved the introduction of a bill to rename high courts named after cities they are located in, consequent to cities' name being changed.

The Tamil novel, "Madhorubagan", authored by Perumal Murugan, and translated into English as "One Part Woman" which received literary awards, was alleged to narrate non-existent conventions that sought to tarnish the image of populace of the area.

Five Madras high court judges met yesterday after the high court’s chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul called for the next course of action on the controversial disciplinary rules framed by the high court which have caused the state bar to abstain from courts in protest.

>Madras high court Advocates Association today [27 June] decided to abstain indefinitely from all courts and tribunals from tomorrow [28 June] demanding unconditional withdrawal of recently amended rules to the Advocates Act, which among others provided for disciplinary action against erring lawyers.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) asked the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to identify lawyers in the state boycotting courts to protest the proposed disciplinary amendments to Advocates Act rules, and to submit a list of such lawyers to the BCI by today, reported the PTI.

Justice Amitava Roy of the Supreme Court's vacation bench asked counsel for the respondent in a motor accident insurance claim case, whether he knew the time of the day. The question left his colleague on the bench, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, as well as the counsel, surprised and trying to figure out where he was going.

The Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) registered its protest against the Advocates Act amendment that enables the high court to debar errant lawyers, by leading a 5000 person rally, reported the Deccan Chronicle.

The Election Commission's two identical orders, postponing assembly elections in the two constituencies of Thanjavur and Aravakurichi in Tamil Nadu, makes for some strange reading.

In a petition in which the Madras high court directed the Bar Council of India (BCI) not to enrol lawyers who were in the civil service, and to conduct more stringent pre-enrolment checks of law graduates older than 40, to ensure they went to a proper law college rather than having obtained a mail order degree.

In line with tradition, Kalaiyarasan, Gokuldas, Bharathidasan, S Sunder, MV Muralidharan and D Krishnakumar today signed in the Devanagari script in court to become Madras high court judges, high court sources told The Hindu, after Madras high court chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and the Supreme Court collegium cleared the names.

Bar Council of India (BCI) member S Prabhakaran and 11 other Madras advocates are now senior advocates in the Madras high court, reported the Times of India.

NL Rajah, R Vaigai, Sathish Parasaran, A Sirajudeen, Isaac Mohanlal, R Singaravelan, TP Manoharan, Veera Kathiravan, Karthik, Anand and Xavier Arulraj are the other new senior advocates part of this round of designations in the high court.

This is the first batch of senior designations affected under the new senior designation norms that exist since 2013. Before 2013, advocates could simply nominate themselves for their own designation and if two-thirds of the full court of judges voted in favour of such nomination, the designation was complete. Under the new norms, only advocates who are invited to nominated themselves for the designation, are eligible to apply.

Additionally, only those advocates can be invited who have at least Rs 7 lakh as income tax returns for three previous financial years and publication of a minimum of 15 judgments in reputed law journals.

After this round, the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will have 122 senior advocates on its rolls, according to a statement by the state bar council’s chairman D Selvam to TOI

The Supreme Court collegium is learnt to have stood by its decision to transfer Delhi HC judge Rajiv Shakdher after the law ministry sent back his case for reconsideration, said several persons aware of the outcome. The law ministry had asked for a review after lawyers protested against Shakdher’s transfer.

reported the The Economic Times.

As first reported by Legally India on 24 February, several senior counsel had written to the Supreme Court collegium to reverse its order, in light of the respect he enjoyed at the bar.

The ET wrote in its report that five senior counsel had protested in writing about the transfer because “they objected to his being transferred along with [Madras high court Justice CS] Karnan, whose case was regarded in a different light”.

Former Madras high court judge Justice CS Karnan, who had objected to his transfer to the Calcutta high court earlier this month by vowing to pass a suo motu order staying his own transfer, with the Supreme Court then effectively stripping him of judicial powers, has struck conciliatory tones.

In a two-page letter sent to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur, with whom he met on 16 February, the two apex court judges who’d ruled against him, justices JS Khehar and R Banumathi, and several politicians, according to a number of reports, he wrote:

Justice Karnan admitted that the order was a result of his “mental frustration resulting in the loss of his mental balance”. He cited two incidents that had actually disturbed him and resulted in passing of the judicial order. “One was an incident that occurred during a marriage reception when a brother judge kicked me and later apologised. In another incident, the same judge allegedly removed the armchair reservation slip on my chair, threw it on the ground and trampled it with his feet. The same was noticed by a brother and sister judge who silently ridiculed me.”

“Now I am constrained to point out these past unfortunate happenings only because I maintain a very social outlook in the mainstream of the society and owe my allegiance to the high reputation of our prestigious court.”

“Hereinafter, I will still continue to foster a harmonious attitude to one and all, and will appreciate your kind reciprocation and oblige.”

The Supreme Court has rendered Madras high court judge Justice CS Karnan judicially impotent, ordering that he should not be allocated any cases and even if he did pass any orders suo motu, those should be ignored

The Supreme Court collegium has transferred four Delhi high court judges to other high courts.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday stayed its earlier order directing the Tamil Nadu government to enforce dress code for devotees visiting temples under its control.

The high court bench issued an interim stay on an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government against the November 2015 single-judge order to implement the dress code.

The high court in November 2015 had ordered wearing of “decent clothes” at temples.

According to these orders, male devotees are to wear shirts, dhotis or trousers while females are expected to wear sarees and other traditional attire.

Wearing of ‘lungis’ (wraparounds), bermudas, jeans and tight leggings are banned.

Madurai advocates association president W Peter Ramesh Kumar was asked to answer to contempt charges by the Madras high court after the high court felt his attitude was “one of confrontation”, reported PTI.

Ramesh is the president of the Madurai Bench High Court Advocates Association and he was one of 14 lawyers suspended by the Bar Council of India for violence.

A division bench at the Madras high court’s Madurai bench - justices V Ramasubramanian and N Kirubakaran - initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against him, asked him to file his reply by 19 January and rejected his request for eight weeks time to reply.