RK Agrawal

The Maharashtra & Goa bar council has rejected 65,000 persons who had been advocates enrolled on its state rolls, with 17 days to go before closing its voter list in the run-up to long-overdue state bar council (SBC) elections.

The Supreme Court will hear on 29 August a plea contending that the top court appointed oversight committee headed by former Chief Justice RM Lodha was going beyond its mandate of monitoring the work of Medical Council of India (MCI).

The Supreme Court will hear tomorrow (Tuesday) a batch of applications seeking that NEET for admissions to undergraduate medical courses may not be thrust on the states and they may be allowed to conduct their own entrance examinations.

The Supreme Court on Thursday said students aspiring for admission to under-graduate medical courses will have to appear in the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET).

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the new Bar Council of India’s (BCI) Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 that it had passed in January 2015.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Madan Lokur has transferred to the Delhi high court the four-year old Rs 50 crore defamation suit by the Delhi-based Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) that was filed in Silchar, Assam, which had in 2011 passed an injunction against the Delhi-based publisher of The Caravan magazine for a hard-hitting profile of its founder Arindam Chaudhuri.

Madras HC chief Agrawal talks candidly on local turmoil: Recently elevated Madras HC chief justice RK Agrawal, at his farewell, made reference to HC justice CS Karnan barging into his chamber hurling abuse. Agrawal said that while nobody had “ever raised their voice” to him in his 37 year career, Karnan was the one exception. “I need not tell you that the events of this Court are followed throughout the country. I worry not about the personal comments, but I do get pained when I hear that innuendos are being targeted at the High Court and it is becoming the subject of public ridicule,” he said [New Indian Express] He also said that many of his colleague’s on the HC’s bench desired transfer to another high court [TOI]

Gov blocks 1299 social URLs: Government asked social networking sites to block 1,299 web addresses or URLs to comply with court orders between January 2013 and January 2014, reported the [PTI]

Gujarat prisoners UIDed: Out of total 12,123 inmates in Gujarat prisons, all Indian nationals will get Aadhar cards according to a recent HC direction to the state government [TOI]

3 Bihar district judges dismissed: The Bihar government has dismissed three district judges whose dismissal was recommended by a full court of the Patna high court, after they were “found with some women” in a Nepal hotel’s police raid [TOI]

JAC controversial clause dropped: A controversial clause debarring judges from making verbal comments against any constitutional authority during open hearings was today dropped by the Cabinet in the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, reported the [Indian Express]

Madras high court chief justice RK Agrawal was elevated to the Supreme Court yesterday, reported the PTI.

His judicial career began in February 1999 at the Allahabad high court 14 years after which he was appointed acting chief justice of the Madras high court. He became chief justice of Madras HC in November last year. [Correction: Justice Agrawal's name was misspelled in an earlier version of the story. We regret the error]

The Madras high court, the Jharkhand high court, the Delhi high court and the Meghalaya high court will soon have new chief justices respectively with Madras HC acting chief justice RK Agrawal, Madras HC seniormost judge R Banumathi, Andhra Pradesh HC acting chief justice NV Ramana and seniormost Uttarakhand HC judge PC Pant’s names cleared  by the collegium, reported the Hindu.

It is the first time an Andhra Pradesh or Uttarakhand high court judge has become chief in any high court

“Justice Agrawal (60) became a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court and he became acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court on February 7 this year. A direct recruit, Justice Banumathi (58) entered the Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as district judge. She has worked as district and sessions judge in Coimbatore and Vellore. Justice Ramana (56), who hails from an agricultural family at Ponnavaram in Krishna district, has functioned as additional standing counsel for the Central government.”

Luthra & Luthra is advising ArcelorMittal on its Rs 500 crore ($103m) stake acquisition in Mumbai-based Steel company Uttam Galva Steels.