RK Anand
Former senior advocate RK Anand offers free legal service to the families of rioters arrested during the Azad Maidan riots, as reported by several websites and a staff reporter at the Hindu.
The renowned criminal lawyer had, ten days ago, submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court undertaking to provide only free legal aid and voluntarily take up pro bono matters for a year in order to be cleared of charges under the Contempt of Courts Act. [The Hindu]
Exclusive: Former senior advocate RK Anand, whom the Supreme Court had found guilty of contempt of court for influencing a key witness in the BMW-hit-and-run case, filed an affidavit in the court undertaking to donate Rs 21 lakh to the Bar Council of India (BCI) and take on only pro bono legal work and free legal aid for one year.
The Supreme Court directs former senior advocate and high-profile criminal lawyer RK Anand to donate Rs 20 lakh to the Bar Council of India for developing the library or computer centre of a lower tier college, and also take up only free legal aid cases for one year.
The court presented this course as an alternative to the rulebook sentence of six months of imprisonment for his conviction for contempt of court. It asked him to choose between the two options within a week.
Anand was convicted in 2009 for attempting to influence a key witness in the BMW hit-and-run case. He was then stripped of his senior designation.
He had sought permission from the SC to argue before it and had submitted that since the 2008 Delhi HC ban on his practice he had been providing only free legal aid.
A bench of Justices G S Singhvi, Aftab Alam and C K Prasad said: “If we write an order, no useful purpose will be served by putting this gentleman to this kind of punishment. It would be beneficial if the knowledge, skill and practice of this man is put to better use.” [TOI]
Mint column: Lawyers should be the noble and independent servants of justice, the courts and their clients. Finding lawyers who do all three of those things is the exception, rather than the rule.
For starters, Indian clients have very little, if any, recourse against lawyers who give them bad, negligent or harmful legal advice, as explained in today’s Mint feature. But that is just the tip of lawyers’ legal immunity iceberg.
The Delhi High Court has stayed the release of the book “Close Encounters with Niira Radia” written by controversial former senior counsel R K Anand after Radia filed for defamation and a mandatory and permanent injunction.
The Supreme Court (SC) has rejected as incomplete former senior counsel R K Anand’s apology given in response to a show-cause notice in contempt of court proceedings over NDTV’s BMW hit-and-run case sting operation.
Luthra & Luthra has advised long-standing client NDTV in the Supreme Court against allegations that its so-called BMW hit-and-run case sting operation was in contempt of court and amounted to "trial by media".