Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA)

Although many expected Dushyant Dave to be reelected as the President, the scale of his victory has been surprising.  Many believed that it would be  a close contest between him and Shivaji Munjajirao Jadhav.  According to sources, Jadhav had spent a lot in bringing many outstation voters to Delhi to vote for him today, in order to neutralize the popularity of Dave among the voters.  

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) held the debate for the candidates for the post of President and the Hony. Secretary between 4.30 and 6.30 p.m. today at the Supreme Court Lawns.

In the wake of the bar’s stand-off with the Supreme Court bench, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) of the “committee to oversee implementation of suggestions by SCBA” and a letter by SCBA president Dushyant Dave.

After in August 2013 banning interns from its premises on Mondays and Fridays - miscellaneous days - in order to fight overcrowding, the Supreme Court now plans to ban interns from entering the “high security” zone inside the court for security reasons.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has published on its website a list of 111 lawyers with between 0 and 30 years of experience, in a bid to encourage more senior lawyers who are looking for associates or junior lawyers to contact those job seekers directly.

Politics are in full swing at the SCBA again after yesterday’s meeting.

LiveLaw reported that Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Dushyant Dave said at the general body meeting today, in which he had threatened to vote on a boycott of official functions at the Supreme Court attended by judges, that the bench had apparently listened to his demands, including for better infrastructure.

LiveLaw reported Dave saying:

We will celebrate Independence Day and Law Day functions without inviting any of the dignitaries. Today Mr. Venugopal and Mr. Kapil Sibal met me and asked whether they could mediate. I said we are not going to go to the Judges but if they could intervene it is more than welcome.

They met CJI at 10.20 am and the CJI [HL Dattu] has now constituted a Committee. This GBM is now Postponed for 6 weeks for the Committee to address our grievances. If they are not intervening, we’ll again meet and pass the Resolution. This acknowledgement is the beginning of the restoration of our dignity.

Justices Anil R Dave, JS Kehar, Dipak Misra, RF Nariman and UU Lalit will be heading the committee.

Dave had come under fire from other senior advocates such as Ram Jethmalani and PP Rao for his proposed action.

Update: Several senior Supreme Court advocates have criticised Dave’s proposal of following “Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of Non-Cooperation” for Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) members to boycott official functions that include Supreme Court judges.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) announced it would lodge its protest against last week’s alleged killing of a lawyer by wearing white ribbons, but would not be going on the national strike called by the BCI.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave has won the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) 2014 elections, with V Shekhar winning the vice-president race.

SCBA tea at 4 on SC Rules: The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) will meet at 4:10pm today to discuss the new Supreme Court Rules and some of the minor tweaks regarding A4 paper and other concessions made by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), including putting “in abeyance” two examples of AoR misconduct (absence without justifiable cause and failure to submit appearance slip), and that excess court fees will be refunded if the committee decides to undo the new raised fees. [Meeting notification] / [Background note to meeting] / [SC Rules 2013]

How Bombay profits from & criminalises homelessness: Though over 100,000 homeless persons live in Mumbai as the “backbone of the city economy”, many facets of their existence are still criminalised Mumbai Boss

Madras HC steps in for Swamy: The Madras high court has continued the stay on a Singapore defamation case against BJP politician Subramanian Swamy, which was launched by a Chennai-based consultancy firm’s Singaporean subsidiary, which objected to a press conference by Swamy. The consultancy filed the case to “arm-twist Swamy from proceeding further in his action of unearthing scams”, held Justice RS Ramanathan, and continued the stay on the Singapore proceedings [PTI]

Governor files petition against NaMo for pushing out governors: Uttarakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi has filed a writ under Articles 155 and 156(1) of the Constitution against Narendra Modi and his government for pushing him (and other governors) out of their constitutional positions. He will be arguing before a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) RM Lodha, that he could only be sacked by the president and with valid cause because a governor is not an employee of the Union government. [Indian Express]

CBI court grants A Raja, business bigwigs bail in 2G-Kalaignar TV case: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court has granted Rs 5 lakh bail to politicians A Raja, Kanimozhi, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables directors Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Kalaignar TV MD Sharad Kumar, Bollywood producer Karim Morani and P Amirtham in a money laundering case related to the 2G scam. The case alleges that Rs 200 crore were paid to Kalaignar TV, owned by the DMK party, to grant telecom licences to companies of the DB Group [Indian Express]

Death of planning commission, long live NDRC? What would the new planning commission mooted by Narendra Modi look like, experts speculate in [Mint]

BCI chairman should sit on JAC, says Rajiv Khosla: Delhi High Court Bar Association’s (DHCBA) president Rajiv Kohosla has said he wants the Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman to have a seat on the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), several days after parliament passed the NJAC Act.

SC PIL looks into coaching centres: Centre tells Supreme Court that it can’t regulate private entrance coaching centres for engineering, medicine or other subjects, in a PIL filed by the CPI(M) party’s student wing [The Hindu]

Court orders police to free Manipur hunger striker again: Manipur East sessions court released the world’s longest hunger striker Irom Sharmila from jail for what her captors allege is an attempt to commit suicide by hunger strike. However, in the last 13 years and nine months, she had often been released by the courts and arrested again by the police for continuing with her hunger strike against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, reported [Scroll]

SC sweeps aside SCBA petition vs new SC Rules: The Supreme Court has refused the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) plea before it to amend the new Supreme Court Rules 2013 that were set to come into force on 19 August, which were allegedly introduced without consultation with the bar [The Hindu]

Bus accident victim gets Rs 12 lakh compensation in tribunal: The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) in UP awarded the damages against the bus driver, DTC and the insurance company for causing 60 per cent disability in the plaintiff’s left leg [PTI]

Faizan Mustafa wins something: Nalsar Hyderabad vice chancellor wins South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) award for best law teacher that was decided by a “high-powered jury”, reported [The Hindu] and others. It will be conferred by the law minister in future.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has warned Supreme Court interns that if they use the court’s main canteen between 12:30pm and 2:30pm, they may face “the embarrassment of being asked to leave”, as those hours at the canteen are reserved for the exclusive use of SCBA members.

In a notice published on the SC website today, SCBA secretary Aishwarya Bhati stated:

“It has been observed that Interns are occupying the main Canteen especially during lunch hours leading to server inconvenience [sic] being caused to the Members and even Senior Members.

Members are requested to kindly instruct Counsel/persons interning with them not to occupy the canteen especially during lunch hours, as the main Plaza Canteen and cafeteria is for the exclusive use of Members.

We have specifically directed the canteen contractor not to serve any non-lawyers between 12:30pm and 2:30pm.

Interns are also requested to scrupulously comply with this notice to save themselves of the embarrassment of being asked to leave.”