Supreme Court Rules

The NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, today declined to name the whistleblower who disclosed the alleged interference by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ranjit Sinha in the 2G investigation and prosecution after meeting the accused in the 2G and coal scam cases.

The CPIL, in its affidavit filed Thursday, said that its governing body in its meeting Sep 17 decided not to reveal the identity of the whistleblower who took off the lid on the alleged interference in 2G matters by the CBI director. The NGO’s governing body consists of advocates Anil Divan, Colin Gonsalves, Shanti Bhushan, Kamal Jaswal, Kamini Jaiswal and Prashant Bhushan, reported *Mint].

The NGO said this in response to the Sep 15 order of justices HL Dattu and SA BobdeRead more at: , who, citing the Supreme Court Rules 2013, had asked the NGO to disclose the identity of the whistleblower who gave it the information on the basis of which the averments and allegations were made against the CBI director. [Source]

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]

The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday admitted two petitions that challenge the prevalence of the advocate-on-record (AOR) designation in the SC, a year after the High Court (HC) of Delhi dismissed the challenge.