Supreme Court

Several months ago a born-and-bred Mumbaikar advocate returned all of his Bombay high court briefs and literally drove his BMW to make Delhi and the Supreme Court his new home. Why?

Supreme Court justices SJ Mukhopadhaya and NV Ramana have set aside declined to interfere with a Calcutta high court order that declined to cancel the bail of former NUJS Kolkata assistant registrar Siddhartha Guha, who is accused of having sexually harassed another staff member at the college, reported the Times of India.

Correction: We understand that the Times of India story was erreneous and we regret republishing their report. The Supreme Court did not interfere with the lower court's order, but said on 11 November:

There is nothing on record to suggest that the petitioner brought to the notice of the High Court that the accused/Respondent No.2-Siddhartha Guha who has been granted bail is threatening the petitioner. In that view of the matter, we are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order refusing cancellation of bail but give liberty to the petitioner to move before the High Court for cancellation of bail, in case of threat given by accused-respondent No.2. If any such petition is filed for cancellation of bail on the ground of threat given by the accused respondent NO.2, the Court may consider the same uninfluenced by the earlier order passed by the High Court or this Court.

The alleged victim, represented by advocates Siddharth Dave and Phiroze Edulji, alleged before the apex court that Guha had threatened her with an acid attack, as set out in a police complaint. The Supreme Court told her to approach the high court with evidence of why Guha should not be granted bail.

New rules prohibit an advocate from starting to practise in the Supreme Court unless they have practiced for at least two years in a trial court and three years in a HC.

"The judges are serious about rendering speedy justice to litigants. In most cases, the law has already been succinctly laid down and does not require further arguments to delay a verdict. Those cases need to be decided fast with crisp judgments focusing only on facts in the backdrop of the already laid down law,” a Supreme Court source told the Times of India.

The paper reported that SC judges have been “informally circulating” the message to keep judgments short and sweet under the new Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu, who is also (as pretty much every other CJI before him) trying to find ways of tackling the pendency problem.