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Supreme Court

28 November 2011

Exclusive: 71 advocates out of around 400 test takers have passed the June 2011 advocates-on-record (AOR) examination, making them part of the oligopoly of at least 1,000 advocates who can file petitions before the Supreme Court. However, the Delhi High Court has now taken up a writ challenging the AOR system and has approached the apex court for guidance.

28 November 2011

More than two thirds of cases pending in the Supreme Court – nearly 40,000 – were stuck not because of judges but due to procedural delays, including unpaid fees, unserved notice or documents not filed by counsel, according to detailed data released for the first time by the court as a result of its exercise in cataloguing court delays.

23 November 2011

SLP's first day at school: no cakewalk Earlier this week, Court Witness thought he impressed his client by predicting the bench who would hear his treasured special leave petition (SLP), which learned to walk last week after having been nurtured since birth by CW.

CW and client then conspired to put together a winning team of eminent senior counsel and junior senior counsel (from the same state as the judge) to make sure the SLP had a good start to its life. Now the SLP is ready to go to school… Hopefully a good one.

21 November 2011

The Miracle of SLP Life In last month’s column, Court Witness described the labour pains of giving birth to a special leave petition (SLP). But after filing successfully with the goblin-like clerk Bakshi-ji the real work of raising an SLP was apparently only just beginning – now it needs to start taking its first steps...

11 November 2011

image The Supreme Court saw the backlog of cases increase by another 80 in a slow holiday-ridden October where almost 3,000 fewer cases were filed than in the previous month. However, in more positive news the apex court has managed to continue its now four-month record of getting cases older than one year off its books.

18 October 2011

image “Follow me,” said the man with the purple hair as he walked through the open doors into the corridor awash in gloomy, fluorescent light.

12 October 2011

image Exclusive: Supreme Court journalists and the bench are understood to have agreed a compromise after the spat over the notification of rules in late August that would have effectively excluded 80 per cent of current correspondents from the apex court.

10 October 2011

image Former Delhi High Court chief justice Dipak Misra and Kerala High Court chief justice Jasti Chelameswar have been sworn into the apex court today.

05 October 2011

September End 2011 Supreme Court pendency figures: Things are looking up but not in a good wayBad news: in September 2011 the Supreme Court booked an apparent net deficit of more than 1,000 cases in its monthly pendency clearance efforts. If this rate were kept up, pending cases could double in less than five years.

05 October 2011

image Justice Markandey Katju, who retired from the Supreme Court just over two weeks ago, is set to become chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI).

04 October 2011

image Congress Party spokesperson and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi hosted a dinner for the upper echelons of the legal fraternity in Delhi on Saturday night. Found wining and dining at the seemingly non-descript but ultra-high profile occasion were judges of the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, senior advocates and well-connected lawyers from the Delhi-Bombay Bar.

Read on to find out what happened.

26 September 2011

Legally India newsletterLast Monday's buzz was all about Justice Markandey Katju’s retirement, one of India’s most well-known and divisive apex court judges.

26 September 2011

image When an uncharacteristically subdued Katju rose from the Bench in the Chief’s Court for the last time on Monday, one half of the bar and the media sighed wistfully and the other half sighed with relief. One lot would miss the mayhem, humour, and quotability of the average Katju day in the Supreme Court. The other lot would be grateful for never having to go through the mayhem, humour, and quotability of the average Katju day in the Supreme Court.

16 September 2011

image Click on through for a detailed analysis of the Supreme Court’s performance in clearing its backlog in August 2011.

16 September 2011

image Swearing in ceremonies, such as Tuesday’s induction of three newcomers, are those rare occasions when every single judge of the Supreme Court can be found in one place. It is also when you realise for the first time that the metaphorically larger than life Justice Markandeya Katju is, in fact, actually larger than life. He stands a full head taller than almost every other judge and dominates proceedings without having to say a word.

12 September 2011

Chief justices of Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Kerala high courts elevated to Supreme Court (SC) along with Bombay High Court’s Ranjana Desai who will be sworn in tomorrow as the second woman SC justice serving the apex court currently [The Hindu]

IDIA diversity initiative second free national aptitude test for low-income law aspirants now open, expects 1,500 [IDIA]

Uttar Pradesh State Legal Services Authority and National Legal Services Authority organise training for 15,000 lawyers and launch free legal aid cell in Amity University [TOI]

P H Parekh, Pinky Anand, P P Rao amongst other Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) members attend international conference in Pakistan, discuss bilateral issues and judiciary [The Nation]

30 August 2011

image Court Witness: In Facebook terms the relationship status of the nation’s higher judiciary and the press would say “It’s complicated”.

18 August 2011

Delhi-Supreme-Court We bump into each other in the long corridor adjacent to Court 5. It’s cruel, I know I shouldn’t be asking but then I do anyway. “Got any briefs yet?” I see the furrows on his forehead. Anxiety. I know what it feels like. Only two minutes earlier, after some small talk he had confided in me: “I’m independent these days.”

11 August 2011

Exclusive: Click through for more stats, data and an explanation of The Pendency Project.