Supreme Court
The Kerala Government’s senior counsel, Kapil Sibal, who resumed his arguments at 10.30 a.m. yesterday (August 25) in Court No.11 of the Supreme Court, completed his arguments at 2.30 p.m. As the justices Vikramajit Sen and Shiva Kirti Singh queried him about the basis of classification of four star and five star hotels for the purpose of grant of licences to the latter, Sibal asked what is so irrational about classification.
The Delhi high court on 21 August 2015 released the final merit result of candidates prepared by the selection committee after the selection process started in June 2014.
Yesterday (August 21) senior advocate Kapil Sibal continued his arguments before the Supreme Court bench hearing the challenges to the Kerala Government’s liquor policy, making it clear that he did not want to whittle down Article 14.
The Supreme Court yesterday (20 August) declined the CBI’s plea to put forward its arguments on the period of sentence for Ansal brothers - Sushil and Gopal - following their conviction for negligence in 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy which claimed 59 lives.
The Hindustan Times’ Aloke Tikku reported:
A first-of-its-kind set of statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that 2,402 people, including 29 women, were arrested in 4,192 cases under section 66A — which was struck down in March by the Supreme Court that ruled that it violated the constitutional freedom of speech.
These arrests made up nearly 60% of all arrests under the IT Act, and 40% of arrests for cyber crimes in 2014. It was also a little less than twice the number of people caught red-handed accepting bribes the same year.
“These statistics are shocking. I had assumed there may be a few hundred cases, at worst,” said Shreya Singhal, on whose petition the top court had scrapped the provision.
Justice CS Karnan of the Madras high court sought 12 weeks’ time to reply to a petition alleging “intemperate observations” made by him against the Madras high court Chief Justice SK Kaul, reported PTI.
According to the PTI, Karnan had written to the registrar general of the Supreme Court and said: “I sought funds from the Madras high court and the same is under process on the file of Administrative Committee now pending three months.”
The Madras high court had petitioned against Karnan at the Supreme Court when on 16 April, 2015 he had passed a suo motu order questioning the nomination of one of the high court judges, Justice V Dhanapalan, to the selection committee for the recruitment of 162 civil judges.
Karnan had also passed an interim order in a suo motu writ petition dated 30 April 2015 where in he had threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against his high court’s chief justice SK Kaul for allegedly interfering with his judicial order by orders on the administrative side.
The Supreme Court stayed the interim order and restrained Karnan from hearing or passing any order related to the writ petition.
Karnan had submitted to the Supreme Court that the registrar general of the Madras high court was not a party in the case but he had filed a petition before the Supreme Court and obtained an interim stay.
He submitted that his contention in that order passed by him suo motu was that produced “bogus educational certificates and on the basis of his clandestine behaviour attained the post of High Court Judge at Madras high court”.
He said that the order of the Supreme Court was “poignantly unusual” and sought to adjourn the case for 12 weeks.
Debate around the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) has often been emotive rather than dispassionate, with the discourse ranging from senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani calling it an “evil absurdity” to attorney general Mukul Rohatgi pointing to judges who habitually turned up late in court as a reason to ditch the existing collegium system to select judges.
Arguments continued by the appellants in the Kerala liquor ban case Kerala Bar Hotels Association vs State of Kerala for the second day on August 18 in the Supreme Court’s Court No. 11, with senior advocates, Harish Salve and N Venkataraman making a determined attempt to expose the State Government’s “discriminatory” liquor policy.
The PTI reported the law ministry releasing data that:
according to the latest data compiled by the Law Ministry, as on [1 August], the high courts were facing a shortage of 384 judges as against the approved strength of 1017. Thus, the 24 high courts are functioning with a working strength of 633 judges.
As on [1 May], there was a shortage of 366 judges in the high courts.
The Supreme Court is currently deliberating whether the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) is constitutional. In the meantime, new appointments to high courts have effectively been stalled.
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.
Ex-Medical Council of India (MCI) president Dr Ketan Desai is facing a Supreme Court probe into all manner of allegations into the future of the profession’s regulator.