TS Thakur

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur’s cricket team – the CJI XI – won in its face-off against the Supreme Court Bar Association’s (SCBA) team, by 35 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla Delhi cricket stadium yesterday, reported the Times of India.

The Bombay high court’s justice RV Ghughe, batting 53 runs, was the top-scorer among the judges of the various high courts and the Supreme Court who had come together in the CJI’s XI in their annual cricket match with members of the bar part of the SCBA XI

The CJI XI made 195 runs in 20 overs, while the SCBA XI made 160. The CJI XI had won the toss and chose to bat first.

SCBA vice president Ajit Kumar Sinha told TOI that the purpose of the annual match is to “reduce the tensions between the bar and the bench and to have fun together”.

India cannot achieve its economic growth without a robust judiciary overseen by an adequate number of judges, Chief Justice TS Thakur said on Sunday.

After not doing so yesterday despite everyone’s expectations to the contrary, the Supreme Court today asked the central government to approach its secretary general for listing its petition challenging the Uttarakhand High Court order setting aside president’s rule in the state.

An apex court bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice SK Singh asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to approach the court’s secretary general after he mentioned the central government’s plea challenging high court judgement.

The court said thereafter, Chief Justice TS Thakur will decide which bench will hear the matter.

It is likely that the central government’s plea may come up for hearing later in the day or on Monday.

In a major blow to the BJP-led central government, the Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday set aside president’s rule in the state, restoring Congress leader Harish Rawat as the chief minister, nearly a month after he was ousted.

As news of the Uttarakhand high court quashing President’s rule in the state reached the Supreme Court, suspense was building up whether the Centre would seek an immediate stay by mentioning the matter before Court No.1, where the Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur and Justice R Banumathi were hearing the pollution matter.

The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that the East India Company did not take away the Kohinoor diamond but it was gifted to Britain by Sikh monarch Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The government stand on the matter was conveyed to the apex court bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit in response to a public interest litigation by a non-governmental organisation, which was surprisingly not dismissed by the Supreme Court outright since writs of mandamus can not be issued against non-Indian public bodies.

The NGO, All India Human Rights and Social Justice Forum, has sought directions to the government to make efforts for getting the diamond back to India.

The court, while giving the government six more weeks, said that if it accepted the government position, all avenues for staking claim over the diamond will be shut.

The 108-carat diamond was presented to the then British monarch, Queen Victoria, in 1850 after the Anglo-Sikh wars, in which Britain gained control over the Sikh empire in the then undivided Punjab.

Senior counsel Dushyant Dave is now officially Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president again, after his short-lived resignation in mid-February was held by the executive committee to have been void.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed market regulator SEBI to go ahead with the sale of _Sahara _properties whose unencumbered title deeds are in its possession. The step is being taken to recover investors’ money that Sahara groups’ two companies had collected from public through Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures.

The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur said that the market regulator would appoint an agency to decide the mechanism for the sale of Sahara properties.

The court said that properties would not be sold at a price that is less than 90 percent of the prevailing circle rates.

The SEBI will appoint an agency to work out the mechanism for the sale of properties which are stated to be worth Rs 40,000 crore.

The entire process would be undertaken under the supervision of former Supreme Court judge Justice BN Agarwala and Sahara would be kept informed about the steps being taken for the sale of its properties.

Meanwhile, Sahara head honcho Subrata Roy remains in jail on contempt, now for more than two years.

The Supreme Court is set to examine the government’s recommendation banning the Muslim divorce custom of “Triple Talaq”, after ordering the Ministry of Women and Child Development today to produce the confidential high-level committee report of the union government that contains this recommendation.

The All India Bar Exam (AIBE) challenges will be heard by a Supreme Court constitution bench next month.

One of the petitioners in the All India Bar Exam (AIBE) constitutional mega-challenge currently in the Supreme Court, due to be heard on Friday (18 March), will raise the question of irregularities in the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) appointment of private contractor ITES Horizon Pvt Ltd to conduct the AIBE in 2010.

If the Supreme Court is serious about examining the legality of the bar exam, it should also examine whether the award of the contract to ITES Horizon by the BCI was illegal, or worse...

Just as his resignation as the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president in February was an impulsive decision, Dushyant Dave’s withdrawal of his resignation today also proved to be similarly emotional.

The petition filed by V Vasanthakumar, advocate from Puducherry, seeking the court’s directions to the Government to consider setting up a National Court of Appeal to relieve the Supreme Court of its case burden, got a new lease of life with the two-judge bench comprising the Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit, deciding to refer the matter to a five-judge constitution bench to hear from 4 April.

Former Madras high court judge Justice CS Karnan, who had objected to his transfer to the Calcutta high court earlier this month by vowing to pass a suo motu order staying his own transfer, with the Supreme Court then effectively stripping him of judicial powers, has struck conciliatory tones.

In a two-page letter sent to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur, with whom he met on 16 February, the two apex court judges who’d ruled against him, justices JS Khehar and R Banumathi, and several politicians, according to a number of reports, he wrote:

Justice Karnan admitted that the order was a result of his “mental frustration resulting in the loss of his mental balance”. He cited two incidents that had actually disturbed him and resulted in passing of the judicial order. “One was an incident that occurred during a marriage reception when a brother judge kicked me and later apologised. In another incident, the same judge allegedly removed the armchair reservation slip on my chair, threw it on the ground and trampled it with his feet. The same was noticed by a brother and sister judge who silently ridiculed me.”

“Now I am constrained to point out these past unfortunate happenings only because I maintain a very social outlook in the mainstream of the society and owe my allegiance to the high reputation of our prestigious court.”

“Hereinafter, I will still continue to foster a harmonious attitude to one and all, and will appreciate your kind reciprocation and oblige.”

The case involving the legality of the lightweight, intra-city, four-wheeled travel vehicle, known as quadricycles, took an interesting turn yesterday before the bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI), TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit, with heavyweight senior lawyers being hired by both the petitioners and the respondents.