Publicity interest litigation? SC judges GS Misra and Madan Lokur told Ranbaxy PIL petitioner advocate ML Sharma, who had prayed for cancellation of its licence for allegedly selling spurious drugs, this his allegations were “unfounded”. The judges told Sharma: “Do some serious research on it and on...

BCI v Tamil Nadu police: The Bar Council of India (BCI) has written to the chief justice of the Madras HC requesting action against cops who registered a case against 20 advocates in Tamil Nadu who had visited the state police headquarters to lodge a complaint against the Kanyakumari district police...

Late star : Rs 1,000 cr Operation Blue Star challenge over Golden Temple attack, mired for 29 years in Delhi high court over Rs 10 crore court deposit, lurches ahead again after Sikh shrine committee pays court fee [ The Hindu ] Bench pressed : North- and Hyderabad-Karnataka region circuit benches i...

Glivec dissected : Must-read (long) feature in the Caravan delving into the history, background and repercussions on the Novartis Supreme Court patent judgment and the future of IP laws in India and globally [ Caravan ] Public interest injections: Serial PIL lawyer ML Sharma filed in the SC yesterda...

Not sitting pretty: West Bengal advocate general Bimal Chatterjee sparked off courtroom drama in the Calcutta HC with his comments on state election commissioner Meera Pandey’s demand for extra security cover, which he called “arbitrary” and “whimsical”. He said: “Every day, new demands are being ma...

Open court: DHCBA called off its Delhi HC desertion strike yesterday after a day-long full court consideration of the lawyers body’s concerns against enhancing the HC’s pecuniary jurisdiction to Rs 2 crore [ PTI ] Three day comedy: Network18 TV channel Comedy Central’s 10-day ban gets lifted on day ...

Deplorable score: The Hindu’s V Venkatesan attacks former SC judge Cyriac Joseph’s suitability for the National Human Rights Commission based on the number of judgments authored by him being “deplorably and consistently below average”. He writes: “In the history of the Supreme Court, some judges are...

Witness protection: Delhi HC directs Delhi government to prepare a wintess protection program including focussing on assesment of risk to witnesses and protection of their identity [ TOI ] SCOTUS in for taste of India: Indian-born US citizen Srikanth Srinivasan becomes the first person of South Asia...

Justice for Jessica: The Delhi HC has dismissed perjury charges against 17 of the 19 hostile witnesses in the Jessica Lal murder case . The court has ordered suo moto prosecution against Bollywood actor Shayan Munshi and ballistic expert PS Manocha under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure...

No Reliance on reportage: Anil Ambani’s ADAG threatened legal action against monthly magazine Caravan while they were reporting their 11,000-word profile on attorney general Goolam Vahanvati. Delhi law firm Agarwal & Associates acted for ADAG, The Hoot published the deets. Feel me once, shame o...

New Andhra CJ: Andhra Pradesh HC gets a new chief justice in Uttarakhand HC justice KJ Sengupta. Sengupta, who practised as a lawyer in the Calcutta high court and became acting chief justice there on 5 October 2012 [ New Indian Express ] Paid Rs 61 lakh: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer emerges as th...

TRAI-ing new approach: On enforcing the 12 min/hour advertising cap on TV, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India head Rahul Khullar says: “I don’t have to win a fucking election. I am a regulator, I am answerable to Parliament, my job is to enforce the law. Once the regulation is issued, it is law. ...

Time for a raise? HC judges request the CJI to increase their Rs 80,000 per month salary to an amount greater than what state chief secretaries get. They also want double the free electricity units at their residences, and to increase their retirement age from 62 to 65 [ TOI ] Sibal for conciliation...

Writ extorts 500 Rupee JEE key: The CBSE has today notified that it will provide the JEE-mains answer key to interested candidates for Rs 500. Legally India had yesterday reported the listing of a writ in the Delhi HC against the CBSE, by a JEE candidate, to force the CBSE to disclose the answer key...

Ineffective BCI: SC justices BS Chauhan and Dipak Mishra today said: “Bar Council has become ineffective. No action is taken against erring lawyers and we have to suffer. We are actually the victim and lawyers are making money… Lawyers think that they are above law. We are facing such situation ever...

New lawmin? Law minister Ashwini Kumar may soon be replaced through either a minor cabinet reshuffle or a senior minister taking the additional charge of the law ministry, according to CNN-IBN’s sources [ CNN-IBN ] Dutt jail confirmed: SC today dismissed Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt’s review petition...

Snoopers without charter: The government’s “central monitoring system” is set to allow the National Investigation Agency, tax authorities and possibly others to eavesdrop on “every byte of communication” in India, including online chats, phone calls, SMSes and presumably more, reports [ Times of Ind...

SC Maha lesson: Hoping to curb the trend of its directions been “taken lightly” by state governments, the Supreme Court imposes an exemplary cost of Rs 5 lakh on the Maharashtra government for a three-day delay in filing an affidavit related to police reforms. Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Andh...

Chetan ‘Porny’ Bhagat: Gujarat high court chief justice’s bench dubs Chetan Bhagat’s book pornographic after reading a passage on riots in open court, which contained “abuses”. The CJ commented: “The language doesn’t look decent. A chaste writer cannot write this stuff.” [ TOI ] Madras, vacancy: Mad...

Copy wrong : Delhi HC rejects Delhi University students’ plea to vacate order restraining sale of on-campus photocopies of certain texts of the world’s biggest university publishers - Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis. 33 professors and authors had signed ...