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AP HC Judges: Andhra Pradesh high court advocates Asapu Ramalingeswara Rao and Dama Seshadri Naidu were appointed as additional judges of the high court last week [Deccan Chronicle]
AAWI for Bom HC new bench: India's oldest bar association - the Advocates Association of Western India (AAWI) - yesterday passed a resolution that the Bombay HC should take a decision on setting up a new circuit bench, however the AAWI did not favour or oppose any particular city for the bench. Pune and Kolhapur lawyers have been fighting over the bench, with Kolhapur and neighbouring district bars having been on strike since 29 August [TOI]
Torturous compensation: Custodial torture victims have a right to compensation, held Madras HC while awarding Rs 50,000 to a youth who was subjected to third degree torture after a midnight arrest last year [TOI]
Banning Qazi Talaq: A Muslim woman has petitioned in the Madras high court against the authority of the Islamic customary judge - the Qazi - to certify arbitrary divorce pronounced by muslim men from their wives by uttering the word "Talaq" thrice - sometimes even without the knowledge of their wives [NIE]
Fatwa FTW? SC has restored for hearing a petition challeging the parallel Islamic judicial system in the country, which was dismissed four months ago by former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir [TOI]
No judicial reservations: SC dismissed a petition seeking reservation for the SCs, STs and OBCs in the judiciary, but observed that there should be a balanced representation of those communities in the judiciary [Zee News]
SCBA threatens JAC strike: SCBA threatened to go on a day-long “token strike” if the Judicial Appointments Bill is not scrapped, since lawyers' bodies were allegedly not consulted with when formulating the bill [Outlook]
Maha NLS in Nagpur? National Law School Nagpur’s proposal will be discussed in the winter session of the state legislature; the Maharashtra government is currently looking for land in the city for the NLS [TOI]
Kolhapur’s 3-week strike for bench: Solapur’s Sangola Bar Association has boycotted courts since 29 August demanding a permanent Bombay HC bench in Kolhapur. Lawyers from Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Solapur, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg are not going to court and are conducting a hunger strike at their district headquarters [TOI]
Jude contemptuous of highers: A Wardha Maharashtra additional sessions judge is facing a contempt notice from Bombay HC’s Nagpur bench after the judge went against HC orders by granting bail to a husband accused by his wife of kidnapping their 18-month-old son [TOI]
P&H additional judges: Punjab & Haryana HC additional judges Rajiv Narain Raina, Tejinder Singh Dhindsa and Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia will continue in the HC for another year as the President extended their term of service [NVO News]
Arrest notification guidelines: Madras high court has framed guidelines for effective communication of intimation of arrest including the one that officers effecting arrest of a person should intimate it to his/her relatives and friends through the e-post system. In case of intimation through phone the government should ask BSNL authorities for a mechanism for receipt of proof of service. The government should also communicate the arrest through fax messages from the police station where the arrests were made to the station nearest to the person to be intimated, the bench added [Deccan Chronicle]
Murugesan gets NHRC: Former Delhi high court Chief Justice Darmar Murugesan assumed office as member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for a five-year term on Saturday, presided over by former CJI KG Balakrishnan [Hindu]
Tea cuffs: "One might take tea in a variety of ways, not all of them always elegant or delicate, some of them perhaps even noisy. But we know of no way to drink tea 'suspiciously',” observed a Bombay HC bench while chastising the police for arresting a man for suspicious conduct u/s 151 after they thought he was drinking tea ‘suspiciously’ [PTI/Judgment]
Meghalaya CJI PC Pant: Justice Prafulla Chandra Pant has been transferred from the Uttarakhand HC and has been appointed as the first Chief Justice of the newly established Meghalaya HC [PTI]
Dec 16 rape referred: The Saket fast track court that sentenced the four December 16 gang rape convicts to death has now referred their case to the Delhi high court according to the procedure for confirmation of the sentence [Daily Bhaskar]
Constititonal CJI in JAC: The Chief Justice of India will get constitutional status as the head of the proposed Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) which will appoint judges to the higher judiciary, reportedly after continued criticism that the law establishing JAC does not safeguard the CJI’s position [Express]
Tamilian judgmnents: The assurance that Tamil Nadu lower courts' judgments will now only be written in Tamil, from Madras HC chief justice RK Agarwal, caused advocates there to end their three-day fast yesterday [PTI]
Criminal politicians judgment: Disqualifying convicted politicians from contesting elections, while they appeal their conviction, is tantamount to judging them without a hearing; and arresting politicians for using illegal means to generate cash is ironical since the amount of cash required to buy votes to win elections cannot be generated legally, argues Gurgaon law firm N South managing partner Ranjeev Dubey [Business World]
Allahabad HC new CJ: Allahabad HC judge LK Mohapatra is now the acting chief justice of that HC after chief justice SK Singh was elevated to the Supreme Court. Singh took oath in the SC today [TOI]
All Boys Clubs: Yet another column discusses the gender-motivated glass cieling in the legal profession – women lawyers are unable to join the ‘All Boys Club’ of senior advocates and judges despite apparently having ‘merit’ because they lack ‘lobbying’ skills. What kind of ‘merit’ and what kind of ‘lobbying’ gets you there? The column discusses the one without touching the other [Yahoo]
11 Supreme Court judges to retire in next 12 months, starting with justice GS Singhvi on 11 December. He will be followed out by Justice H L Gokhale (March 9), Justice Sathasivam (April 26), Justice Misra (April 27), Justice K S Radhakrishnan (May 14), Justice A K Patnaik (June 2), Justice S S Nijjar (June 6), Justice B S Chauhan (July 1), Justice C K Prasad (July 14), Justice Lodha (September 27) and Justice Desai (October 29) [TOI]
Medical negligence killed Justice JS Verma, alleges widow Pushpa Verma has alleged that justice Verma died because of medical lapses. Former Chief Justice of India MN Venkatachaliah is now leading 34 signatories to a letter to the prime minister, urging him to look into the lapses and general regulatory standards [Hindustan Times]
Lawyer-cop violence: Lawyers thrashed a cop in the Madras HC premises yesterday over the officer’s having allegedly forcibly taken one of them into his car. The lawyers were suspects in an assault case [Deccan Chronicle]
New Guwahati CJ Goel: Guwahati HC Chief Justice AK Goel will replace Orissa HC chief justice C Nagappan after Nagappan is being elevated to the Supreme Court this week [Orissa Diary]
NUJS sexual harassment: NUJS Kolkata’s Internal Complaints Committee has belatedly submitted an interim report to the law school’s executive council about the sexual harassment complaint of one staff member against another. The EC has now asked the committee for the final findings within a few weeks [Bar & Bench]
Happy 90th RamJet: Ram Jethmalani, at his birthday party yesterday, tried to broker peace between BJP’s NaMo and LKA, speculated NDTV and others
Anti-rape education: SC advocate Karuna Nundy argues that only solution to rape pandemic are structured government-led education efforts [CNN]
NGT to go Kochi: A National Green Tribunal bench in Kerala would be set up ‘soon’, reported The Hindu
Kerala govt pleaders not smart: Dismissing an appeal filed by state government pleaders to get remarks on their lack of “vigilance” expunged, the Kerala high court asked the advocate general to stop appointing “inappropriate hands”. Justice Harun Rashid said that under-qualified government pleaders were filing applications condoning delay in cases after delays of 2,000 to 3,000 days [New Indian Express]
Arbitrary information comm posts: Andhra Pradesh HC set aside the “whimsical and arbitrary” appointment of four information commissioners - who were all members of the Congress party but had not severed their links with the party. The selection procedure laid down in the RTI Act was also not followed [TOI]
Hawking and vending: The Supreme Court has restrained all states and Union Territories from taking any action against urban street vendors and hawkers until the exercise of registration and creation of vending and hawking zones is completed in terms of the 2009 policy on urban street vendors [Express]
Judicial progeny fail selections: The six out of eight advocates rejected for judgeship at the Punjab & Haryana HC include Manisha Gandhi, the daughter of former Chief Justice of India AS Anand, and Girish Agnihotri, the son of retired P&H HC judge MR Agnihotri. B S Rana, Gurminder Singh Kharbanda, Vinod Ghai and Raj Karan Singh Brar were the other rejected names [Indian Express]
Retd judge opposes regional bias: “The argument that persons from one State cannot be appointed as judges of another is not based on sound facts,” argues former Madras HC justice K Chandru in response to the recent uproar over two advocate recommendations for Madras HC judgeships [Hindu]
Maha victim compensation: The Maharashtra government will now compensate victims of crime - especially rape, child abuse and acid attack - with Rs 50,000 or Rs 3 lakh depending on the extent of injury under the ‘Manodhairya’ scheme [TOI]
Fast tracking Karnataka: Karnataka has been promised 10 fast track courts with 37 court staff each for trying crimes against women, by law and parliamentary affairs minister TB Jayachandra [Post Jagran]
Muzzafarnagar PIL: Supreme Court’s justice GS Singhvi yesterday agreed to give a urgent hearing today to a petition demanding a CBI probe into the Muzzafarnagar violence [DNA]
Air fare hike in CCI: The 25 per cent hike in airfares last week has resulted in the Air Passengers Association of India dragging airlines to the Competition Commission of India over allegations of cartelisation [New Indian Express]
8th alleged NLS rapist caught: The eighth accused in the rape of an NLSIU Bangalore student in October 2012, who was absconding till the sentencing of six convicts in the case three days ago, has been caught [TOI]
Judicial rejig: Bombay HC's justice DY Chandrachud is being shifted to the Allahabad HC and may soon take over as its Chief Justice (CJ), Himachal Pradesh HC's CJ AM Khanwilkar is getting transferred to the Madhya Pradesh HC and be replaced by J&K HC’s justice Mansoor Ahmed [TOI]
Hey KGB: The Supreme Court asked petitioner ML Sharma who had addressed former CJI KG Balakrishnan as KGB in his petition for his removal from the NHRC chair: “How can you use such term? It is not the name of a company or organisation.” The SC dismissed Sharma’s petition as being redundant in light of NGO Common Cause’s petition for the same relief already pending with the apex court [ET]
Lording it: Bombay HC justice Anoop V Mohta has taken objection to being addressed as AV Mohta and warned advocates and litigants that their cases will not be accepted by his court if they do not address him by his full name in the praecipe [Notification]
NLSIU rape case: The six convicts guilty of the rape of an NLSIU Bangalore student in October have been sentenced to life term. The seventh accused is absconding while the eighth is a minor and his case is before the juvenile justice court. The Indian Express does a report on the life of the Delhi gangrape accused Juvenile in a correction home. Meanwhile the rape site – Bangalore university campus – still lacks adequate safety [TOI/IE/TOI]
Resigned to nepotism: Haryana Additional Advocate General Aditya Singh on Saturday resigned from his post to “maintain the majesticity of the institution of the judiciary”, after CNN-IBN on Friday reported him as the son of Justice Alok Singh of Uttarakhand High Court and son-in-law of Justice RK Garg of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, alongside 29 other law officers with their relatives in the judiciary [IBN Live]
SEBI foreign pacts: “For a greater oversight of hedge funds and other Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) with cross-border presence, Sebi has reached regulatory cooperation and information exchange pacts with its counterparts in 31 European countries” reported the [Indian Express]
Bench politics: As Pune lawyers, who have been fighting for a Bombay HC bench in the city, prepare for a 16 September presentation explaining the demand, Maharashtra’s chief minister raised new concerns by showing support for a bench instead in Kolhapur [TOI]
Madras HC top 3: After Madras HC’s second-most senior judge R Banumathi gets elevated soon as chief justice (CJ) of Jharkhand HC, Chhatisgarh HC’s third most senior judge will be transferred to replace Banumathi at Madras. The third-most senior Madras HC judge Chitra Venkataraman soon stands to be elevated as the Jammu & Kashmir HC’s CJ – as its first ever woman CJ. The top 3 judges of any HC are responsible for appointing its advocates and subordinate judicial officers [TOI]
VVIP judges: The Supreme Court asked the Delhi HC CJ to warn Delhi additional district and sessions judge Narender Kumar Sharma, who is also the special CBI judge at the Tis Hazari complex, about “misuse of power”. Sharma had asked for VVIP security during his nine-day private visit to his ancestral village [TOI]
Western UP bench in RS: Janata Dal (United) leader KC Tyagi has raised the demand for a Western UP bench of the Allahabad high court in the Rajya Sabha, citing creation of Telangana in support: “earlier the people of Telangana had also demanded a bench of High Court… You did not give a high court bench but gave an entire state.” [ET]
Elusive SC appointment: Calcutta high court chief justice Arun Mishra has missed a Supreme Court seat for the second time since June last year despite hailing from Madhya Pradesh, which has been left unrepresented at the SC since Justice Deepak Verma’s retirement [Telegraph India]
BCI fails 28: 28 Indian law schools received notices from the BCI for failing to meet its prescribed norms. Twelve are located in Maharashtra, four in Gujarat and three each in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. [B&B / List of colleges]
NLSIU senior: The oldest person to post-graduate from NLSIU Bangalore is 66-year-old former Karnataka Administrative Services officer SG Birader from the Mastes in Business Laws Program of the law school this year [Deccan Herald]
Caravan collegium: Advocate Suhrith Parthasarthy writes about how there is no easy alternative to the collegium system of judges’ appointments, yet the extra-constitutional method of giving primacy to the CJI’s opinion is as flawed as letting the executive appoint judges [The Caravan]
SC solves mystery of missing coalgate files: criminality and an attempt to tamper with evidence. Has set a two week deadline for unearthing documents [TOI]
Scanning Google’s fair use: Final arguments this week of Google's eight-year-long battle with US authors’ guild, which alleged copyright infringement by the search engine in scanning 20 million library books and and making them available online [Gigaom]
New IPAB chairman: Former Madras High Court justice KN Basha yesterday assumed charge as Chairman of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in Chennai [BS]
Overweight convict disallowed lipo: The Bombay high court has refused to allow a 2005 Aurangabad sex scandal case convict, who is 27 years old and weighs 145 kg, to undergo weight loss surgery [DNA]
Prof chair-snatching: Academicians and students sign online protests against the arbitrary removal of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) chair professors NS Gopalakrishnan and Yogesh Pai from their positions at CUSAT and NLU Jodhpur respectively, assigning no reasons [Spicy IP/Live Law]
No slack in rape sentencing: Supreme Court turns down now-married rape victim's suggestion of compromise with her attacker who was convicted 10 years ago and has completed three years in jail [NDTV]
Ragger suspended: A GLC Ernakulam student was suspended for ragging his junior who had refused to pay him Rs 50 for entering the college boys' hostel [TOI]
Lawyer mass arrest: 15,000 Allahabad high court and other Bar Association lawyers were arrested on Monday after their protest against the proposal to set up a Western UP bench of Allahabad HC. All the lawyers were taken to Police Lines from where they were later released [TOI]
Poll for jail: The Rajya Sabha has passed the Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2013 negating the Supreme Court verdict that disallowed politicians to contest polls from jail [Firstpost]
Food bill secured: The Food Security Bill - opposed in part over the alleged cost of providing food to 82 crore Indians - was yesterday passed in the Lok Sabha by voice vote [Zee News/India Today]
Eminent BCI members? Bar councils stood a “good chance” of being nominated under the ‘eminent persons category’ in the Judicial Appointments Commission reported the [TOI], as the Bar Council of India (BCI) asked about the meaning of eminent persons [Hindu]
Facebook red-faced, settles for $20m in California privacy law suit over showcasing faces of friends who liked ‘sponsored stoy’ ads [Reuters]
PCSOA rape redefined: Delhi high court attracts social activists’ ire by ruling that consensual sex with minors is not rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act [TOI/BS]
NLSIU rape quick trial: Judgement reserved in the case of the rape of an NLSIU Bangalore student in October, after one of the quickest trials in Karnataka history. Pronouncement is expected on 4 September [NIE]
Crestlaw new office: Bangalore-based Crestlaw Partners moved to a bigger office space off Victoria road from its current premises in Palmgrove Road, to host its team of 30 professionals [B&B]