Bar, Bench & Litigation

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

Exclusive: Delhi senior advocate Maninder Singh said he would take legal action against the Delhi police, which detained him at a police station yesterday alleging that he was a supporter of anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare. Police released him two hours later after intervention from a court registrar and other advocates who proved that Singh was not connected to the protests and was making his way to argue before a tribunal, where proceedings had to be abandoned.

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.”

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

The other day, in the corridor outside the government law officers’ chambers in the Supreme Court a well-dressed man sat outside the solicitor general’s office. Visibly uncomfortable on one of the rickety wooden benches, he was also livid with rage and his gaze seemed intent on burning a hole through the firmly shut door to the SG’s chambers.

Supreme Court Postcard: Chief Justice SH Kapadia does not preside over the Chief Justice’s Court so much as dominate its vaulting, almost cavernous interiors with his presence. In part his impact is a product of his voice - a booming thunder somewhere between tenor and baritone - which is what you’d expect to hear from the Grand Inquisitor as you are confronted with heresies you have allegedly committed.

But if Kapadia is to have a place of pride in Indian judicial history – and everything so far signifies that he might - it will be for his administrative role as the Chief Justice of India even more than for his purely judicial output. Like Hercules before him Kapadia is in the midst of cleaning the Augean Stables that the Supreme Court of India has become under his predecessors but only part of the task is done.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has elected a new chairman and vice chairman after solicitor general Gopal Subramanium resigned as solicitor general, according to Law et al. News.

Supreme Court senior advocate Rohinton Nariman will be the new solicitor general after Gopal Subramnium unexpectedly resigned from the post two weeks ago.

The Kolkata High Court proceedings in the Tata Motors Singur matter that were disrupted earlier today resumed with Tata’s counsel making the company’s intent of using the Singur land for alternate investment clear to the court. 

On 7 July, his final day in court, Justice B Sudershan Reddy sat on the Bench with Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia in the Chief’s Court, as is custom for a departing judge. The custom was never more apt. Reddy and Kapadia shared a great rapport while on the Bench and although their outlook in matters judicial and otherwise were quite similar, they could not have been more different in demeanour and action.

The government has accepted solicitor general Gopal Subramanium’s resignation yesterday. Subramanium’s continuing chairmanship of the Bar Council of India (BCI) remains uncertain.

Gopal Subramanium did not appear in the Supreme Court in the 2G PIL today after he offered his resignation as solicitor general on Saturday, following private practice advocate Rohinton Nariman having been formally appointed and today representing government minister Kapil Sibal.

If Subramanium’s resignation takes effect he could also cease being a member of the Bar Council of India (BCI), raising a question mark whether he can continue as chairman.

Khaitan & Co has won the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) approval for French cement company Lafarge to mine limestone in the country’s north-eastern region in a landmark ruling setting the tenor for future reforms in environmental governance after last year’s ban.

Constitutional law expert and senior counsel KK Venugopal has represented the Travancore royal family in the Supreme Court, submitting that they did not intend to claim possession over the contents of the “public temple” that may be worth up to $22bn.

The Supreme Court has vacated the stay on impeachment proceedings initiated against Sikkim chief justice PD Dinakaran in the Rajya Sabha and ordered for the replacement of inquiry committee member and senior counsel PP Rao with another jurist.

The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday appointed a special investigation team (SIT) under former SC judges B P Jeevan Reddy and M B Shah to supervise the investigations and probe into illegal monies stashed by Indians in foreign banks and tax havens abroad.