The lawyers said they won a restraining order in favour of the swami in a copyright infringement suit and received assurance from the Karnataka police that cognizable offences are made-out against the godman’s driver K Lenin who had allegedly recorded and circulated obscene videos of swami and south Indian actress Ranjitha.
Advocate Shagun Parashar and this year's law graduates Fatehpal Singh, Dhruv Pal and Aditya Swarup from Nalsar Hyderabad and Priyanka Rao from NUJS Kolkata formed a team to assist Dhananjay after they signed the terms of engagement for a scholarly assignment. In particular they conducted research, assisted in drafting and made representations before the police.
Except for Parashar the rest of team members passed out this year but it is not clear whether the rules surrounding the proposed bar exam would restrict them from working in courts.
Singh argued that he believed he was practising law in these cases, having signed a vakalatnama in his name and appearing in court as an advocate, despite not having passed the bar exam.
Singh told Legally India: "We got our provisional degrees on 25 May and on 2 June I got enrolled with the state bar council. The BCI notification [to hold a bar exam] was issued on 12 June. I had filed a writ in Punjab and Haryana High Court also."
Between 2 June and 12 of June he was practising in the courts and he had received no notice that the introduction of the bar exam had retrospectively revoked his right to practice, he said.
"It’s unfair to suddenly take away my right to wear a band and robe and be told to sit at home," Singh added, noting that no subordinate legislation could take away his right to practice granted by a statute such as the Advocates Act without the necessary amendment to the act.
Singh said that Dhananjay got in touch with him to potentially assist on the Nityananda case while Singh was challenging the Bar Council of India's (BCI) proposed bar exam in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in late June.
The passport officer in Bangalore had impounded Nityananda’s passport on the directions of the Karnataka Director General of Police following a police complaint by his driver. Police arrested the swami without giving him an adequate time to respond, according to counsel Dhananjay.
He stated that the passport authorities relied on Section 10(3)(e) of the Passports Act 1967 in doing so, which was subsequently challenged in appeal before the appellate authorities in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) by the former lawyers of Nityananda.
This was followed by additional arguments Dhananjay advanced recently before the MEA authorities.
Some of the main grounds taken were: "The right to travel is a fundamental right and the right to travel abroad is an extremely important right conferred to a citizen of India; The Police cannot decide on whether a person's passport should be impounded; only officers under the Passports Act can do so;
"Section 10(3)(e) speaks of a 'pending proceeding' in a criminal court in India; all that has happened in Nithyananda Swamy's case is that the Police have filed their FIR and investigation is proceeding; no 'criminal proceeding' has been initiated against Nithyananda Swamy by any Court of law in India."
K V Dhananjay told Legally India that he only became fully involved in the Nityananda case around two weeks ago.
"This case sets a precedent because the passport authorities decided upon appeal within a short-time while acting in realisation of the fact that it’s the satisfaction reached by a court of law and not the police that governs whether the passport can be impounded only on the basis of the first information report, without the commencement of judicial proceedings."
He said that being a constitution lawyer his focus would be to preserve the constitutional rights of his client and criminal case would hold no ground as no one was victimised in this case.
According to Singh, Parashar, Singh and Pal also led and successfully won an injunction in a copyright suit against the author H D Hegde, the cover of whose book ‘Kami Swami’ featured Nityananda’s allegedly copyrighted picture.
The copyright matter was taken up before the district judge Hunu Gund of the Ramanagar court in Karnataka.
Advocates, Nalsar, NUJS law grads secure wins in Swami Nityananda scandal aftermath, despite bar exam
Supreme Court advocate K V Dhananjay along with a group of practising 2010 law graduates from Nalsar and NUJS have secured a three-pronged victory for godman Swami Nityananda, including restoring his passport that was impounded following his arrest after an alleged sex scandal involvement in April, and securing an injunction against the publication of a book and a police order.
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and btw i am an nujs grad and have many friends from nalsar so i am not one of those NLU-haters.
Anyways, Kudos to all the young devil lawyers...and swaroop way to go buddy!!!
[...]
@8, @9 and @11- please refer to the above point, if that's not difficult for you guys (or tell me i will repeat myself). i think your concept of NEWS needs to be revisited my friends.
LI, please do not insult the intelligence of the readers of this website by such post that blatantly disregard ethical obligations for reporting. As others have mentioned in their comments, it would be good if you create a separate section for young achievers.
Btw congrats to the 2010 graduates who within such a short time hav made their mark. We are all proud of you
@2 i am shocked that you are from NUJS and have friends in NALSAR (and you certainly are not friends of people mentioned above esp the one from your college) and still dnt know that the basic duty of lawyer is to defend an accused on the sacrosanct fact that every person is entitled to be defended by a lawyer. If you are so worried then why dnt you file a petition on behalf of the 'public' and overturn the decision.
By now we know his position on then entry of foreign law firms. While I am not for the absolute unrestricted entry of foreign law firms, I am not ignorant and acknowledge the reality that they will eventually set up shop in India later. There are lot of benefits of them coming in as well. My point being that Kian favours status quo. Just look at his coverage of the most important items of the day.
His coverage on the entry of foreign law firms would not qualify as a new item in any publication due to one sided coverage of the debate which comes across as hte mouhtpiece of SILF.
His coverage on the institution of a bar exam has again focused only on the detractors of this overdue reform and not the overwhelming case for its institution.
Lastly and most evidently, legallyindia has always chosen to focus mostly on the achievements of NLSIU, NALSAR and NUJD since its inception. Despite repeated pleas for better coverage which would include information about other law schools as well, he has chosen to stick to his methodology of making every news article a NLS/NALSAR/NUJS advertorial. While this was acceptable in the intial stages of legallyindia, it is not credible anymore to accept his earlier excuse that he is short on resources. Well, you will be of you devote them only to select institutions and organisations. He went to the extent of actually suggesting that if you want to hear anything about non NLS/NALSAR/NUJS institutions, then you're better off getting information YOURSELF and then verifying it YOURSELF and then sending it to him so he can publish it here.
Really? Then what the hell do I come to legallyindia for? Incidents earlier overlooked as oversights are now apparent as a regular pattern of selective amnesia when covering developments in the legal fraternity and law schools.
[...] It is hoped that Kian will stop proferring excuses and start offering news.
For eg. NALSAR student
However, I disagree on the criticisms made against the NLUs. I am an alumnus of an NLU and let me tell you that NLUs are a hub of activity unlike the 100 year old stagnant colleges (I spent a year in one of them). What's wrong in highlighting the activities of NLUs? And contrary to what people think the NLU students are not obsessed with money and corporate law. Many pro-poor and human rights projects are undertaken by NLU students.
You are advised to review my words again.
I never conjectured that the very fact of "highlighting the activities of NLUs" is undesirable - a statement which you attributed to me.
What I said was that LI has focused MOSTLY on their achievements.
"legallyindia has always chosen to focus mostly on the achievements of NLSIU, NALSAR and NUJD since its inception"
The fact that you regard the NLUs to be hubs of activity does not mean that other law schools are not, now does it? It is this narrow thinking which leads to one sided coverage.
And to deny that other law schools are abuzz with activities of their own is not only ignorant, but also arrogant.
Lastly, I did not talk about what the NLU students are obssessed with. That's opening a new front to take the focus away from what is actually a factual summary of what LI has done over the past one year.
[...] should realise [...] not only [...] the tender which was issued for Hindustan Copper was [...] by [...] but also never even bid on since all the people involved were [...] and not aware of unknown fact of [...]
i believe that LI is a site which has started offering news from the litigating side. Which is a very good thing apart from strictly hovering around law firm news.
young grads likes these chaps in the news ,which ever collage they come from should be getting a pat on their back.
and honestly news from the litigating side is far more interesting than dull law firm news.
i feel LI is charting a new course with more litigating news to follow.
But swami will get what he deserves, an old proverb says "hyenas cannot protect the fox" ....for the time being they can offcourse laugh!
I am against the 'layering' of legal Education in India i.e., NALSAR, NLJU (*&^%$^&*
{we are well aware of our education system;
differences in curriculum,medium of instruction;
and once you reach law school, students from
disadvantageous background have to struggle hard -
a vigorous competition with students from BIG schools!
... I wonder what is the percentage of students who educated in local
schools had their medium of instruction in their local language
reaches these NALSAR, NLSIU etc.,!)
These so called BRIGHT ?, BRILLIANT ?, Influential! would further end up creating CIRCLEs at their work place. It is a malady that most of .... CIRCLE foreign law firms are swayed by the adverts these institutions carry out and does recruitments. This as a matter of fact gives an EDGE to these institutions.
"DIVIDE and RULE" yeh?!
And please show some restrain before passing your ill found judgments.
i would request anonymous guests to at the lest not spew venom if they have nothing progressive to say.
it would be shocking if its find out that some people like #30 and other like him/her are Law graduates.
what about the lawyers oath "to protect one till found guilty".MOst people forget about it quickly.
these law grads who are representing nithya, i feel have stuck to their oath.
Many people pass out from college and practice and win cases... Is it just a way to attract site visits from the N-Schools ?
but then you never know
get this thing straight....the times are changing, women will not continue to be marginalised by the law in india and especially not for petty reasons like this..in fact this is not even a valid reason....its just because of people like you and your thoughts that sometimes women find the society unfair...at least after reading the comments of 33 and 31 get your facts straight, n keep it in mind b4 you post you thoghts that you verify it, and make sure that they are not based on some silly narrow-minded thought!!!!
I wonder what Kian talks about when he goes on a date.
Kian: "Your eyes are truly a sight to behold, kinda like the aluminium manufacturing process at POSCO's bauxite plant which was constructed as per a deal financed by NLS grads!!".
Woman: one tight slap
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